In the interest of saving money, NASA is planning to cut its ties to the International Space Station, which has maintained a continuous human presence in low-Earth orbit for 15 years.
According to ARS Technica, NASA’s head of human spaceflight said the agency plans to leave the space station as soon as possible. Earlier this year, the U.S. Congress agreed to extend funding for the ISS from 2020 to 2024.
William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, addressed the space station topic Dec. 1 at a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Gerstenmaier said NASA can’t afford to continue work on the ISS, which is maintained by 15 countries, if it wants to pursue its goal of sending people to Mars by 2035.
According to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who attended the Advisory Council meeting, NASA’s annual budget for the space station is about $3 billion, which is projected to rise to $4 billion a year by 2020.
It’s unclear if private industry can step in to continue the space station’s work, but Gerstenmaier reportedly said NASA has given the private sector a 10-year window to prepare.
