NASA is opening up the International Space Station for tourists with the first mission as early as 2020.

Investment in the fast-growing space industry was booming well into the first quarter of 2020 but private capital has largely frozen as the coronavirus pandemic strikes the U.S., leading both civil and military agencies to step up funding for corporate partners.

"We kicked into high gear as soon as it was apparent a lot of companies were not going to be able to conduct business as usual due to distancing requirements," Mike Read, International Space Station business and economic development manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center, told CNBC.

U.S. equity investment in space companies totaled $5.4 billion across 36 deals in the first quarter, according to a report Friday by NYC-based firm Space Capital. But the second quarter is likely to just see a fraction of that investment, according to Space Capital managing partner Chad Anderson, as deal flow in the U.S. will follow China's path. Chinese investment in space was climbing by record amounts until the first quarter, when "activity in China was basically shut off," Anderson said

"For a lot of U.S. companies, when investors are retrenching, the government is stepping up and either increasing their investment or providing advances to some of these companies," Anderson said. "Having the government as a lifeline is really important, particularly relevant for infrastructure companies that are launching satellites and hardware."

There are several companies with projects on board the International Space Station, Read noted. Those NASA partners include companies such as Sierra Nevada Corp., NanoRacks, Made In Space, Teledyne Brown Engineering, Alpha Space and more. When the scope of the coronavirus crisis became apparent, Read said NASA began reaching out to each of the companies to understand their financial positions, as many are small businesses.

"As you can expect, for most it was not good. So we began looking at upcoming milestones on their contracts to see if we could split them, allowing for the immediate invoicing for work already completed towards the larger milestone. We were able to do that swiftly for many of our contracts," Read said.