NASA chief in talks with companies about running ISS
The NASA live stream comes days after the USA space agency broadcasted the return of Expedition 55 Commander Anton Shkaplerov, flight engineer Scott Tingle and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency touching back on Earth.
The annual US investment in the space lab ranges from $3 to $4 billion. During their stay, the three astronauts will carry out a series of applied surveys and experiments, will take space walks to work outside the ISS (scheduled for August 8, 2018), while part of their work will take place in the transport spacecraft, namely the Russian Progress MS and the American Dragon. Russia's State Space Corporation Roscosmos installed external video cameras on the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft for the first time to test the methods of visual control over the carrier rocket's flight, Roscosmos said on Wednesday. It may, but most Americans still believe NASA's role will be vital in the future. The complex was essentially completed with the retirement of NASA's space shuttles in 2011. Most Americans, 80 percent of them, displayed confidence that private companies will make a profit from space exploration.
Although the media seems infatuated with private companies like Musk's SpaceX, Americans remain traditionally confident in NASA.
Around half of Americans share the opinion that people will travel routinely to space as tourists over the next 50 years. Some 63% of Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) say they are definitely or probably interested in space tourism, compared with 39% of Gen Xers (born 1965 to 1980) and 27% of those in the Baby Boomer or older generations.
Americans weigh in on the space program, lauding NASA's existence as essential. Similarly, 18 percent consider sending astronauts to Mars to be a top priority.