Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 318, Axiom Mission 3. I'm Gary Jordan. I'll be your host today. On this podcast,

we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts,

all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more.

The International Space Station is open for business.

In 2019, NASA initiated a directive to welcome businesses to explore commercial opportunities

on the International Space Station.

Why?

Well, the International Space Station is not meant to be in low-Earth orbit forever.

So NASA's current plan is to maintain human presence in low-worth orbit by using commercial

companies to provide the rides, the destinations, the cargo shipments, and more.

So to realize this future, the ISS being the test bed that it is,

is being used to evolve how commercial human spaceflight missions work

through an effort called Private Astronaut Missions.

So already we've had a few Private Astronaut missions to the station, namely from Axiom Space.

The missions were Axiom Mission 1 and Axiom Mission 2. We learned quite a bit just on two

missions on how government and private companies can work together to accomplish their goals.

And the more we do it, the more we learn. Now the next private

astronaut mission is Axiom Mission 3. This planned 14-day stay will see astronauts

from all different countries including the first Turkish astronaut and is packed with research

outreach activities and commercial activities. On the flight is pilot Walter Villaday representing Italy

and the Italian Air Force, Mission Specialist Alper Gesarucci of Turkey, and Marcus Want,

...