No, it’s not. Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are backed by billionaires. NASA may need them for ISS, but they don’t need NASA. And companies like Boeing and Sierra Nevada have many lines of business of which commercial space flight is only one.

It’s easy to understand why any change to ISS operations frightens commercial HSF types- as losing a faux government financed destination means losing the only customer and spells doom for fledgling commercial firms. And dealing w/the US government is a better prospect than cutting deals w/others- like the PRC.

If the fiscal arc isn’t changed soon- soon being a few years- that may be inevitable. But by then, would they want a part of it anyway– or as part of a fiscal deal we’d never hear directly about. We really have no idea what ‘deals’ have been cut– or could be cut– to assure continued borrowing to maintain some fig leaf of stability given the dollar is the chief reserve currency in the world. But if the situation was reversed, where would you draw the line and say no. The ISS isn’t hong Kong. Frankly, if a good deal could be cut, unloading the bulk of U.S. elements as is (like a bad piece of real estate- you know, something Americans showedd recently they excelled at by bundling and unloading bad assets on overseas buyers) to the PRC would be a savvy move as its inevitably going to re-enter and splash within a decade.

You can stroke your pen for as long as you want and charge whatever price you want for that in these “hard times”, and it won’t change the fact that no one is going to purchase NASA’s share in the ISS because the ISS can’t function without NASA.

What a delusional weirdo you are.

Again with this idiotic “stroke of the pen” nonsense. Did you cut class the day they explained the Constitution, and separation of powers?

“The ISS partnership is an intergovernment agreement. It’s not a contract that can be subcontracted or a lease that can be sublet. And the US can’t “sell off its stake”. Without NASA ground assets and workforce, the ISS cannot be operated. No one is going to buy an inoperable space station.”

In fact, this is classic gibberish– and surprisingly rigid, if not obstructionist-in-denial- thinking. Anyithing is possible and everything can change– sometimes w/t stroke of a pen or for the right price in hard times. Where have you been for the past 25 years. The Soviet Union is gone, the PRC is rising, the U.S. government has to borrow 43 cents of every dollar it spendas and gas is $5/gallon. We’re in the Age of Austerity and the ISS is a sad relic- an engineering marvel-turned-dinosaur of past planning from an era long gone. .

They honestly believe that when America does the biggest anything it acts as another subconcious deterent and the more we pile up the more other countries look to us.”

Yeah, I’ve run into those too, but they really fit into one of my categories thusly:

Those who know that ULA and SpaceX can produce a super heavy lift for much less than what SLS will cost and sooner besides, but support SLS anyway (so they belong to Type 1 and Type 2 and possibly even Type 3).

Those who don’t know that a super heavy lift can be made sooner for much less than SLS and thus belong to both Type 2 and 9.

Of course, either of these (like most SLS backers) are examples of a Type 10 admixture.

Yeah the Apollo mind set is limiting. Need large rocket to launch everything all at once vs. use what we have as much as possible. Skylab for instance did have regenerative CO2 and Humidity removal, but not water recycling. Imagine how much space a water tank that must store enough water for three, three person missions of three months must have taken. Right now what would be helpful technology wise would be the ability to wash clothing in space. As it stands now crews on the ISS are sent enough clothing to last their mission. They do wear clothing more than one day, but still that is a lot of space being taken up by fresh clothing not to mention resupply.

The Boeing mission pretty much just uses heavy lift to send Orion to l1/l2 directly or with unfueled(or partially fueled) lander or to send a chemical kick stage out for NEO/Mars missions. SEP does most of the work. The mars kick stage is like 40MT. Getting that much mass out to l1/l2 could be done with current rockets or slight upgrades to them. Heck they even mention using SEP tugs to lug cyrogenic propellant to a l1 depot!