On Dec 18, 9:18*am, Robert Clark wrote:
...

*Here's a nice article that expresses the idea that reducing the costs
to space is only going to be achieved when the development of such
vehicles is privately financed:

OCTOBER 20, 2011 AT 6:48 PM
Elon Musk and the forgotten word.http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the...ommentaries/el...


Some great points were made in this article such as this:

Quote
Each new administration wants to create its own space project,
refusing to follow through on the plans of its predecessor. It is for
this reason that I like to call Obama’s Space Launch System proposal
the-program-formerly-called-Constellation. Obama canceled the heavy-
lift rockets under Constellation so as to not have to build a program
created under Bush. He is now following up with a heavy-lift rocket
program of his own, renamed, redesigned, and restarted. Sadly, other
than a vast amount of wasted time and money, the differences between
these two projects isn’t really that much, when you think about it.
All this history suggests quite strongly that it is insane for the
taxpayer (or our representatives in Congress) to put any faith — or
money — in any NASA-built shuttle replacement project. As skilled as
NASA’s engineers might be, the politics of a government-built project
make it impossible for the space agency to ever complete it.
/Quote

And then there's this:

Quote
Above all, what makes this private commercial space industry different
from NASA’s past shuttle replacement projects is the multitude of
parallel efforts. With NASA, we had one program at a time. When that
program failed, there was nothing to fall back on except to start over
with something new.
With these new companies, the United States has redundancy, variety,
and flexibility. Moreover, the competition between these companies
encourages efficiency and innovation, if only to demonstrate that
their product is better than their competitors.
In addition, because these companies own their own products, they are
not at the mercy of any specific administration or the whims of
Congress. Instead, as administrations come and go they will live on,
selling their product to whomever is in office. And if they need to
cut their work force to save money, they are free to do so, unlike
NASA which Congress owns and controls.
/Quote

The author Robert Zimmerman is a strong proponent of privatizing
spaceflight. He will be interviewed on The Space Show, Wednesday, Dec.
21st, 7-9 PST. See the latest newsletter for this week for the show
he

http://www.thespaceshow.com/newsletterfinal.htm

Links to hear the show live are he

http://thespaceshow.com/live.htm

It will also be archived a few days after broadcast on The Space Show
web site:

http://www.thespaceshow.com/


Bob Clark