Henry Spencer wrote:
In article TywVg.8$i84.2@trnddc01, David Spain wrote:

[snipped for brevity]

NASA will never, ever put men on Mars. Their target date for it i
receding more than a year per year. But the first footprints on Mars
almost certainly will be those of free men.

Maybe. I hope so. But I don't think history guarantees it.

Henry you and I are in complete agreement that private enterprise allowed
to work freely is likely to get us into space far ahead of what NASA and the
US gov. (working alone or jointly with other govs.) could do.*

The question is, in a time when everything under the Sun has a political
price in the US (I'll exclude Canada for now ;-), if a private enterprise
has a mishap that kills a number of people (either in Space or on the ground)
can the "democracy" keep from putting its big foot into the works? Every
politician loves a disaster. What better way to self-promote and in the process
get passed some crazed regulations or create a monster bureaucracy to regulate
(kill) space development?

Imagine this, a private enterprise embarks on a massive campaign to open
Space, but can't do so from a democracy because of the regulatory framework,
where insurance company actuaries hold the real reins of power.

So they go where? Hmm, how 'bout a beneficent ruler in the Mideast? Say
the Sultan of Brunei? Or closer to the Equator, maybe 50 years down the
road the Islamic Courts Of Sudan?

First footprint on Mars, brought to you by the Great Wall Space Development
Corp., sponsored by the Sultancy of Brunei, paid for with US/EU petrol-dollars
and dollars and euros flowing freely over decades of trade surpluses....

Dave

*Apollo 2.1 should be SHUT DOWN, NOW. NASA needs a DRASTIC overhaul, NOW.
The operational parts (Manned Spaceflight Center, Kennedy Space Center)
should be spun out into a quasi-public corp. like Amtrak, with *HEAVY* private
sector involvement**. The rest of NASA should be re-org'd and replaced with
...... NACA! YES NACA. Put NASA back on its original course. Advisory role
and laboratory expertise to the private sector. Do it NOW. While we have the
beginnings of a private sector space program that would BENEFIT from co-operation
with NACA rather than wasting taxpayer monies on doomed one-off manned missions
that long term have no chance of success w/o private sector involvement anyway.

FWIW ask the Apollo 2.1 crowd that if we take Apollo as our baseline example of
how to get to Mars, what good is a mission to Mars if you have to
wait 5 decades between flights?

**Maybe there's no real rationale for this either, other than feelings of
sympathy for those in the astronaut office. But face it, what do the
current crop of astronauts do when Space Shuttle is retired? Let's not bring
up another generation of dedicated, hard-working people stuck going down the
rat-hole of the wrong path. Note I'm focusing on the manned spaceflight programs.
The unmanned programs have been doing well at NASA and would continue to flourish
under NACA as well, since NACA better fits the role of academia/gov. co-operation
that is and has been essential for the success of the unmanned programs.

BTW, I've never felt Space Shuttle was the wrong path. Just the opposite.
The problem is that the program was never allowed to *evolve* with better
craft, newer designs etc. as it would have had it been in the competitive
private sector.

Gov. monopoly in Space must end, NOW. I do not wish my tax money going to
subsidize space monopolies like NASA in its current form.

Dave