With new markets (as in fact they are, with suborbital). Existing ones won’t do the job.

— Donald

That is not true. The whole Ariane V development was paid for by Europe. LM and Boeing only got 500 mil each and the companies contributed 1 and 2 billion each. The Kourou facilities are underwritten by France.

If that is true, than how do you propose that the New Space folks finance their new launch vehicles? You just stated, in essense, that all is lost and whatever the government is doing is our only option.

Fortunately, we don’t need to “amortize the development of a new commercial launch system.” We’ve already built the EELVs (and we have Elon to fund SpaceX). All we need to do is take a lesson from the folks across the Atlantic and market the EELVs, a la Ariane — which is not exactly a cheap launch vehicle itself yet manages to sustain itself as a commercial provider with far lower subsidies than Boeing and Lockheed Martin are being paid just to stand still.

— Donald

None of those by themselves, or all together, are large enough markets to amortize the development of a new commercial launch system.

Nonsense. How about the comsat market that we hand to the Russians (who may soon get banned from launching American satellites) and Europeans? How about ISS logistics? How about taking some of the tourist flights away from the Soyuz? There are plenty of markets out there if we choose to take a risk and a short-term market-leading loss — that is, if we behave like we believe our own entrepreneurial rhetoric. With the absurd infrastructure subsidies plus the guaranteed military base market, if they can’t make a go of it now, there is no future for American commercial space. But, they have to act fast, while both the Chinese and the Russians are in the dog house and prices are high and likely to get higher. Or, they can play it safe and suckle the government teet and lose a once-in-a-decade opportunity to break into the global commercial market. Unfortunately, I know how to bet my money on that one. . . .

— Donald

i have personally lost a lot of hope in SpaceX’s ability to deliver cheap, human-rated access to space before the delivery of Orion/Ares, even if COTS funding were dramatically increased. no doubt Boeing and/or Lockheed Martin could do it – but at what cost? keeping in mind these are the companies responsible for the shockingly cost-overrun LCS and JSF, why can we in the space-enthusiast community expect these massive government coddled defense companies to deliver any more efficiently or quickly than a newspace startup? our hands arent tied here, they’re handcuffed and the key has been lost.

That’s because you ignorant Gomers and Goobers can’t get yerself a descent scientifical and methamagical post-sputnik edjication.

One phrase : ‘Ares I’.

QED.

None of the US options can supply propellant neither.