Virgin has no stated plans to build an orbital vehicle in that timeframe. They don’t even seem to be able to build a suborbital one (largely because they were too reverent of Burt Rutan). I’d bet good money that XCOR will beat them into space (if you don’t arbitrarily declare it to be a hundred kilometers altitude).

Russia has a backlog of private space tourists, bigelow worries about having manned access to his stations and you feel there is not enough work for four vehicles? It is the fact that having an overflow of suppliers causes prices to fall as competition for customers increases. The question comes down to how serious is the USA in wanting private orbital space flight. Until the government throws a few billion at the companies that are already launching (delta, atlas) to put a capsule on a rocket and start launching then they are not TRUELY serious about having the capability.

With a 3 TRILLION dollar YEARLY budget the USA can have the capacity ANYTIME the political will surfaces. Money is nothing but a red herring. Engineering is a red herring. It is political will that would drag taxpayers kicking and screaming to the table and convince them that space is the future.

COTS doesn’t fully fund a development effort. Most of the other competitors would have had RPK’s problem (funding). Also there isn’t enough work to support 4 different vehicles (which leads to investors not wanting to support a competitor that isn’t going to receive a long term contract).

Until the past two weeks, I would not have thought it a practical possibility for Congress to be willing to add more money to COTS in the short term to correct this redress; i.e., to fund one of the previous proposers who put forward EELV-launched crew capability to eliminate our dependence on Vladimir Putin’s whims. However, things have changed. It is a very real possibility that, with leadership – and with no resistance from NASA this time – we finally have a geopolitical confluence of events that could allow this to happen.

And we should find ways to push it – including with the two campaigns. After all, Obama’s support for a national space council didn’t come out of thin air; some folks around here pushed for it behind the scenes these last several weeks (or more). Pushing for a second $500m (total, over several years) solely focused on COTS-D in order to get out from under Vladimir’s thumb would have more resonance now than just a month ago; and, it is an election year, as well.

Cap Child, I don’t know from where your thoughts are hatched, and I don’t want to know, but you are doing a wonderfully original impersonation of the state bird of Minnesota.

“If one doesn’t like difficult decisions one should work towards avoiding them in the first place and if Congress truly wants to there’s nothing stopping them from ramming through (veto-proof) COTS D _and_ an independent review of options _and_ a tiny EELV capsule for assured access to the ISS _and_ “pocket change” for t/Space as /at least/ a backup plan to get beyond LEO.

The price tag for those four together shouldn’t cause any heartburn in Washington, we’re almost talking rounding errors.

You’re the United States of America, there’s no need to muck about: it’s all there if you so choose.”

Combine something like that with the funding source Tazz singled out and its even better. How does one wake up Congress?