Astronauts aboard the International Space Station said this week they would welcome NASA's proposals to expand the lab's crew size from six to seven.

"It would certainly help," said Don Pettit, a flight engineer and one of three crew members working in the U.S. half of the station.

NASA senior leaders have begun talking about expanding the lab's crew size to seven when vehicles built by private contractors, such as SpaceX, come online as expected later this decade.

The space agency currently relies upon Russian Soyuz space capsules to get its astronauts to orbit, but the spacecraft can only carry three people at a time. Dragon is designed to carry up to seven astronauts.

"We would definitely increase the crew size on ISS to seven crew members," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, during a June 20 hearing before the Senate Commerce science and space subcommittee.

"We think that will increase the research capability onboard station and allow us to do more national lab research and be more effective in utilizing space station."

The expansion is contingent on Congress increasing funding for commercial spaceflight companies, Gerstenmaier said. NASA sought annual funding of $800 million in the years 2014 through 2017 to bring private spacecraft to the launch pad by 2017.

Instead Congress has only agreed to provide a little more than half of that.

Pettit and the five other astronauts presently aboard the station had a front row seat when SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft docked in late May, becoming the first private company to fly to the orbiting laboratory.

"We trained for all kinds of difficult situations, and in reality it went very smooth," said Andr Kuipers. "Everyone was tense the first time over how it would behave, and we realize it was a special moment. This will be the future of spaceflight, commercial companies taking over low-Earth orbit, and the agencies will continue to go further and explore. It was a great first step in a new era."

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Astronauts support expansion of space station crew size