CEV to be made commercially available

Pete Lynn wrote:

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
news

Pete Lynn wrote:



I am not sure how significant this argument is,
though anecdotal evidence would suggest that
frustration with NASA can be a strong motivating
force for many start ups. Would their motivation be
as strong in the absence of NASA?


Difficult to say, of course. The only data we have is
on *this* reality and, as it has turned out, a number of
the alt.space companies *are* playing along with
ESAS. The idea that they're being shut out is rather
ludicrous, given what I'm seeing going on.



Almost by definition, loosing their alt.space status in the process, but
that is beside the point. It is low cost space development which is
being shut out of government funding, not those willing to cross over.


And what, exactly, makes you think that helping a small company get on
its financial feet is a bad thing? Assume XYZ Rocket Corp has been
trying for years to make money building rockets. Money has trickled in,
but not enough to build their low-cost tourist rocket. Now, Acme
ConGlomMegaRocket Corp wants to throw buckets of money at them to buy a
product they can bang out in short order. Now they have the money to
begin development of their vehicle.

And the problem with this scenario is....



--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Pete Lynn wrote:

Almost by definition, loosing their alt.space status in
the process, but that is beside the point. It is low
cost space development which is being shut out of
government funding, not those willing to cross over.

And what, exactly, makes you think that helping a
small company get on its financial feet is a bad thing?

Some small companies do not deserve to get on their financial feet. Some
times we have to stand back and let nature take its course.

The appropriate course of action is to help create an environment where
viable small companies can effectively find their own feet.

Assume XYZ Rocket Corp has been trying for years
to make money building rockets. Money has trickled
in, but not enough to build their low-cost tourist
rocket. Now, Acme ConGlomMegaRocket Corp
wants to throw buckets of money at them to buy a
product they can bang out in short order. Now they
have the money to begin development of their vehicle.

And the problem with this scenario is....

Of the great many methods available for subsidizing a new industry this
is one of the most destructive and least effective, it tends to also be
quite corrupt. NASA selectively over paying for products no one wants,
creating a false economy.

The reason this subsidy model is used is because it conveniently fits
into and perpetuates the existing NASA infrastructure*. Good methods of
subsidy promote an industry while keeping market distortion to a
minimum.

* Usual caveat - NASA not monolithic and all bad. For example, the NASA
funded XCOR work on integral composite tanks sounds like good desirable
and generic R&D.

Pete.

Pete Lynn wrote:

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...


Pete Lynn wrote:


Almost by definition, loosing their alt.space status in
the process, but that is beside the point. It is low
cost space development which is being shut out of
government funding, not those willing to cross over.



And what, exactly, makes you think that helping a
small company get on its financial feet is a bad thing?



Some small companies do not deserve to get on their financial feet. Some
times we have to stand back and let nature take its course.



Yeah. That's worked *so* well in getting private spaceflight these last
40 years...

The appropriate course of action is to help create an environment where
viable small companies can effectively find their own feet.



Yes, by providing a market for them. ESAS will need a lot of things,
from actuators to rocket engines of all sizes to tanks of all sizes to
you name it.



Assume XYZ Rocket Corp has been trying for years
to make money building rockets. Money has trickled
in, but not enough to build their low-cost tourist
rocket. Now, Acme ConGlomMegaRocket Corp
wants to throw buckets of money at them to buy a
product they can bang out in short order. Now they
have the money to begin development of their vehicle.

And the problem with this scenario is....



Of the great many methods available for subsidizing a new industry this
is one of the most destructive and least effective, it tends to also be
quite corrupt. NASA selectively over paying for products no one wants,
creating a false economy.



Who says they're overpaying? And what would be a "less destructive"
means of getting business to a companmy than buying it's products and
paying a reasonable price for new product development?

* Usual caveat - NASA not monolithic and all bad. For example, the NASA
funded XCOR work on integral composite tanks sounds like good desirable
and generic R&D.



Why? Why would NASA paying XCOR for tank R&D be somehow preferable to,
say, NASA or a Nasa contractor paying XCOR or SpaceDev or whoever for
engines?


--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

Scott Lowther wrote:

Some small companies do not deserve to get on their financial feet. Some
times we have to stand back and let nature take its course.

Yeah. That's worked *so* well in getting private spaceflight these last
40 years...

Yeah, just like zeppelins, and supersonic passenger aicraft, and steam-powered
cars, and any number of technologies that failed to gain or sustain traction in
the marketplace.

Just because one doesn't like the judgment of the market doesn't
mean that judgment is wrong. Maybe manned space travel is in the same
category as all these other failed technologies. Maybe, as Peter
wrote, it's time to 'let nature take its course'.

Paul

Paul F. Dietz ) wrote:
: Eric Chomko wrote:

: : 'My party'? Are you laboring under the misapprehension that I voted
: : for W? (Not that this has any relevance to whether NASA manned space
: : efforts are wasteful.)
:
: So you voted for Kerry and Gore? You, a flat-earth liberal? What a joke!

: I voted for Nader in 2000 and whomever-the-hell the libertarian
: candidate was in 2004.

And maybe even Perot in 92. I see you're a radical moderate, hates both
Republicans and Democrats with even zeal.

: I didn't vote for W because he struck me from the start as
: intellectually insufficient to be president (an impression
: that has not since been contradicted); also, he's socially
: conservative and economically non-conservative, which is about 180
: degrees away from my position.

Can't say I disagree with any of the above.

: None of this was all that significant to the outcome, since my
: state (Illinois) will be won by the Democrat candidate by a wide
: margin in a nationally-close presidential election.

Right and in Maryland the Dems always seem to win the national elections
as well, but I still vote.

: : I'm crystal clear in my statements. You just have serious problems
: : reading and understanding.
:
: Then state what you do. Heck I told you that I once worked on the Spacelab
: project and you almost soiled your shorts ridiculing me for it. The only
: neurotic tick is yours WRT manned spaceflight.

: Just a bit defensive there, eh?

No, it's just that you're quite opinionated about manned spaceflight but
silent about your own profession.

: Spacelab's main purpose was to pad the shuttle manifest to help maintain
: the fiction that the absurdly large flight rate they had promised
: would actually have enough demand to be sustained (never mind that
: the shuttle itself couldn't sustain that flight rate).

Not to mention several experiments related to microcgravity and low (thin)
atmosphere. Tell a mission specialist that made an experiment that flew on
a Spacelab mission that all it was for was to pad the manifest and see
what they tell you.

: : : The military has space applications that are cost-justified. Recon
: : : sats, weather sats, communications, early warning, navigation, to name
: : : a few. Why should I consider space 'off-limits' to the military?
: :
: : Perhaps because NASA was set up to be non-military by its very nature. Or
: : did you miss that part?
:
: : Um... what? Bizarre non sequitur there, Chomko.
:
: No it isn't. You have a problem with the manned spaceflight budget and I
: have a problem with the DOD budget. Given that, my comment is relevant

: No, since I asked why should *I* consider space off-limits to the
: military (and that doesn't involve NASA at all). Need I point out that
: *I* give zero weight to your personal neurotic prejudices?

Just like NASA can't help but get the military involved in manned
spaceflight, the military can't help but for NASA to get involved when
they go into space.

Persoanl neurotic prejudices are a two way street. But you can't prove
that the DOD gives us 26 times more return than does NASA, as that is the
budget ratio. You're Goliath bitching about David...

: : At least not yet. So because there is no manned military application of
: : space, you're against manned spaceflight?
:
: : No.
:
: Just the cost? What percentage of what it is would make you happy?

: Whatever is justified by adequate return, just like any other
: investment. I don't play the game of trying to retro-justify
: some predetermined percentage.

Do you know what the DOD budget is as compared to the NASA budget?

: I have to say, the justifications I've seen so far would not
: leave much of a manned space program, by that criterion.

Your opinion.

: : As for public funds, I'm not against support of manned spaceflight
: : in principle, but in practice there doesn't seem to have been
: : a situation where it has made sense.
:
: Art, in an of itself, doesn't make sense. When are you going to get that
: manned spaceflight is more of an artform than it is science?! Are you
: really that much of a "think-inside-the-box" sort of guy?

: Ah, so NASA is in the same category as the National Endowment for the
: Humanities, '**** Christ', and all that. Gotcha.

Again, thinking politically, and in this context, is thinking inside the
well-structured box. IOW, a box that you're cluelss on even how to make
yet, you're in it!

: The 2006 budget for NEH is $138 million. Gosh, I guess that there
: 'Space Art' is more than 100x more popular than all other art combined!

: Needless to say, I find your argument here completely ludicrous.

No ****! A shallow thinker would...

: Better than being an angry little man, such as you are...

: Anger is empowering. Stupidity is just pathetic.

You're not powerful, you're angry. Stupidity can be corrected. A
willingness to be creative is a much harder task. Your arguments are
disempowering and uncreative.

Eric

: Paul

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Scott Lowther wrote:

Some small companies do not deserve to get on their financial feet. Some
times we have to stand back and let nature take its course.

Yeah. That's worked *so* well in getting private spaceflight these last
40 years...

Yeah, just like zeppelins, and supersonic passenger aicraft, and steam-powered
cars, and any number of technologies that failed to gain or sustain traction in
the marketplace.

Just because one doesn't like the judgment of the market doesn't
mean that judgment is wrong. Maybe manned space travel is in the same
..
category as all these other failed technologies. Maybe, as Peter
wrote, it's time to 'let nature take its course'.
You mean and let humans go extinct, like all the other dumb species
that have stayed on the planet?

Tom

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Scott Lowther wrote:

Some small companies do not deserve to get on their financial feet. Some
times we have to stand back and let nature take its course.

Yeah. That's worked *so* well in getting private spaceflight these last
40 years...

Yeah, just like zeppelins, and supersonic passenger aicraft, and steam-powered
cars, and any number of technologies that failed to gain or sustain traction in
the marketplace.

And turbojet engines, and computers, and lasers, and communication
satellites, and launch systems, and jet airliners, and helicopters, and
the Internet and a whole mess of other technologies that were developed
partly or largely via Fedfunding and went on to be commercial
successes.


Just because one doesn't like the judgment of the market doesn't
mean that judgment is wrong.

And sometimes the market needs to be kick-started.

Maybe manned space travel is in the same category as all these other failed technologies.

And maybe it's the jetliner of tomorrow.

Maybe, as Peter wrote, it's time to 'let nature take its course'.

Oh, agreed. Government requirements are a part of nature. Would Boeing,
say, be wise or stupid to try to win the next USAF fighter contract?
Would you hold it against GE, P&W, Williams or whoever if they tried to
get the engine contract for the next fighter? If the USAF decided that
the next fighter needed to be hypersonic, would you hold it against
Andrews or XCOR or SpaceDev or whoever if they tried to win the, say,
ejector ramjet contract for the next fighter?

Paul F. Dietz ) wrote:
: Eric Chomko wrote:

: Mission Planning - MSFC - Alabama
: Mission Control - JSC - Texas
: Launch Facility - KSC - Florida
:
: There is manned spaceflight in a nutshell. Last I checked, they are all
: red states.
:
: I wonder if, since 1994 and the GOP takeover of Congress, if manned
: spaceflight accountability -as you yourself are bitching about- doesn't
: coincide. Pure coincidence?

: Chomko, if you find a clue, please post it. Your paragraphs
: there don't appear to be making any kind of rational argument,
: and certainly not one that has anything to do with what I've
: been claiming.

You really don't know how NASA is set up do you? You know, which centers
do what.

: : I do not agree that that is an end in itself. It may be a means to
: : an end, but colonies need an economic base. ESAS will do little to
: : bring lunar colonization closer, because it doesn't address the economic
: : barriers.
:
: You are putting the cart before the horse. Exploration leads to discovery.
: You can't have colonization before discovery. Columbus proved that.

: Columbus disproved it -- or are the American Indians somehow
: non-existent now? Their ancestors came to N.A. in a process
: that did not involve precursor exploration by governments, but
: rather diffusion and settlement by small groups. In other
: words, colonization without separate exploration.

Someone had to cross the Bering Strait 10,000 years ago and if you don't
think THAT was exploration and discovery, then you're in denial.

: But, regardless, even if one is to agree that exploration must
: precede colonization, it does not follow that anything that we
: happen to call exploration will do the trick. As, for example,
: the abortive Viking foray to N.A. demonstrates.

Sure Columbus knew nothing about the Vikings, and our trip to the moon
could actually be that; but we should do it anyway, just like the
Vikings. When do you think the "right" time will be, if not now?

: : But the idea that ESAS is that next step is a fallacy of linear
: : thinking. Kind of like the idea that the first step to reaching
: : the moon is climbing trees.
:
: No the first step to reaching the moon was putting Alan Shepard into
: space.

: That whizzing sound is the point going entirely over your head.

You made a stupid claim about the trees as if we haven't evolved passed
the first monkey.

: : Right. Going to burn me at the stake now?
:
: No. You're entitled to your own opinion, despite how flawed I think it is.

: It's clear that your opinions on intellectual matters are not
: to be given much weight at all.

Another one of your opinions.

: I suspect that we both agree that the crowning achievement of the first
: half of the 20th century was the allied victory of WWII. What is the
: second half's major moment? I say it was Apollo. What do you say?

: The Green Revolution. Compared to that, Apollo was a trivial footnote.

: In fact, I'd place Apollo well down the list of important events.
: Any number of technological, political, and social changes were more
: important.

Nothing was a radical as going from being a single heavenly body
inhabitant to going to another for thr first time.

Eric

: Paul

Paul F. Dietz ) wrote:
: Eric Chomko wrote:

: Are you saying the DOD budget during the Cold War should have either
: stayed the same or actually have gone down?

: In 20/20 hindsight, it could have been smaller. Avoiding
: Vietnam would probably have saved a lot of money, for example.
: And we had many more nuclear weapons than we really needed.

Why do you think that was?

: Explain to me why you think
: that the DOD isn't a "large government program".

: Sorry, that's your hallucinations talking to you again, not me.
: Anyway, the DOD budget wasn't an exercise in national potlatch
: like NASA's was.

After WWII, the defnse industry became an industry like any other,
requiring the bottom lines and the like. For you to claim that the DOD was
probably too large during the cold war and then not even be open to that
budget having been manipulated on purpose, politically, as quid pro quo
for an industrial constituency with deep pockets, only means that you are
naive or in denial. Pretty sad coimng from a military brat...

Eric

: Paul

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
news:POGef.13338

Some small companies do not deserve to get on
their financial feet. Some times we have to stand
back and let nature take its course.

Yeah. That's worked *so* well in getting private
spaceflight these last 40 years...

Perhaps you think welfare dependency for space start ups is a better
road to commercial success, personally, I do not.

The appropriate course of action is to help create
an environment where viable small companies can
effectively find their own feet.

Yes, by providing a market for them. ESAS will need
a lot of things, from actuators to rocket engines of all
sizes to tanks of all sizes to you name it.

ESAS is a false market that leads no where - it is too expensive to be
commercialised. This is completely different to working with commercial
markets to increase their viability.

Of the great many methods available for subsidizing
a new industry this is one of the most destructive
and least effective, it tends to also be quite corrupt.
NASA selectively over paying for products no one
wants, creating a false economy.

Who says they're overpaying?

You are : "Now, Acme ConGlomMegaRocket Corp wants to throw buckets of
money at them to buy a product they can bang out in short order. Now
they have the money to begin development of their vehicle."

And what would be a "less destructive" means of
getting business to a company than buying it's
products and paying a reasonable price for new
product development?

Of products the open market does not want...

Work with the market not against it, help the process of
commercialisation without picking winners:
- Prize systems that ensure open competition for specific public good
objectives.
- Cross the board tax incentives.
- The funding of pure research that helps the industry as a whole.
- Red tape reduction/subsidisation.
- *General* industry support.
- Etcetera.

Why would NASA paying XCOR for tank R&D be
somehow preferable to, say, NASA or a Nasa
contractor paying XCOR or SpaceDev or whoever
for engines?

Because it falls in the category of NACA like pure research that
benefits the entire industry - I presume knowledge gained would become
available to others in the industry.

Pete.