On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:29:59 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Fred J.
McCall" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

::Only because there's little demand for it from the traditional
:roviders of launch system development funds.
:
:Largely because they don't believe it can be done and don't want to
:fund yet more development of another system that doesn't hit the
:target (again).
:
:Do you truly believe that a system that cut price to LEO to the $1500
:range wouldn't rapidly become the launch system of choice (assuming
:payload capability similar to what is currently extant)?
:
:Of course not. Do you truly believe that I wrote such a thing?

That's how I read the "...there's little demand for it from the
traditional providers of launch system development funds" comment,
yes.

Then you misread it.

:Why would commercial users (in particular) stick with a higher-cost
:system, all other things being equal?
:
:They wouldn't. Nice straw man, though. Chock full.

Just going by what you say, Rand. If you don't mean it, don't say it.

I didn't say it.

:What I said was that there was no demand for it, or at least not
:enough to justify the investment. I didn't say that they wouldn't
refer a cheaper ride if they could get one. But they're obviously
:satisfied with current prices.

We're obviously using a different definition for 'demand'.

Obviously. I'm using it the sense that they are willing to purchase
at the current price, and are not demanding a lower one. That doesn't
mean that they wouldn't prefer to pay less, if they thought they
could. They're not stupid, but they're also not sufficiently
dissatisfied with the current prices to make major investments and
accept risk in lowering them. Also, I said that there's no demand
from the traditional providers of launch development funds. That's a
different group of people from the purchasers of launch services.