With humans treading into space 50 years back, NASA has persistently pursued space adventures in a bid to unravel the mysteries of the infinite cosmos, conducting vigorous scientific research round-the-clock at the international space station.

Celebrating 50 years in space walk, $18.5 billion in funding was approved for NASA by the US House of Representatives.

Sam Scimemi, Director of the International Space Station, stressed the benefits of an increasing association of private companies in space explorations. He described Russia as an excellent and reliable partner of NASA.

Phil McAlister, Director of NASA’s commercial spaceflight development division informed the NASA was doing lot of development in the commercial world, stating, “It’s been a really great thing for NASA and for industry because this partnership, we sort of take the best of both to get our astronauts back up to space”.

McAlister told that NASA has already shifted some responsibility over to private companies like SpaceX and Boeing which are now handling space travels of astronauts to and from the space station.

On Wednesday, Scimemi along with McAlister, Joseph Acaba and representatives from Boeing and SpaceX, rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Acaba, a NASA astronaut spoke at the event about how the astronauts today are not just pilots but have rather become scientists as during the six-month period when they are stationed at the space station, these astronauts may work on over 100 different scientific experiments.

Presently, NASA is exploring a shift toward In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) so that crewed missions to Mars use local recourses instead of taking all supplies with them from Earth.