Project Persephone

ISS - the International Space Station.

ISS has been a model of international cooperation in space -- at least if one defines "international cooperation" as "nation-state intergovernmental cooperation". However, it also provides some object lessons in how not to reduce the cost of space development.

ISS has been expensive partly because it is very complex. Another major cost contributor has been that construction has relied heavily on the most expensive space transportation system ever devised - the U.S. Space Shuttle vehicles and their associated launch infrastructure.

Project Persephone aims to assess the recreational potential of exovivaria - much smaller, much simpler, non-governmental "space stations," without direct government sponsorship, inhabited by non-human species and managed teleoperatively from Earth. Past and future research results from ISS and other, earlier, space station experiments should prove useful in the effort.