[Defenestresque]

Interesting article. As you mentioned, NASA is justifying the >6x price increase with:

>In announcing the policy change, NASA said it had previously subsidized transportation to and from the station in order to foster the development of commercial space applications.

>“Since making these opportunities available, there has been a growing demand for commercial and marketing activities from both traditional aerospace companies and from novel industries, demonstrating the benefits of the space station to help catalyze and expand space exploration markets and the low-Earth orbit economy,” the space agency said. “As a result, NASA has updated its pricing policy for commercial activities conducted on the station to reflect full reimbursement for the value of NASA resources.”

While I don't have any reason not to take this explanation at face value, I am curious about the timing. Did they just have too many potential customers to justify subsidizing the cost?

I was also surprised to see a "trash disposal" line item in the price catalog. It doesn't sound like ISS-generated waste. Does anyone know if this is literally people paying thousands of dollars per kg to transport cargo to space in order to dispose it by burning it up on re-entry? What could justify such a cost? Are there examples? What kind of restrictions on items are there?

(Perhaps I should just Google this myself! :)

[Goronmon]

While I don't have any reason not to take this explanation at face value, I am curious about the timing. Did they just have too many potential customers to justify subsidizing the cost?

That, or from a different perspective, as commercial launch capabilities increase, they don't want to kill competition by subsidizing a service that other companies want to be able to offer (at a non-subsidized cost).

[NortySpock]

All trash (food wrappers, paper, packaging, some medical waste I presume, old experiment gear, etc), and dehydrated sewage, currently only leaves the space station via visiting vessels. It requires an astronaut's time to pack trash, disconnect and seal dehydrated sewage containers, and load them into a visiting spacecraft prior to departure.

Imagine having trash and sewage picked up only twice a month or once a month. That's about how often new vehicles visit the space station.

Some uncrewed vehicles (Russia's Roscosmos Progress vehicle, Japan's JAXA HTV, USA's Northrop Grumman Cygnus) are designed to burn up on reentry. SpaceX Dragon is designed to make it to the ground and thus would need to be unpacked after splashdown.

Nanoracks' Bishop airlock is supposed to offer trash disposal-to-orbit, but has not been used in orbit yet.