Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 237, private astronauts.

I'm Gary Jordan, and I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts

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

The first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station is right around the

corner. We're talking about the first time that an entirely private crew

is taking a trip to the space station on a commercial spacecraft.

And this mission, Axiom Mission 1 or AX1,

is a big milestone in the new era of space exploration.

A.X. 1 truly is a commercial mission with its own goals, objectives, and responsibilities, with NASA as the enabler.

And NASA's goal is to see more of these kinds of flights to build a robust commercial

economy in low-Earth orbit, and NASA can be a customer of this commercial industry.

Ahead of the mission for the first time we're going to replay a previous episode

episode 2-12 private astronauts.

AX1 is a private astronaut mission.

And this episode does a good job of laying out why and how NASA is enabling these types of

missions to fly to the International Space Station as part of a grander commercialization. of the commercial low-Earth

orbit development program here at the Johnson Space Center.

Her previous role was with the Commercial Crew Program.

Camille is returning to the podcast.

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