NASA eyes SpaceX, Boeing for affordable access to space
NASA is thinking outside of the box to boost its business.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told FOX Business on Wednesday the space agency plans to sell naming rights to companies like SpaceX, Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
“NASA is looking to be a customer of many customers for access to low Earth orbit,” he told Stuart Varney on Wednesday. “In order to do so, we have already decided that we are not going to purchase, own and operate our own rockets.”
NASA won’t be the only government program to tap the commercial markets for cash. For example, in Washington D.C., advertisements are all over the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, he said.
“And so the question becomes, if we are a customer of many customers, why could those providers of that service not sell their rockets as billboards?” he said.
While nothing has been decided yet, Bridenstine said its part of a broader plan to travel to Mars and the moon.
“What that enables us to do is drive down our costs, increase our access our providers have to compete against each other for both costs and innovation,” he said. “And then we can use our taxpayer dollars that NASA receives to do things where commercial industry won’t go.”
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