Re: commercial uses of the Dtick and the Heavy Lifter

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 14:15:38 -0400, in a place far, far away, Josh
Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

>>>>>Do note that unless it has a *lot* more payload than commercial launchers,
>>>>>or is unique in some other significant way, it is illegal for NASA to
>>>>>attempt to market it commercially or to subsidize an attempt by a NASA
>>>>>contractor to do so. NASA is specifically forbidden, by post-Challenger
>>>>>law, to compete with commercial launch providers (even for its own needs,
>>>>>never mind on the open market).
>>>>
>>>>Which once seemed to me a sensible prohibition, but now seems to me
>>>>foolish, since it reduces utilization.
>>>
>>>So NASA should once again wreck the commercial lauch industry by
>>>competing against it with taxpayer-subsidized systems?
>
>The commercial launch industry is already competing against
>taxpayer-subsidized systems from Russia, China, and the EU, and with
>the handicap of a manipulated exchange rate.

So why should we make it even worse (and add insult to injury) by
competing againt them with their own tax dollars?
.

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