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"The reason we want our own airlock is this airlock is going to be five times bigger than the current airlock, and it's going to be far more commercial," Manber said in a Sept. 27 presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia. In addition to satellite deployments and experiments, he said the module will be commercial "real estate" on the station, with the ability to mount payloads on its exterior. "It's getting us more into the real estate business and space station operations," he said. ... NanoRacks has long-term ambitions to develop its own commercial station, and is...

Never mind sex in space; what about death up there? ASSOCIATED PRESS May 2, 2007 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back? When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew? Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight? With NASA planning to land on Mars 30 years from now, and with the recent discovery of the most...