Re: commercial uses of the Dtick and the Heavy Lifter

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 21:21:08 GMT, simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

>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?

Well, zero from zero is zero. I'm not sure how NASA can compensate for
the Federal Government's failure to do something about the exchange
rate and anti-competitive subsidies. Using EELV's would help a bit,
but only a bit, because it wouldn't help the big guys attract
satellite customers. So would an offer to buy launches from the
company that could meet their mission requirements at the lowest cost,
which might help startups gain venture capital. But if we can't or
won't get the Russians, Chinese, and Europeans to compete on equal
grounds, I say we compete on their grounds and outdo them.

--
Josh

"It was amazing I won. I was running against peace and prosperity
and incumbency." - George W. Bush
.

Relevant Pages