Comments on: A tale of two appropriators http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/06/08/a-tale-of-two-appropriators/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-tale-of-two-appropriators Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway... Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:35:41 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 By: Donald F. Robertson http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/06/08/a-tale-of-two-appropriators/#comment-3182 Thu, 09 Jun 2005 19:12:14 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=565#comment-3182 I don’t care about the Space Station at all, except that it be there and that it require supplies. That is the prerequisit for the establishment of a larger commercial space transportation industry, that can later amortize economies of scale and new technology.

No Space Station, no near-term large orbital market, and we wait for the tourists to bootstrap us. Which will happen, but probably not as fast as a lot of us hope.

Elon has it right.

— Donald

]]> By: Greg Kuperberg http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/06/08/a-tale-of-two-appropriators/#comment-3181 Thu, 09 Jun 2005 15:50:50 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=565#comment-3181 If the space station is NASA’s main foot forward, and if the Air Force is even worse, then NASA and the Air Force are in a race to the bottom. You’ll see: come 2010, you’ll have no hope for the space station at all.

]]> By: Donald F. Robertson http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/06/08/a-tale-of-two-appropriators/#comment-3180 Wed, 08 Jun 2005 18:26:53 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=565#comment-3180 Finally, someone in the commercial space world who really gets it, who understands how government and commerce play together to open a new frontier. I consider this note from the Space-X newsletter distributed today the best news I’ve heard in a long time:

“Now that development of Falcon I is almost over, we are turning our focus to Falcon V, and one of the primary markets for that vehicle is resupply of the International Space Station. As such, we will need to work closely with JSC and other parts of NASA to understand the rendezvous and docking/berthing requirements.”

The Space Station is the only large market _currently_ available for commercial space launch vehicles, and it is very refreshing to see Elon understand that, rather than biting the Federal hand that is feeding him.

On to the subject at hand: based on performance alone, I’d put my money on civil space too. Military space management for the past few years, at least in the public world, has been a clear and almost unmitigated disaster. Bad as NASA is, the Air Force has managed to out-do them on almost every level.

— Donald

]]> By: Major Tom http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/06/08/a-tale-of-two-appropriators/#comment-3179 Wed, 08 Jun 2005 14:20:43 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=565#comment-3179 Can NASA put Exploration (or other) programs in Virginia, so that cuts to aeronautics in Virginia is compensated by increases to exploration (or other) in Virginia.

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