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WASHINGTON NASA needs to ensure that commercial space stations are ready before the International Space Station is retired to avoid a space station gap with geopolitical consequences, industry officials and other advisers warn.

NASAs low Earth orbit commercialization strategy calls for the development of one or more commercial space stations by late this decade, allowing NASA to transition research currently done on the ISS to those facilities and then retire the ISS, likely around 2030. NASA is currently evaluating an estimated 10 to 12 proposals submitted by companies seeking one of several Commercial LEO Development (CLD) contracts for initial studies of commercial stations.

That transition will allow NASA to shift significant financial and personnel resources towards exploration objectives, said Robyn Gatens, director of the ISS program at NASA Headquarters, at a Sept. 21 hearing of the House space subcommittee on the topic. That includes a roughly two-year transition period where NASA will shift activities from the ISS to those commercial stations.

At the hearing, another witness warned of the consequences of retiring the ISS before commercial successors are ready. The challenge to ensure a seamless transition is more urgent today than with the shuttle time, as our reliance on space assets is far greater today and others seek to fill even the perception of any voids, said Jeffrey Manber, chief executive of Nanoracks, a company that seeks to develop a commercial space station. There is no room for error lest we cede leadership to other nations.

That means in particular China, which had launched the core module of its space station that it plans to build out over the next few years. Manber warned last month that his company had already lost an unnamed customer who decided to fly a payload on that space station rather than on the ISS through Nanoracks.

I dont fear cooperation or competition with China, he said, but we cannot allow even the perception that we will cede our 20-plus years of humans working in LEO to others. He asked the committee to support the CLD program to ensure there is no space station gap.

Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project of Center for Strategic and International Studies, said China was Americas biggest competitor in space. The real objective of this race is to see who can build the broadest and strongest coalition, he said. Whatever group of nations emerges as the leading coalition in space over the next decade will be the one that sets the de facto norms for space commerce and exploration that follows.

Funding NASAs LEO commercialization strategy has been difficult. NASA requested $150 million in fiscal years 2020 and 2021 but received only $15 million and $17 million, respectively. The agency requested $101.1 million in its fiscal year 2022 budget proposal, but a House spending bill in July offers only $45 million for the program. The Senate has yet to take up its version of a spending bill.

Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) questioned the pace of NASAs commercialization program. Isnt NASA risking leaving low Earth orbit to the Chinese by setting up development programs to begin in a year or two? he asked, suggesting that the agency double down on its existing agreement with Axiom Space, which will attach a series of commercial modules to the ISS as a step toward its own commercial station.

We believe we need multiple paths so that we have the greatest chance of success for one or, hopefully, more commercial LEO platforms, Gatens responded. The Axiom commercial element on space station is one of those paths.

She added that NASA is working on an updated version of an ISS transition plan that will be delivered to Congress in the coming weeks, addressing congressional concerns about a lack of details. The new report, she said, is a much more thorough strategic and tactical plan for ISS transition, including more details on NASAs requirements in LEO and cost projections.

That transition plan hinges on the ISS continuing operation through the end of the decade. Recent problems on the station, including cracks in a Russian module that caused a small but persistent air leak, as well as problems with the Nauka module during its docking with the station in July, have raised doubts about the stations long-term viability.

William Shepherd, the former NASA astronaut who commanded the first long-duration ISS expedition more than 20 years ago, said NASA needed to establish a much more intimate working relationship with our Russian counterparts to better understand those issues, something he said existed early in the program.

Of the cracks seen in one Russian module, he called for more work to get to the root cause of the issue. They dont exactly understand why these cracks are appearing now, he said of Russian and American engineers. I dont think the station is in any immediate danger, but before we clear the station for another so many years of operational use, we should better understand this.

NASAs Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, meeting Sept. 23, said it was also monitoring the issues with the air leaks and the Nauka docking. Members called on NASA to make sure, as it plans to extend ISS operations through the end of the decade, that it work to ensure there is no gap with any commercial successors.

NASA should clearly communicate to industry its expectations regarding requirements and timeline, and make sure we have an overlap with the ISS, said George Nield, a member of the panel. Absent appropriate, timely funding, there is a risk of having a gap since the only thing that can give way is the schedule.

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NASA urged to avoid space station gap - SpaceNews

The specter of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program loomed large as congressional representatives sought details about the agency's plans for orbital spaceflight after the International Space Station.

Questions of how long the station already over 20 years old can last and how international and industry partnerships might drive activity in low Earth orbit (LEO) filled a two-hour hearing held by the House Science, Space and Technology's subcommittee on space and aeronautics on Tuesday (Sept. 21). The International Space Station partners are currently committed to operating the orbiting laboratory until 2024. NASA has long argued that the facility is safe to occupy until at least 2028 and the U.S. space agency's AdministratorBill Nelson has endorsed keeping the station operational until 2030.

But some worry that pushing the lab so far beyond its design lifetime is courting disaster, particularly as a string of incidents have shown the facility's wizened age. (Construction of the station began in 1998.) Others fear that relying on commercially operated orbital stations will leave NASA stranded on Earth a particularly grim prospect just a year after NASA regained direct access to the orbiting laboratory in 2020 via SpaceX's commercial Dragon ships after nearly a decade of hitching Soyuz rides from Russia.

Related: The International Space Station can't last forever. Here's how it will eventually die.

"We did experience a gap in our transportation system when we retired the shuttle that we do not wish to repeat with our U.S. human presence in low Earth orbit," Robyn Gatens, NASA's director for the International Space Station (ISS), said during the hearing.

"We cannot have a gap in American human spaceflight in low Earth orbit," she emphasized. "This is why NASA is committed to an orderly transition from ISS operations in LEO to U.S. commercially provided destinations in low Earth orbit."

NASA has long held that reliable access to low Earth orbit is vital for agency operations, regardless of how long the International Space Station itself lasts. Orbit provides a lower-risk environment for the agency to test technologies and procedures for crewed missions to more distant destinations and to evaluate health risks astronauts on such missions might face.

But the space station carries a hefty price tag: $3 billion or $4 billion each year. If NASA can foster commercial outposts in orbit and then pay to conduct research there instead, the agency could save more than $1 billion each year, Gatens said preliminary estimates show.

Gatens teased continuing work on NASA's plan for transitioning from the International Space Station to smaller, privately operated orbital outposts that NASA astronauts can visit to conduct research in microgravity. The agency currently owes Congress an updated report on plans for the transition, as committee members noted; Gatens said that report should be ready for legislators "in the coming weeks."

As part of the plan, she said, NASA has outlined a series of so-called transition indicators to guide the agency's handover of U.S. presence in low Earth orbit.

"The first and foremost indicator is that we have commercial LEO destinations to transition to," Gatens said. "That may sound pretty obvious, but that's a prerequisite so that we don't have a gap in low Earth orbit." Other indicators include the structural health of the International Space Station and the development of commercial markets, she said.

In addition to Gatens, committee members heard testimony from current NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, former astronaut and commander of the first space station crew William Shepherd, the CEO of aerospace company and space station participant Nanoracks and a think-tank staffer who focuses on space.

The discussion of what happens next in low Earth orbit is complicated by international politics. NASA and its Russian counterpart co-lead the decades-old partnership behind the International Space Station, but the relationship between the two agencies has been strained in recent years. Lately, Russia has discussed building its own orbital station, and it has also been in talks with China about space partnerships.

That strain might be mirrored on the space station itself, parts of which have spent a full 20 years in orbit and are showing signs of their age. Even a new addition is proving difficult: Russia's new science module caused the entire space station to flip and spin more than 540 degrees when its thrusters inappropriately fired during docking in late July, potentially straining the unwieldy structure.

Shepherd said that the aftermath of the incident has shown how the international partnership has weakened, since NASA still doesn't have details about how the Russians first noticed an issue, attempts to counteract it, and other aspects of how the event unfolded.

"We have not had that discussion in intimate detail but that would have been very common 20 years ago," Shepherd said.

"The business of making the space station work was to get close together and sit around the table and work out the problems," he said. "We do not have that correlation with our Russian counterparts right now."

Gatens noted during her own comments that part of NASA's transition plan involves developing ways to continue current international cooperation in low Earth orbit in addition to the agency's ongoing efforts to court partnerships for its moon-bound Artemis program.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Congress to NASA: What comes after the International Space Station? - Space.com

NASA and SpaceX are continuing plans to launch Crew-3 astronauts to theInternational Space Stationas early as Oct. 31, and targeting the return home of Crew-2 astronauts in the early-to-mid November timeframe.

Crew-3 will be the third crew rotation mission with astronauts on an American rocket and spacecraft from the United States to the space station, and the fourth flight with astronauts, including theDemo-2 test flightin 2020,Crew-1 missionin 2020-21, and the ongoingCrew-2 flightas part of the Expedition 65 crew.

The commercial crew team at Marshall Space Flight Center, led by Steve Gaddis, has a long working relationship with SpaceX, having worked with the commercial partner to improve safety and reliability of the Merlin engines, stage propulsion, Draco and SuperDraco thrusters, the abort and flight termination systems, structures, materials and processes, fracture control, and integrated performance analyses.

Our team worked extremely hard troubleshooting around the potential Boeing OFT-2 launch. Now we have pivoted to Crew-3, with Crew- 4 happening soon afterward, Gaddis, deputy manager of the Launch Vehicle System Office, said. The days are busy as we are always working two missions one that is near-term and close to launch, and another that is in-flow preparing for launch.

The Crew-3 mission will launch NASA astronautsRaja Chari, mission commander;Tom Marshburn, pilot; andKayla Barron, mission specialist; and European Space Agency astronautMatthias Maurer, also a mission specialist, aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center. The crew is scheduled for a long-duration stay aboard the orbiting laboratory, living and working as part of what is expected to be a seven-member crew.

Crew-3 astronauts plan to arrive at the station to overlap with NASA astronautsShane KimbroughandMegan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronautAkihiko Hoshide, and European Space Agency astronautThomas Pesquet, who flew to the station as part of Crew-2 in April.

Missions teams also are targeting no earlier than April 15, 2022, for the launch of NASAs SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the space station for a six-month science mission.

Crew-4 will be commanded byKjell LindgrenwithBob Hinesas pilot, both NASA astronauts. European Space Agency astronautSamantha Cristoforettiwill be a mission specialist and command the Expedition 68 crew, while the remaining crew member has yet to be named. Crew-3 astronauts are set to return to Earth in late April 2022 following a similar handover with Crew-4.

NASAsCommercial Crew Programis working with industry through a public-private partnership to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station, which will allow for additional research time and will increase the opportunity for discovery aboard humanitys test bed for exploration. The space station remains the springboard to space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and Mars.

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Crew rotation missions to Space Station planned | Technology Today | theredstonerocket.com - Theredstonerocket

David Kindy

Daily Correspondent

As the countdown ticked closer to liftoff on September 29, 1988, the world held its breath. All eyes were on the television showing the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, many daring not to blink in case tragedy should strike again.

Discovery was ready to go back into the weightless expansethe first Space Shuttle mission since the Challenger disaster almost exactly nine months earlier. Would there be a repeat of that terrible day on Jan. 28, 1988, when the rocket exploded shortly after takeoff, killing all seven astronauts on board?

It was a nervous moment as the NASA launch commentator counted down: 3, 2, 1, 0 and lift off! Lift off! Americas return to space! About 8 1/2 minutes later, Discovery eased into orbit around Earth with nary a glitch while billions of people let out a collective sigh of relief.

Today, Discovery is the 172,000-pound centerpiece of space exhibits at the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum. Located at the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, the enormous artifacts historical significance soars beyond that one mission.

It actually flew both Return to Flight missions, says Jennifer Levasseur, museum curator of Discovery. After the loss of Challenger in 1988 and Columbia in 2003, it was flown on the very first mission on each occasion.

With the loss of Columbia, Discovery became the most experienced Space Shuttle. It flew the most number of missions and most number of miles. We refer to it as the Champion of the Fleet. It is a singular example of the technology that was developed in the 1970s. This workhorse went through a number of refurbishments to last as long as it did.

From 1984 through its retirement in 2011, Discovery flew a record 39 missions and traveled nearly 150 million miles. All told, it spent a year365 daysin space and participated in every type of mission planned for the Space Shuttles.

Discovery is a real highlight of the National Air and Space Museum, Levasseur says. For the Smithsonian, it is one of the signature space artifacts. It has such an important story to tell in terms of human spaceflight, the reasons why we go into space and what we learn from being there.

Among its firsts, Discovery was flown by Eileen Collins, the first female spacecraft pilot, in 1995 and by the first women commanders, Collins in 2005 and Pamela Melroy in 2006, as well as the first African American commander, Frederick Gregory in 1989.

It flew three missions for the Hubble Space Telescope programdeployment in 1990 and servicing in 1997 and 1999as well as the first and final flights to the Mir space station. In 1999, Discovery was also the first Space Shuttle to dock with the International Space Station, currently orbiting at 254 miles above Earth.

Discovery was the most used of all the Space Shuttles, Levasseur says. It flew incredibly diverse types of missions, including military, science and space station supply and construction.

Visitors are sometimes fooled by the size of the Space Shuttle. Inside the cavernous McDonnell Space Hangar, it appears rather small. Looks are deceiving: Discovery measures 122 feet long by 58 feet tall with a wingspan of 78 feet.

It is incredibly large, Levasseur says. It had to travel on the back of a Boeing 747 to get to the museum. We include a series of photos with the exhibit to give it a sense of scale and so people can understand what it was like to participate on one of those missions.

Despite its overall dimensions, Discovery has a small interior. The flight deck, middeck and payload bay are modest in size compared to the exterior. The exhibit incorporates 3-D photography to show people the confining restrictions of working and living in a Space Shuttle for up to a few weeks at a time.

Its a really cramped space, Levasseur says. The square footage is very small. The middeck is the largest space but its only the size of a small van. However, astronauts had the advantage of floating around in a space, so using the volume is a big benefit.

Museum staff went to great lengths to preserve Discovery when it was delivered to the Smithsonian in 2012. The Space Shuttle had been subjected to considerable stress during its 39 launches and reentries back to Earth. Extreme care was taken to ensure the spacecraft was preserved as it appeared after its final missiondings, dents and all.

Discovery flew incredibly diverse types of missions, including military, science and space station supply and construction.

I remember the very first tour I gave, Levasseur recalls. Somebody said, It looks dirty. Are you planning on cleaning it? I said, Thats not dirt. Thats scarring. Those streaks are markers of its mileage. They show the incredibly violent process of traveling through the atmosphere.

For the curator, it is a wonderful experience seeing Discovery every day at the McDonnell Space Hangar. Levasseur is thrilled to work on the exhibit and talk to visitors about the Space Shuttle program, which ended more than a decade ago. It is often a bittersweet moment showing the spacecraft to children who werent even born when the final mission was completed.

The Shuttle is receding into memory these days, she says. It makes it a little sad but it is still an iconic space vehicle. I love it that we are still selling toys shaped like Space Shuttles. What can I say? Discovery still makes me smile every time I see her.

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Following the 1998 and 2003 Shuttle Disasters, 'Discovery' Launched America Back into Space - Smithsonian

On October 5, an unusual crew will fly to the International Space Station. Director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild will spend a week and a half on the station shooting scenes for the Russian movie Challenge. Peresild plays a surgeon who must conduct a heart operation on a sick cosmonaut.

This is an exciting if controversial development for the station, which orbits around 400 km above Earth. Commercial use of its facilities could be a funding avenue to keep it in orbit. A Japanese documentary and an American movie, starring Tom Cruise, are also in the works.

The station consists of 16 modules locked together in a cross configuration. There are six Russian modules in the Russian Orbital Segment, while the US Orbital Segment consists of 11 modules run by the US, Japan, and the European Space Agency. Spacecraft like the Soyuz and Dragon regularly dock with the station to bring crew and supplies, and return others to Earth.

Usually there are between three and six crew living on the station. The main work is scientific experiments, but as some parts of the station are over 20 years old, a lot of maintenance is also required.

Space stations in the movies are often very space-agey with futuristic minimalist interiors. By contrast, the International Space Station is a mess, more Red Dwarf than 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are cables everywhere, walls cluttered with equipment, tools, food packages and notes, and over 6,000 objects lost by the crew.

Challenge, being the first (professional) space movie to be filmed in space, raises a number of questions. Here are five on my mind.

After Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space in 1963, only four other Russian women have ever left Earth.

Svetlana Savitskaya was the second female cosmonaut in 1982. Her crewmates on the Mir space station presented her with an apron when she arrived, joking that shed work in the kitchen. Ive even heard a cosmonaut trainer say space is no place for a woman.

However, in Russia, medicine is seen as a female profession. Given that veteran cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev was sacked for objecting to the movie plans (he was later reinstated), Im wondering what Yulia Peresilds reception will be like.

Personal hygiene is challenging in the microgravity environment of the space station. Crew must be taught how to use the complicated space toilets, which use vacuum pumps to suck everything away from the body and into tanks. Urine is recycled to augment the stations water supply as the joke goes, yesterdays coffee becomes tomorrows coffee.

Then theres the politics of space poo. In 2009, strained relationships between Moscow and Washington resulted in Russian and US crews being banned from using each others toilets. Crew complained that not being able to use the nearest toilet interrupted their work.

Peresild and Shipenko have been training since May in Russias Star City, and this presumably includes potty-training too. NASA only installed the first female-friendly toilet in 2020.

In the Russian segment where the filming will take place, theres one old toilet designed for male anatomy. In female bodies theres less separation between pee and poo, so NASA designed its new toilet to take this into account. Will Peresild use the NASA toilet by preference? Shell be the first Russian woman to compare space toilet technology.

In space, uncontained liquids form bubbles and float around. This presents some challenges for heart surgery, especially as blood tends to pool in the upper parts of the body. There have been limited surgical experiments already in microgravity, but they have been done on artificial bodies, or animals such as rats.

Technology under development for future space missions, particularly long duration flights like those to Mars, includes robotic surgery and capsules that enclose the patient, with the surgeon operating on them through arm portholes. It will be interesting to see what choices are made to portray this key part of the film.

Read more: From floating guts to 'sticky' blood here's how to do surgery in space

As a space archaeologist, Im interested in whether this unusual activity will contribute to the archaeological record of the station. While the film crew will have to bring all their equipment with them, scientific experiments are prioritised due to limited cargo space when sending things back to Earth. Later crew may find objects left behind by Peresild and Shipenko, stuck to Velcro patches on the walls, or lurking in storage areas.

In the Russian Zvezda module, cosmonauts have made part of a wall into an informal gallery or shrine. Analysis of how the pictures displayed change over time shows it almost always features images of the Soviet space heroes Yuri Gagarin, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Sergei Korolev, as well as Russian Orthodox icons.

Peresilds father is a well-known icon painter, so perhaps she will bring one to contribute to this display.

After this flight, Peresild and Shipenko will officially be space travellers, as well as the first professional filmmakers in space. Theyll join the ranks of an elite group whove travelled into orbit.

Although the last year has seen numerous people who have just nudged into space on sub-orbital flights, including Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and the civilian crew, it still means something to actually live in space.

At least 45 films about space travel have received Oscar nominations for Best Visual Effects, but in the case of Challenge, the visual effects will be real.

Perhaps this will be a turning point in how space habitats are depicted in films. Will audiences prefer the glamorous fantasy, or replace their visions of future space travel with the gritty reality of a working space station?

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From poo politics to rubbish disposal: 5 big questions about the International Space Station becoming a movie set - The Conversation AU

A new video shows the Inspiration4 crew unveiling their incredible view of Earth, as seen through a domed window in their Crew Dragon spacecraft.

The 90-second video (which includes brief profanity, in case you're watching with kids) was published on the Inspiration4 YouTube channel Wednesday (Sept. 22) after being filmed by crewmember Sian Proctor during the mission, which landed safely back on Earth Saturday (Sept. 18).

The video shows crewmembers Chris Sembroski and Jared Isaacman (the billionaire who booked and commanded the SpaceX mission) slowly hefting the cover away from the dome as the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey" plays in the background. In the foreground, Hayley Arceneaux gets some equipment ready before gazing out the window in awe, along with the other crewmates.

Inspiration4: SpaceX's historic private spaceflight in photos

Crew Dragon usually carries a docking port for International Space Station (ISS) activities. But with no need to visit the orbiting lab on this mission, Inspiration4 crewmembers elected to instead use a domed window, or cupola, to get a view of Earth from 367 miles (590 kilometers) up, higher than Crew Dragon had ever flown before. The ISS altitude is around 250 miles (400 km).

When SpaceX first showed off the cupola in March, company founder and CEO Elon Musk said the 360-degree view that it provided would be literally out of this world. (Crew Dragon has other windows that astronauts can use, but they are smaller and lie flat along the capsule's sides.) "Probably most 'in space' you could possibly feel by being in a glass dome," Musk wrote on Twitter in late March.

A major goal of the Inspiration4 mission was to raise $200 million and a lot of awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The crew even talked to a handful of St. Jue patients from space, including some treated by Arceneaux a childhood cancer survivor who was treated at St. Jude and works as a physician assistant at the hospital today.

Inspiration4 exceeded its fundraising goal by landing day, and the all-civilian crew has spoken frequently about the diversity of its crewmembers and how that helped them during the spaceflight.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Watch SpaceX's Inspiration4 astronauts see Earth through their huge window for the 1st time (video) - Space.com

Texas' new anti-abortion law could have an unforeseen side effect: upending the space industry.

On Sept. 1, a new abortion law went into effect in the state of Texas; a near-total ban that prohibits all people from seeking, receiving or performing abortions after six weeks into a pregnancy. The law could overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision to protect a pregnant person's ability to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction, and is expected to face judicial challenges. But while government officials continue to grapple with the legality of the ban, people who can get pregnant in Texas are grappling with the grim realities of its ramifications and its consequences are already reaching the space sector.

"This law is just a nightmare," Frances "Poppy" Northcutt, now a Texas attorney who became the first female engineer to work at NASA's Mission Control during the Apollo program, told Space.com.

The new legislation bans abortions more than six weeks into a pregnancy before many people are even aware they are pregnant and permits individuals to sue violators (including medical professionals involved) for a monetary reward. The law comes despite a United Nations assertion in 2018 that access to abortion be considered a human right. Even President Joe Biden has criticized the law, saying that it infringes on constitutional rights and calling on his administration to respond.

Related: Pioneering women in space: A gallery of astronaut firsts

Healthcare and spaceflight might seem unrelated, but Texas is a major aerospace hub. From NASA's Johnson Space Center to offices, factories and launch sites belonging to companies including SpaceX, Blue Origin and many more, roughly 144,000 people are employed in Texas in aerospace, the state reported in 2020.

NASA estimates that its Johnson Space Center in Houston employs 3,000 civil servants and works with roughly 12,000 contract employees; agency-wide, one-third of its employees are women. (These numbers only reflect binary gender categories.)

Comparable statistics aren't available for private space companies based in Texas, but given how many people work in aerospace in the state, it is clear that this law will directly impact many people in Texas.

By impacting the space sector's Texas workforce, this contentious law could impact the industry's efforts to improve diversity and inclusion across minoritized groups, including women and non-binary gender minorities.

The abortion ban has already started a conversation in the space community online, with women reaching out to one another and sharing their concerns about working in aerospace in Texas and accepting jobs in the state.

"I've had a handful of women *just today* seeking advice in my DMs [direct messages] because they have anxiety either deciding to take a space job in Texas or already having accepted a space job in Texas," science communicator Emily Calandrelli, who hosts the Emmy award-winning science series "Emily's Wonder Lab" on Netflix, tweeted on Sept. 2, the day after the law took effect. "Space leaders in Texas, please pay attention to this. You're going to lose talent."

Calandrelli's message also included a clip of a CNBC interview with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who said that SpaceX founder Elon Musk "had to get out of California because, in part, of the social policies," and that Musk "consistently tells me that he likes the social policies in the state of Texas." California has a longstanding reputation for liberal policies and abortion is legal in the state.

"In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness," Musk tweeted in response to CNBC reporter Michael Sheetz, who had shared the clip. "That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics."

Space.com reached out to NASA and SpaceX for comment and has not yet received a reply.

While concerns swirl around how this law might affect the space industry in general, one Johnson Space Center employee is arguing that the agency should try to protect its employees despite whatever ban or law the state enacts.

Kira Altman, an International Space Station flight controller at NASA's Johnson Space Center, saw the repercussions that this new law could present to people who work at NASA's Texas hub. In response, she penned an open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, with guidance and support from Northcutt who, both as an attorney and through her personal activism, works to support women's reproductive healthcare and rights. (Altman told Space.com that her words and thoughts expressed in the letter are personal and do not reflect the agency or her professional role.)

In the letter, which Northcutt posted online Sept. 4, Altman wrote that, like many others at NASA, she is working in a job that is "a dream come true" but now feels threatened.

"As an ISS Flight Controller who works on console, I do not have the ability to perform my job in a state other than Texas. There are countless others like me women who are flight controllers, flight directors, astronauts, flight surgeons and administrators who have now had their freedom threatened," she wrote.

"I stand at the crossroads of an impossible decision: Will I have to sacrifice my bodily autonomy to continue the work I love? Or will the time come where I will be forced to abandon what I have worked so hard to achieve to secure my safety?" the letter continues.

"I had to do something and channel my frustration," Altman told Space.com, "and ask someone who actually had power to hear me and understand how terrifying it is to have this hanging over my head."

In the letter, Altman calls on NASA to proactively support its employees and make them feel safe despite the realities of the new law.

For example, the new law allows anyone (they do not even have to be in Texas, Northcutt pointed out) to file a lawsuit against someone seeking, providing or assisting with an abortion. In one of the examples Altman gave for how NASA could protect its employees, she suggested that "there should be a program created to fight lawsuits that will be filed against NASA employees," she wrote in the letter.

The letter also suggests that JSC's existing health clinic should be equipped to provide abortions and that the agency develop a program to support employees looking for a new aerospace job in another state.

"More than anything, your employees civil servants and contractors alike need to know that NASA's leadership will not stand idly by while our freedoms are stripped," Altman wrote. "Please know that your support will be invaluable."

Altman told Space.com that "it's not about being angry ... I wanted to provide the solution."

Altman noted that some have suggested that people could choose to not work in Texas or to work remotely, but those opportunities are not available to everyone. In the space sector, roles like her own only exist in-person and in Texas.

Additionally, "the women who are most adversely affected [by laws like this] are the lower-level workers," and "people that are not yet working in the space program," Northcutt told Space.com.

So the law affects not just the people already employed in the space sector, but also countless more who hope to one day have a role like Altman's and who might be forced to reconsider going after their dream jobs. Altman added that she's already heard of people shying away from accepting job offers in the space sector in Texas.

If people leave the state or decline positions in aerospace in such a major space hub, this could significantly hurt the space industry's continuing struggle to employ and retain women.

"It's a guarantee that this will deter women from either accepting jobs here or continuing to pursue their career here," Altman said. "It's not something that we can just ignore."

Northcutt emphasized that the new law does not only affect women or only people who can become pregnant. In addition to the people who are directly targeted by the law people who can become pregnant, healthcare providers and more other Texas residents would still be affected by their coworkers, family members and friends struggling with the repercussions of this law.

In addition, Northcutt said she is particularly worried by the way the law was written, which she argued goes against standard legal practices by encouraging individuals to take enforcement into their own hands.

"Everyone who cares about the rule of law should be concerned," Northcutt said, explaining that the extreme nature of the law and how its written could set a new precedent for law itself.

"It's a horrible precedent for how the law works," Northcutt said, adding that "other states are lining up" to try and enact similar laws. "I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the same rippling through the South, especially, as well as some of the Midwestern states," she said.

Northcutt added that, regardless of whether NASA acts on any of Altman's suggestions, there are likely many different ways that the agency could, creatively, find ways to support its employees.

"We want you to push the envelope," Northcutt said. "Look at your assets the way you would look at solving an Apollo problem."

Altman said that she has not yet received a response from Nelson but that a director at NASA has reached out to speak with her.

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Texas abortion ban could take an unexpected toll on the space industry - Space.com