Accompanying them will be Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who flew to space four times and is now a vice president of Axiom Space, the Houston-based company that is coordinating their trip to space. The company is planning two flights per year and also is developing a space station of its own that NASA hopes may one day replace the International Space Station, the orbiting lab that has been in space for 22 years. “This is just the first of several Axiom Space crews whose private missions to the International Space Station will truly inaugurate an expansive future for humans in space — and make a meaningful difference in the world when they return home,” Michael Suffredini, Axiom Space president and chief executive, said in a statement. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin are planning to fly paying customers to space, as well. Those trips, although still expensive, cost far less than trips to the space station.

Source: Washington Post January 26, 2021 13:30 UTC