Deap Space Navigation

In article v,
Bill Higgins wrote:
I wonder whether someone could build a deep-space tracking station in Chile
or Argentina and *sell* tracking services to the governments who need it? ...
This might be a dumb idea. Even if it looked potentially profitable, it
would be hard to finance without firm committments from government
customers.

The investment needed for deep-space stuff is pretty steep, I fear, and
most of the likely customers already have *some* facilities of their own
(e.g., ESA has just finished building itself a couple of sizable dishes),
so making a financial case for it could be hard.

There already is an outfit -- Universal Space Network Inc. -- that sells
dish time, but its dishes are smaller stuff (up to 15m) meant primarily
for Earth-orbit work.
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