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Jeff Findley wrote:
"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Alan Anderson wrote:
If the goal is more affordable spaceflight for people, there is a
compelling argument to be made for returning NASA to its NACA roots
and
getting it out of the spaceflight operations business.

You go right ahead and propose that to your Congresscritter. If there
was an *actual* space industry, it'd make sense. The NACA didn't form
before peopel needed it to improve airplanes... it formed *after*
there
were already airplanes buzzing around. A NACA-fied NASA would have no
customers and no reason to be.

No customers? What about all the startup companies looking to create
low
cost reusable (and semi-reusable) launch vehicles?

None of whom have flown to orbit.

Agreed. So, do you think that the startups could use the help of NASA in
much the same way as the early aviation industry used the help of NACA?

It's not too early for NASA to get out of the launch vehicle business.

When they can buy a flight that matches their needs (read: heavy lifter
applicable for moon missions), I'll agree.

That's not a need, that's a desire. The desire is to go back to the moon in
much the same way that Apollo did. You launch everything you can on a
single HLV. If you go back far enough, LOR wasn't the only option being
considered. It was seen as the fastest way to get to the moon, but EOR
might have been a more sustainable approach in the long term.

Jeff
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