Tito flies into the Zvezda service module with some help from his crewmates. Photo: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

A Congressional hearing on the nascent space tourism industry Tuesday turned into a debate between Dennis Tito and a NASA official regarding how many people the International Space Station can accommodate.

Tito, who spent a week on the station two months ago as the first commercial space tourist, triggered the argument when he noted there was plenty of room and life support resources to handle him and the two Russian cosmonauts that flew to ISS with him, as well as the three members of the station's long-term crew.

"I can tell you that my Soyuz crewmates and I had plenty of room to spread out and Ścamp'," Tito said in his testimony before the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee of the House Science Committee. "Furthermore, the atmospheric life support systems on Zvezda are capable of supporting both a regular crew of three plus the three visiting cosmonauts from a Soyuz swap-out flight."

Tito suggested it would be relatively straightforward to move from the current three-person crews on the station to six-person crews through the use of additional Soyuz taxi flights and Progress resupply missions. "By doubling the crew size sooner we can free up much more time for actual research on the ISS, and hopefully speed up progress towards growing the ISS even further," he said.

This attracted the attention of a number of members of the committee, who had previously been told by NASA that the only way to increase the crew size would be with the addition of a habitation module that would provide accommodations and life support. NASA has been looking into alternatives to its planned hab module given the current $4 billion cost overrun the station faces, including working with the Italian Space Agency on a proposal whereby Italy would build a hab module in exchange for additional station resources or the launch of Italian satellites.

This view was reiterated by Michael Hawes, NASA's deputy associate administrator for space station, who told Congressmen that the agency continues to believe that the station cannot handle six-person crews over the long term in its current configuration. "All the indications we have had from our Russian colleagues tell us that those [life support] systems are not sized for the long term for six-person crews," he said. "If we were to increase the crew size beyond three or four those systems would need to be augmented."

"There's a contradiction in testimony here, and we need to solve this problem right now," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), chairman of the subcommittee. "There are some very important decisions that are being made in the next few days and this piece of information will go a long way in determining decisions that are being made here on Capitol Hill." Rohrabacher, who did not elaborate on the nature of those decisions, then asked Hawes to look into the issue of the life support capabilities and report back, within 24 hours if possible.

Much of the two-hour hearing, which was to be devoted exclusively to space tourism, was spent on this topic, to the exasperation of some of the other witnesses. "This discussion of the number of breaths you can take on the space station isn't really relevant as far as space tourism is concerned," said Rick Tumlinson, president of the Space Frontier Foundation.

When the subject of discussion did turn to space tourism, and in particular Tito's ISS flight, even members of Congress who previously were opposed to or skeptical of the flight lined up in support of the California businessman. "When I first learned of Dennis Tito's anticipated flight to the space station, I was very hesitant to offer support, and in fact expressed my concerns publicly," said Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX). While he still has concerns about sending tourists to ISS, he did admit that "Mr. Tito's flight led to more enthusiasm about space travel and the space program than we have seen in a long time." Lampson added he is working on legislation that would help the space tourism industry through a combination of loan guarantees, tax credits, and other incentives.

Another member of Congress who had been critical of the flight, House Science Committee chairman Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), called Tito a "national resource." When Boehlert learned that the only meeting Tito has had with NASA since the flight was a breakfast meeting Tuesday morning with Hawes, he lit into NASA for taking so long to meet with him. "It seems to me that someone [at NASA] should have been waiting for the first opportunity" to meet with Tito, Boehlert said. Hawes replied that NASA is working to arrange a full-fledged mission debriefing with Tito some time in the near future.

Hawes also told Congress that NASA has yet to present the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos with a bill for the costs incurred by Tito's stay at the station, as NASA administrator Dan Goldin earlier this year said he would do. Hawes said NASA would wait until officials have a chance to debrief the Expedition Two crew, scheduled to return in August, before sending Rosaviakosmos a bill. He did estimate the size of that bill, but hinted that it would be smaller than previously anticipated as computer problems on the station would have hampered some activities, such as a checkout of a new robotic arm, even if Tito's presence had not led NASA to postpone them.

While much of the discussion centered on the basics of space tourism, one proposal that attracted the attention of Congress was a suggestion by Apollo 11 astronaut and space tourism advocate Buzz Aldrin to sell empty seats on space shuttle missions for $20 million each. Assuming two seats are sold on each of seven shuttle missions a year, it would amount to $1.4 billion in revenue for NASA over five years ­ enough to account for a third of the current cost overrun on the station.

"We have a problem: how do we make up for all this money we're missing," Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) said after hearing Aldrin's proposal. "To me this looks very attractive for some of the need we have for cash."

While many shuttle missions fly with less than a full seven-person crew, Hawes said that most missions to the space station are at their maximum payload capacity. "Even adding people means you're going to throw something out," he said, which means that flying tourists could end up costing NASA more than they would take in by selling seats.

Aldrin also suggested that NASA restructure its $5 billion Space Launch Initiative program into an effort that will not only develop new launch vehicle technologies but also support the development of orbiting commercial facilities that could be the destination of future launch vehicles. Development of such private facilities is already in progress, Tumlinson added, noting that Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace is working on inflatable structures that could be ready for use in orbit in just 2-3 years.

Tito, who said his flight to the space station was the realization of a lifelong dream, encouraged NASA and Rosaviakosmos to fly other "ordinary" people in space to better communicate the experience of being in space. "It is hard for me to fully convey what it was like to be weightless for eight days, but then, I'm a businessman," he said. "Just think of how magnificently poets, writers, musicians, composers, teachers, filmmakers, painters, journalists and other creative individuals would be able to communicate the beauty and inspiration of spaceflight."