2020 may witness a watershed moment in space travel, when Nasa will welcome tourists to the International Space Station, which the US agency is opening up to visitors next year. 
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced on Friday that it will open up parts of the ISS to more commercial opportunities, allowing companies unprecedented use of the space station’s facilities, including filming commercials or movies against the backdrop of space.
Nasa will allow up to two private trips to the station per year, each lasting up to 30 days. The first mission, according to the agency could be as early as 2020.
For the first time it will allow private citizens to fly, if not to the moon, at least to the International Space Station – the only place where people currently live off the planet.
Interestingly, space travellers don’t have to be US citizens. People from other countries will also be eligible, as long as they fly on a US-operated rocket, the agency noted.
“Nasa is not transforming into a space travel agency. Private companies will have to pay it about $35,000 a night per passenger to sleep in the station’s beds and use its amenities, including air, water, the Internet and the toilet,” according to the New York Times. 
The change paves the way for the wealthy to rocket from Earth and spend time aboard the astronaut home and laboratory in space, through trips planned by private enterprise, and for businesses to develop products or shoot film – including adverts – in space.
Nasa officials also said opening the door to private enterprise gives the agency more room to focus on the Trump administration’s goal of returning to the moon by 2024, which could be fuelled in part by revenue generated from new commercial services and paying astronauts.
It paves the way for private citizens to travel to the ISS aboard rocket-and-capsule launch systems being developed by Boeing Company and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The two companies are set to ferry astronauts to the ISS from US soil for the first time in nearly a decade.
But as the month-long getaways come at a whopping cost of about $35,000 per night, these may remain just a dream for a vast majority of people in this planet. 
The new directive will allow private astronauts to spend up to 30 days in low-Earth orbit aboard the ISS through trips planned by private companies. 
Eventually, Nasa hopes the space station will be just one of several “commercial and free-flying habitable” destinations in low-Earth orbit. For now, Nasa is making one space station port available for commercial uses “for a finite period of time”.
The move is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to end government funding for the ISS, and allow commercial enterprise to fund what is now astronauts’ home in space.
According to space scientists, the policy shift reverses a long-standing prohibition against tourists and private interests at the orbiting research lab, and reflects a broader push to expand commercial activities at the ISS and in space more generally.