The space station is smaller than the ISS, which can host seven astronauts long-term, and around 10-13 during handovers.
Haven-1 is designed to host four astronauts. Around six weeks after lift-off on a SpaceX Dragon rocket, a crew of four will head up to live on the new station for at least 10 days to test out the systems and see how everything is working.
Mr Feustel doesn’t know if he’ll be part of that crew, despite still having the qualifications to fly in space, because VAST, like all the other competitors, needs to make a profit.
“The idea is that we’re a commercial company and [able] to generate revenue off of those seats,” he said.
Communal dining on Haven-1. Pic: VAST
But if seats to space will be sold to the highest bidder, are we at risk of turning orbit into a rich person’s playground?
“In principle, commercial space stations could increase the number of flight opportunities and, over time, reduce prices for a wider range of users, including universities, smaller countries, and other organisations that want to conduct microgravity research,” Dr Dimitrios Stroikos, head of the Space Policy Project, LSE IDEAS and MSCA Fellow at the University of Bologna, told Sky News.
“At the same time, early business models may lean on tourism and privately funded astronaut missions as a relatively straightforward revenue stream.
“That raises the possibility of a two-tier pattern of access, where premium opportunities expand more quickly than affordable access for research and public-interest activity.”
Mr Feustel’s not worried, though; he thinks commercial competition will actually democratise access to space.
“It’s not to say that it will ever be cheap,” he said.
“But I do believe that the more that we do this, the more we normalise space access, just like we have with automobiles and air transportation, at some point, those costs will come down.
“And there’s a real need for us to put humans in space.”