Space Station Extended Through 2024
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
By: Matthew Peddie

January 8th, 2014 | WMFE- NASA says funding for the International Space Station will be extended by four years, keeping it operational until 2024.

[Image courtesy of NASA] 

It’s welcome news to Space Florida, the state’s aerospace economic development agency. 

Chief of strategic alliances Dale Ketcham says the space station is important for the commercial space program.

“Knowing that market is out there in the future is what makes private sector investment viable because it shows there will be a return on that investment in the future," said Ketcham.

"So that’s probably the single most important component of this development for those of us here at Kennedy Space Center.” 

SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have begun ferrying cargo to the space station.

NASA hopes those companies and others will have the ability to fly astronauts into orbit beginning in 2017.

"Absent the development of these technologies," Ketcham added, "we're going to continue to pay the Russians billions of dollars to launch astronauts to the International Space Station." 

"That should be distateful for any American, but I think it's a particularly bad taste in the mouths of locals here in Florida because it used to be what we were in the business of doing." 

Florida US Senator Bill Nelson also praised the move. 

"We process those payloads at KSC, we have commercial rockets take humans and cargo to the station," he said. 

"This is a robust future for both KSC and the space program."