A22 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26 , 2021
interconnectedness.”
Those teams would join Axiom
Space, a Houston-based company
that is also developing a private
space station. It has a contract
with NASA to dock a m odule on
the ISS by late 2024.
The announcements come as
NASA is looking to spend between
$300 million and $400 million to
fund the early development of as
many as four private space sta-
tions in public-private partner-
ships that mimic how the space
agency helped SpaceX and others
build rockets and spacecraft that
it now uses to fly cargo and astro-
nauts to the ISS.
There is growing concern, how-
ever, that NASA isn’t moving ag-
gressively enough to fund a r e-
placement for the ISS, which has
been in operation for more than
20 years in the harsh vacuum of
space and has been showing its
age. While Congress is expected to
extend funding for the ISS to 2030,
it’s not clear it will be able to last
that lon g.
Some in the space industry are
worried the commercial space sta-
tions will be late, leaving NASA
without anywhere to fly its astro-
nauts.
“We are not ready for what
comes after the International
Space Station ,” former NASA ad-
ministr ator Jim Bridenstine said
during a Senate hearing last week.
“Building a space station takes a
long time, especially when you’re
doing it in a way that’s never been
done before.”
NASA this year requested
$101 million for the program that
would develop private space sta-tions, but Bridenstine and other
have said that is not nearly
enough. In his written testimony,
he said Congress needed to appro-
priate $2 billion annually to the
effort.
For nearly a decade, NASA did
not have the ability to fly its astro-
nauts to space and had to rely on
the Russians for rides to the ISS,
until SpaceX flew its first mission
with NASA astronauts last year.
Many in the space industry are
worried there will be a similar gap
if the commercial sector can’t get
its stations online soon.
That would leave China, which
has been pu tting up segments of
its own station this year, as the
only country to own and operate a
station in Earth ’s orbit.
Industry officials said, however,
that the capabilities of the com-
mercial space industry have
grown tremendously over the past
seve ral years and that they would
be ready.
Nanoracks said Starlab would
be ready by 2027 in part because
the model of NASA helping the
industry flourish has proved itself.
“This is the very beginning of
the destinations of private space
stations,” Jeffrey Manber, CEO of
Nanoracks, said. “We’re going to
enter the next decade, where you
have multiple private space sta-
tions in a r obust public-private
partnership with NASA.”
But companies would not just
harness NASA’s investment but be
lifted by investors who are start-
ing to see space as a viable bet,
foreign governments with emerg-
ing space programs and institu-
tions looking to conduct scienceBY CHRISTIAN DAVENPORTThey’re not just building rock-
ets and spacec raft anymore.
The growing commercial space
industry, which for years has
worked to reliably launch cargo
and more recently humans to
space, is now looking to build
space stations that would popu-
late low Earth orbit and eventual-
ly replace the aging International
Space Station.
A number of companies are
competing as part of a N ASA-
funded program to develop habi-
tats that could house astronauts
and scientists and help countries
with emerging space programs get
a foothold in orbit. Last week,
Nanoracks, an aerospace venture
that helps companies fly science
experiments and other payloads
to the ISS, announced it was part-
nering with its majority owner
Voyager Space as well as Lockheed
Martin to build a s pace station
called Starlab.
And on Monday, Blue Origin,
the space company owned by
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, fol-
lowed that news by announcing it
has formed a team with Sierra
Space, Boeing, Redwire Space,
Genesis Engineering and Arizona
State University to build a space
station called Orbital Reef that it
said “will provide anyone with the
opportunity to establish their own
address on orbit.” (Bezos owns The
Washington Post.)
At a news conference, Brent
Sherwood, a senior vice president
at Blue Origin, said that the sta-
tion would be ready by the second
half of the decade and that it
would provide “a vibrant, growing
business ecosystem and low Earth
orbit that will generate new dis-
coveries, new products, new forms
of entertainment, and global
awareness of Earth’s fragility and
experiments in space.
“We see NASA as being a v ery
small minority percentage of the
revenue coming in,” Manber said.
“Now is when the private capital
can come in. Private capital sees
you have transportation. Private
capital sees you have the govern-
ment as one customer of man y. It
ticks all the boxes.”
If th ey come to fruition, the
commercial stations would be far
different from their government-
run predecessor. Both Orbital
Reef and Starlab would have a
segment that would inflate li ke a
balloon after it reaches space.
That allows it to be packed more
tightly into a single rocket, pre-
venti ng multiple launches and
tricky assembly in orbit.
Artis t render ings of the stations
showed luxurious interiors, like
the lobby of an upscale hotel, with
large windows with views of the
Earth below. The initial configura-
tion would be quite large, about 90
percent of the interior volume of
the ISS, with room for 10 astro-
nauts. And it would have the abili-
ty to grow over time by adding
more modules to it.
Starlab would create the
George Washington Carver “sci-
ence park,” a l abor atory named for
the famed scientist.
The Orbital Reef station to be
built by Blue Origin and Sierra
Space would serve a similar pur-
pose, and the companies would
market it to countries around the
world as well. “This isn ’t an Ameri-
can station, this will be a global
station that will carry on the
proud international legacy of the
ISS ,” said Mike Gold, a Redwire
executive vice pre sident.
Blue Origin and Sierra Space
said they have already invested
heavily in the system and have been
working on it for some time, but it’s
not clear how much time and mon-
ey they’ve put in so far — or even
how much money would be avail-
able through federal contracts.
“It is true th at NASA doesn’t
know yet how much funding they
will be able to apply to this pro-
gram,” Sherwood said. “But we do
know that toward the end of the
decade or at the end of the decade
the station will be retired, that is
NASA’s own plan, and it becomes
critically important to avoid a
gap.”
[email protected]Rockets aren’t enough. This growing industry
has now set its sights on space stations.
The habitats could help countries with emerging
space programs get a foothold in orbit — and
eventually replace their aging predecessorBY HANNAH KNOWLESJustice Department news re-
leases document a litany of luxu-
ry items allegedly bought with
pandemic aid meant to keep
struggling businesses afloat.
One man was charged with
spending his loan money on strip
clubs. Another pleaded guilty to
using his funds for a $318,000
Lamborghini.
But Vinath Oudomsine may be
the only person accused of using
his small-business loan on a sin-
gle Pokémon card. Prosecutors
say the card cost the Georgia man
$57,789 — more than two-thirds
of his federal aid, which officials
say was based on false informa-
tion.
The wire-f raud charge brought
last week against Oudomsine is
part of a federal crackdown on
alleged misuse of massive relief
programs that threw lifelines to
businesses during the pandemic
but also raised concerns about
scams and waste.
A federal watchdog said this
month that the Small Business
Administration overpaid $4.5 bil-
lion in grants to self-employed
people and that “no system of
controls was in place to flag
applications with flawed or illogi-
cal information” — even claims of
up to 1 million employees. This
year, the SBA inspector general
concluded that the federal agen-
cy rushed out billions of dollars
in loans through the Paycheck
Protection Program “at the ex-
pense of controls” that could
have blocked inappropriate aid.
The result, according to the
SBA inspector general, was “lim-
ited assurance that loans went to
only eligible recipients.”
The SBA on Sunday faulted the
administration of President Don-
ald Trump and called Oudom-
sine’s case “another example of
the fraud that resulted from their
lax controls.”
In a s tatement, the agency said
that under the Biden administra-
tion, it has worked with Congress
and the inspector general to add
antifraud measures while speed-
ing up its processes. Defenders of
the SB A’s pandemic relief pro-
grams have also argued that
flagged loans and grants repre-
sented a small fraction of hun-
dreds of billions of dollars in aid.
An attorney for Oudomsine
declined to comment on the case
Sunday, and the defendant has
yet to enter a plea, according to
court records.
Prosecutors accused Oudom-
sine of abusing the SBA’s Eco-
nomic Injury Disaster Loans forsmall businesses hurting during
the pandemic, which upended
the economy with shutdowns
and stay-home orders. EIDL
funds, officials noted, could go
toward payroll, sick leave and
other business costs such as rent.
The SBA said Sunday that its
pandemic EIDL program has dis-
bursed more than $310 billion to
small businesses and has been
“critical” to their recovery.
On July 14, 2020, according to
prosecutors, Oudomsine sought
a loan for a business that he said
had 10 employees and revenue of
$235,000 over a year. The next
month, court documents state,
the SBA deposited $85,000 into a
bank account in Oudomsine’s
name.
Court filings give few details
about the alleged Pokémon card
purchase — s uch as which “Pock-
et Monster” it carried — simply
stating that Oudomsine bought it
“on or about” Jan. 8 of this year.
Collectible gaming cards can
fetch big sums — this year, one
unopened box of first-edition
Pokémon cards sold for more
than $400,000.
Barry Paschal, a spokesman
for the U.S. Attorney’s Of fice in
the Southern District of Georgia,
said Sunday that prosecutors are
not commenting on the case
beyond the existing public rec-
ord.
Alarms about fraudsters tak-
ing advantage of business relief
programs began early in the pan-
demic. The SBA inspector gener-
al said in July 2020 that it was
“inundated” with complaints
about thousands of suspected
abuses of EIDL loans and grants.
In one widely covered case in
spring 2020, a Georgia reality TV
star was charged with using more
than $1.5 million in aid for per-
sonal rather than business ex-
penses — notably a Rolls-Royce
and $40,000 in child support.
The first person to be charged
with fraudulently seeking PPP
loans was recently sentenced to
56 months in prison, following a
nationwide search after the man
faked his death.
The SBA inspector general ’s
office said this month that the
SBA was “taking corrective ac-
tions” after its report describing
improper grants to self-employed
people in 2020.
Agency officials defended the
EIDL program, saying it “deliv-
ered on the intent of the Cares
Act,” the $2 trillion emergency
aid package that Congress passed
last year. They note that it pro-
cessed loans and grants totaling
$20 billion over 14 weeks. James
E. Rivera, an associate adminis-
trator for the agency’s Of fice of
Disaster Assistance, wrote to the
inspector general last month that
the SBA “does not agree with key
assertions in the draft report
findings.”
[email protected]$57,789 Pokémon card
at center of fraud case
Georgia man is accused
of spending pandemic
aid on collector’s itemBLUE ORIGIN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGESA rendering of the Orbital Reef, the space station envisioned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin. Brent
Sherwood, a senior vice president at Blue Origin, said the station would be ready by the second half of the decade.
EVELYN HOCKSTEIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
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