In article ,
Mike Rhino wrote:
Having a national space policy, an overarching goal, made sense when
only the national government could go to space. That time has passed...

Under your plan, the Chinese vision will win.

Uh, they will "win" what, exactly? Who's handing out the prizes?

And do you seriously think that the only way the Western world can beat a
rotting socialist bureaucracy is by creating (or rather, strengthening) its
own rotting socialist bureaucracy?

If NASA concentrates on the
moon, that would leave low Earth orbit available for private companies.

NASA will assure you that LEO is the first step to the Moon, so they must
do one if they're going to do the other. Besides, the giant launch
systems they'll have to build for going to the Moon will make getting into
LEO so cheap that no second-rate private system will be able to compete.
Or so they will tell anyone who asks... and they're the Official Experts,
after all.

(Hint: no sane investor will get into a market if there is any chance of
government-sponsored competition, because Uncle Sam always has more money
than he does.)

That would allow us to try your plan while at the same time keeping a backup
plan just in case your plan fails.

The whole point of Randall's proposal is that there is no single central
*plan* to fail. Stop thinking in terms of five-year (or ten-year) plans,
and start thinking in terms of competition and freedom.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |