NASA's Ambition in Orbit: To Be One Customer Among Many

NASA has spent two decades trying to foster an economy in low-Earth orbit, largely in service to the International Space Station. In recent years that ambition has widened into something bigger: a commercial ecosystem in orbit spanning transportation, space stations, manufacturing and tourism, with NASA itself as one of many customers in the market rather than the anchor owner of everything up there. That distinction is the whole point of the strategy — a market where the government is a buyer among others, not the reason the market exists. Which also means the case for a private station or an orbital factory has to hold up with customers who are not NASA.