(Tom Merkle) wrote in message m...
(Len) wrote in message . com...
(Tom Merkle) wrote in message om...
h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
http://www.techcentralstation.com/091903E.html
cheaper (although it may be *more* expensive, as your article

...snip...

Rand, what planet are you from? What is the agency doing that
frustrates the "pent-up demand for public space travel?" (Cue dodging
that direct question with a vague response that inverts the issue, to
something along the lines of 'not encouraging the private sector...
enough...')Let me preemptively ask you a follow-up: WHAT COULD NASA
ACTUALLY DO BETTER OR DIFFERENT THAT WOULD HELP PUBLIC SPACE TRAVEL?

Easy, get out of the space transportation business
that NACA would never have gotten into.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)


Do your part, Len. Provide a working alternative, and NASA will beat a
path to your door.

Respectfully,

Tom Merkle

Actually, Tom, I think that you are basically right.
I think that most of the problems with NASA are
inadvertent--not maliciously planned. However, an
NACA environment would make private investment far
more attractive.

In the mid-1970's, I had some promising contacts
with potential investors with respect to a solar
energy project. However, the government then
announced that they were planning to spend billions
of dollars developing solar energy. That killed
any investor interest for my project and many other
projects. The net result was a lot of bureaucratic
shuffling for positions at ERDA for two years. Then
the formation af DoE and another two years of
bureaucratic shuffling. Finally, they came out with
an SBIR-type announcement and funded about 4 percent
of the resulting proposals. All this essentially
killed off a lot of promising private projects. It
even killed off some quite worthwhile government
projects at the National Science Foundation and HUD.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc. and Third Millennium Aerospace, Inc.
( http://www.tour2space.com )