X-Prize Won! I said it wouldn't be done.

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:43:18 -0500, in a place far, far away, Earl
Colby Pottinger made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

(Greg Kuperberg) :

In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
And since when did SpaceDev join the space-industrial complex?

I described it that way because I had checked that SpaceDev bought
AMROC's blueprints. The two companies together have a nearly 20-year
history of government contracts.

But now that I look at "The AMROC story", I sort-of see the point.
It seems that if you come breezing into town as a libertarian maverick,
then a lot of people will believe that you are one, even if you use that
introduction to get government contracts. The fairest description of
AMROC and SpaceDev is that they are in between old and new. I'll concede
that AMROC was founded after the Shuttle was built, and that SpaceDev
isn't just AMROC with a new name.

Fair to call them new/old but it is not fair to call them part of the
space-industrial complex. When you use that term most(?) people here think
about the big contractors who have a warm relationship with NASA.

Yes, unlike AMROC, which was actually done in by Marshall.

(Greg Kuperberg) writes:

Rutan himself has acknowledged the loophole in this story. One news
clip (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3077803/) said that he was "holding
back project details from ATK Thiokol Propulsion, a key contractor
on SpaceShipOne' propulsion systems". That quote is what got me onto
this point. Interestingly, the next two sentences then hedge in yet
another direction: "Rutan says he promised himself he would 'fess up if
they asked. They didn't."

This may not be coincidence. Contractors supplying hi tech stuff to the
military, NSA, and so on, may normally work by meeting the customer's
requirements and not asking about the system they go into. Unlike Rutan,
the NSA (for example) probably would not 'fess up if asked. So the
contractors may get out of the habit of asking.

Lou Scheffer

On 2004-10-04, Mike Walsh wrote:

(I believe that other complex is commonly described
as the "Milititary-Industrial Complex". Back when Ike worried
about it there was no NASA arround although there was a
NACA and JPL existed).

It was, I think, his last Presidential speech where the phrase is
remembered from... hmm...

http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/farewell.htm

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex."

January 1961... so, yes, there was a NASA.

/pedantry

--
-Andrew Gray

In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
Fair to call [SpaceDev] new/old but it is not fair to call them part of the
space-industrial complex. When you use that term most(?) people here think
about the big contractors who have a warm relationship with NASA.

So SpaceDev is a little different; it's a small contractor with a
warm relationship with NASA. Moreover, Rutan didn't just say that he
wasn't NASA, he said that he was private, period. But his contractors
- including SpaceDev - are a different story. All of them live on
government contracts.

In my view, this only makes sense. The entire space industry is awash in
government work, and it would just be foolish not to rely on the expertise
derived from it. I'm not saying that the space industry has to have such
a strong government presence to succeed; maybe in another world it could
have developed more independently, like the personal computer industry.
But in the world we live in, that's the way it is.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \ Home page: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~greg/
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

"Jeff Findley" :

"dave schneider" wrote in message
om...
"Jeff Findley" wrote:

I'm hoping that the majority of NASA employees are happy as well.


I bet there's a few that will be standing in line at the ticket wicket
of Virgin Galactic! ("I've put a few people up hill in my day, it's
my turn now!")

That would be hard to do on the typical NASA salary.

Not if you are a PHB.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

"Andrew Gray" wrote in message
. ..
On 2004-10-04, Mike Walsh wrote:

(I believe that other complex is commonly described
as the "Milititary-Industrial Complex". Back when Ike worried
about it there was no NASA arround although there was a
NACA and JPL existed).

It was, I think, his last Presidential speech where the phrase is
remembered from... hmm...

http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/farewell.htm

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex."

January 1961... so, yes, there was a NASA.


Yes, and as a matter of fact I was working for
NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center back
in the fall of 1960.

Mike Walsh

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
(Greg Kuperberg) :


There is a real limit to how much you can scale up a MIG climb. A rocket
powered design like the SS1 can scale up for higher, longer free-falls,
and
even maybe orbit.

Earl Colby Pottinger


You have to have a very elastic measuring system to claim that the
SS1 could possibly make orbit.

After the "scale-up" the only thing you would be likely to be
able to reuse is the name plate. I believe that even the cabin
wasn't completely airtight on SS1, but the leakage rate was
tolerable for the short duration of the flight.

Higher, longer free falls mean more energy required to be killed
on reentry and greater physical and thermal stresses.

Mike Walsh

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 12:39:25 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
And since when did SpaceDev join the space-industrial complex?

I described it that way because I had checked that SpaceDev bought
AMROC's blueprints. The two companies together have a nearly 20-year
history of government contracts.

That's a pretty absurd reason. Particularly considering that AMROC
had very little in the way of government contracts. Certainly not
enough to keep them in business.

However, Scaled Composites has had quite a few government
contracts. Burt Rutan had expressed a personal aversion to
government contracts because of the restrictions that always came
with them. After he sold his company (I know he bought it back)
Scaled Composites performed on a number of government contracts.

I claim they are a part of the "Space-Industrial Complex"
and will become an even greater part of it in the future.

Mike Walsh

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:43:18 -0500, in a place far, far away, Earl
Colby Pottinger made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:


Fair to call them new/old but it is not fair to call them part of the
space-industrial complex. When you use that term most(?) people here
think
about the big contractors who have a warm relationship with NASA.

Yes, unlike AMROC, which was actually done in by Marshall.

I believe it is more accurate to say that they were done in
by their own problems.

Mike Walsh

"Al Jackson" wrote in message
m...
"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
ink.net...
Al Jackson wrote:

NPR reported tonight that the payee was an 'unknown' insurance
company, unless I am going nuts, heard a long time ago it would
be Loyds of London who would be paying off.
If so, worth an ad for them!

Lloyds isn't really an insurance company. It's an exchange through
which
one would take an insurance policy with a specific syndicate (a Name, to
use
Lloyds parlance). That Name has apparently remained anonymous.

I see, well learned something today.
Well, it is indeed Lloyd's even if the 'Name' is anonymous, ...,
I still don't know why NPR didn't mention Lloyd's?

Lloyds had a big financial debacle a few years back
and I am not certain what their position is now.

Mike Walsh