Magnus: Privatizing ISS Would Have Benefits, But Execution Will Be "Critical" Written 5 March 2018

The Los Angeles Times interviewed former NASA astronaut and AIAA Executive Director Sandy Magnus about a proposal by the Trump administration to privatize the International Space Station (ISS) by 2025, which Magnus called “neither a good thing or a bad thing,” but the “next stage in the evolution” of the space station, although she adds that “we’ve got to do it well.” Maintaining the ISS’s capabilities as a “science research and technology development platform,” Magnus said, “is going to be critical.” However, Magnus sees possible benefits in handing over management of the ISS to industry, in particular that the US will be able to “put its resources into going beyond low Earth orbit – like going back to the moon and eventually onto Mars, and maybe on to Europa 100 years from now.”
More Info (Los Angeles Times)