Hello and welcome to the space policy edition of Planetary Radio.

I'm Casey Dreyer, the chief of space policy here at the Planetary Society, welcoming you

to another episode that explores the politics and processes behind space exploration.

This month, we look at commercial space stations, commercial Leo development,

or at least the promise of, the plans for, the hopes of that are currently going through, let's say,

some turbulence, though those seem to have smoothed out by the time we have released this.

NASA, looking at the post-international space station future.

What takes its place?

To talk about this with me, I welcome Clayton Swope.

He's the deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow at the

Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington,

D.C., former congressional staff member, General Space Expert, who is written on this topic

and a bunch of other topics, and he will give me kind of the generally pro version of

commercial space station development. I come commit this a bit more skeptical.

There are numerous reports that show the lack of an existing commercial or market interest in human-tended space stations.

There are major questions about the feasibility, financial stability, capability of commercial space

stations and whether they can or will work. Nonetheless, NASA and the U.S. government are dumping

in decent amounts of money, hundreds of millions, to support at the moment two companies, potentially

more, in creating a post-ISS future.

But even NASA itself seems to be having second thoughts.

At its Ignite event earlier this year, the head of the space station program, Dana Weigel,

said some things that are relatively rare for a NASA official, saying that the

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