"Lou Adornato" wrote:
You're ignoring the crucial fact that NASA walked away from this technology
and refused to even reconsider it because it would make subsequent decisions
look bad.

Which technology? Air dropped spaceplanes? Air dropped launchers?
Hybrid engines? Which?

(To be fair, I have long been on record for criticizing NASA for
choosing Max Faget over building on the X-15.)

This sort of situation doesn't exist in a competitive market -
any company that refuses to face reality about failing projects will
eventually go out of business.

A meaningless comparison as NASA isn't in a commercial market.

It's not all that strange that it took a bunch of bootstrap organizations 40
years to catch up to the state-of-the-art, with NASA effectively blocking
all commercial incentive to do so and thereby driving away any potential
investors.

So what happened to all the rocketry pioneers in the twenties,
thirties, and forties... Years before NASA came along, not a one made
a serious attempt at commercial space, manned or unmanned.

D.
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