Open for Business: A New Approach to Commercialisation of the International Space Station

摘要

The International Space Station (ISS) is the result of collaboration between fifteen countries (IGA, 1998). Originally planned as a scientific facility, a shift in policy of the partners has recently occurred towards commercialisation of the Station. Open for Business: A New Approach to Commercialisation of the International Space Station is written in response to this policy shift. It set outs to identify the major constraints in which the potential commercial user must operate and proposes solutions for both commercial user and the partner space agencies to facilitate this commercialisation process. In a time when space-fairing nations face reduced fiscal resources and increasing pressure from their constituencies to justify the huge costs of the ISS, commercialising utilisation seems a logical solution. Clearly, successful commercialisation can help recover some of the deveopment and operating costs of the ISS. The structure of Open for Business is divided into two main parts. Part One is entitled "Constraint and Solutions". It proposes new solutions to existing constraint to ISS commercialisation in areas of policy, law, technology and business. The conclusions of Part One are integrated and unified into A New Approach towards ISS commercialisation. This approach is then applied in Part Two to two case studies: the International Space Satellite Servicing Station (I4S) and protein crystallisation. Open for Business then concludes with a recommended approach to the future of ISS commercialisation.