No, you havn’t learned anything. You apparently don’t know the difference between a standard FAR contract and a Space Act Agreement executed under NASA OTA. These things are readily found on the web. Instead of wasting your time on ignorant replies, educate yourself.

“They don’t determine the tax rates either, right?”

Politicians do determine tax rates. They’re passed in legislation.

But ISS crew size, upmass, and downmass requirements are not.

Duh…

“I responded to your objection by clearly correcting your gross misunderstanding”

Where?

On my first concern, I quoted to you your own language about taxpayer money being used to guarantee commercial business, and you still havn’t corrected that statement or explained what you really meant.

And on my second concern, you’ve never responded to the issue of arbitrarily limiting government demand and the resulting market, company revenues, and jobs.

“You also lack extremely basic legal knowledge that would be necessary to understand COTS (no contract there, just an agreement!)”

They are legally very different things with very different flexibilities in terms of what the government can agree to do (or not do). If you don’t know the difference between the FAR and OTA, then you don’t even know the two major bodies of contractual law that NASA operates under, nevertheless any of the differences between the two or the details contained in either.

“Stick to engineering.”

Where did I say that I was an engineer? How do you know I’m not a contract specialist at NASA or an aerospace firm? Or a scientist that works on NASA missions? Or a businessman or an economist?

Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.

FWIW…

You could try to EDUCATE yourself. You might learn something.

In other news, the U.S. does not employ a Constitution, Congressional statutes are not really laws, and property deeds are really just the funny papers.

It’s an agreement

Oh I see, it’s not a contract with the government, it’s an agreement with the government. I learn something new every day!

Politicians and bureaucrats don’t determine ISS demand.

They don’t determine the tax rates either, right? You’re such a splendid source of information I didn’t know. An agreement is not a contract, and Munckins rather than politicians determine how NASA spends its money. I feel so educated now!

you’ve failed to respond to the two concerns I’ve raised about your idea.

If you raise an intelligible concern, I’ll respond to it. As it is, you lack basic reading comprehension, having preposterously misinterpreted the SCOTS proposal. I responded to your objection by clearly correcting your gross misunderstanding and you still persist with it. You also lack extremely basic legal knowledge that would be necessary to understand COTS (no contract there, just an agreement!), so any sane person will feel free to ignore your ramblings on that subject. Stick to engineering.

Or, if they have the latest Russian missiles. I know that the S-300 really scares Israel.

you need to think out of the box. We wont deal with SAM’s the way we did in North Vietnam…we will deal with them the way the IDF did (with our help I believe) when they penetrated Syrian Air Defense and the Syrians did not even know the IDF was there.

I would guess that most of our involvement was with Intelligence. Perhaps some help with getting Turkey to cooperate. Israel develops their own ECM and it pretty good I hear. The real trick was that they came at the Syrians through Turkey and the they weren’t expecting an attack from that direction.

COTS does not employ government contracts. The program employs Space Act Agreements that are designed to emulate commercial contracts. It’s an agreement to fund, in a commercial manner, the development of a capability that can meet both commercial and government needs.

“SCOTS does not guarantee business”

You said it does above. Here’s your quote:

“the Falcon 9 has four firm non-NASA launches contracted, with substantial deposits or contractual penalties if the customer backs out, then under Super-COTS grant-matching NASA could also buy four flights.”

Having NASA “grant-match” commercial deposits or contracts in case a commercial customer “backs out” _is_ using taxpayer money to guarantee commercial business. It’s just like agricultural subsidies, and it incentivizes companies to produce things that the marketplace doesn’t want, rather than spending their capital on things that the marketplace does want.

“what politicians and bureaucrats demand it to purchase.”

Politicians and bureaucrats don’t determine ISS demand. ISS demand is what it is. ISS requires so many crew and so much cargo per period of time to remain operational and productive. It’s not something that’s arbitrarily voted on in Congress or arbitrarily changed by bureaucrats.

“Both distort what a free market would have purchased.”

Since when are government purchases of commercial goods or services not part of the free market? When a NASA secretary goes to Staples or Office Depot to restock her office’s supply cabinet using a government credit card, she’s making purchases on the free market. She may be meeting a government need, but she’s doing so via the free market.

“The arguments you are making against SCOTS are also arguments against COTS and against other kinds of government contracting.”

No, they’re not. COTS doesn’t guarantee commercial business. COTS doesn’t arbitrarily limit the market.

“The real problem you have against SCOTS is that it would put the lie to scammers and daydreamers”

Where did I say that I want COTS to support “scammers and daydreamers” (or anything of the sort)? Don’t put words in my mouth.

I’ve repeatedly raised the same two concerns. Please respond to those concerns, instead of pretending that you can read my mind and making up arguments that I’ve never .

“It would sort out the wheat from the chaff.”

COTS does that already. There’s a two-stage selection process, and on top of that, if a company doesn’t meet its milestones, they’re removed from the program and their funding is recompeted.

We’ve already seen this work successfully with Rocketplane Kistler. They couldn’t meet their milestones for private fundraising. Because the private sector wouldn’t fund them, NASA wouldn’t either.

There’s no need to arbitrarily limit government demand or guarantee commercial business to determine whether a COTS company has a viable business case. COTS already terminates Space Act Agreements with companies if the private sector won’t fund their business case.

“That is the real problem you have with SCOTS.”

Look, over multiple posts you’ve failed to respond to the two concerns I’ve raised about your idea. Either respond to those concerns or admit that your idea has flaws (or just don’t respond).

But don’t tell me what I’m really thinking. You don’t know.

FWIW…

Hey look, we agree! But the original statement was that NASA would not want a re-used LV/RV. And I “believe” it is true. Now I can not say for sure nor do I have available documents, just my experience. I also believe that NASA may come around once the re-usability has proven itself but it is far off in the (possibly not so distant) future and especially for crewed vehicles.

“Cost reductions may come later after commercial orbital RLV technology has matured.”

Absolutely.

I think I was trying to address somehow the difference between the technological aspect of reusability and whether there is a financial case for reusability. We can “always” come up with a reusable system if we put enough cash in it, yet does it make sense to the users/developers? Today I think the market is limited but it may expand quickly if reusability (of some sort) can be shown to be cost effective.

In a mature commercial transportation system, the traveler or person transporting cargo generally wouldn’t care. The customer generally cares about things like cost, timeliness, reliability, and whether insurance can be purchased. Whether or not various parts of the vehicle are new or used is an implementation detail, a matter for discussion between for example the airline and the airplane builder, not something cargo shippers or airplane passengers often worry about.

So the real long-term question is what effect reusability has on costs, timeliness, uninsured risks, and insurability, as desired by cargo shippers and travelers. Since the cost savings of RLVs depend on high flight rate, which in turn depends on hypothetical markets, it seems to me that timeliness (e.g. DoD’s demand for responsive space) and greater reliability (by e.g. using more expensive parts, by flying more sensors on the rocket and gathering more data) may be better ways to use the early orbital RLVs to improve the transportation service. Cost reductions may come later after commercial orbital RLV technology has matured.

But, that’s what we have to plan for is a major threat. The others we can deal with someway. Also, the issue is 2010 the issue is 2025-2030 as we aren’t going to have a new first line fighter until after 2030. We also have to deal with the surface to air missiles that Russia will sell to other countries in that time period…

no.

First off we should be able to have a fighter enter development and then get to the “fleet” (or the USAF) in under a decade. The F-4 Phantom went from an “internal idea” to a fleet fighter in under 8 years…the entire point that Mr. Gates is making is that we should be able to do something like that…otherwise the entire episode is an effort in stupidity (my words not his).

Second…the fact that the PLA and Russians have nuclear weapons and in my view MAD (ie a counterstrike) would indicate to me that conventional war is very very unlikely. And if it is going to be fought it will not be fought by F-22’s…they wont even play a real role in it.

you need to think out of the box. We wont deal with SAM’s the way we did in North Vietnam…we will deal with them the way the IDF did (with our help I believe) when they penetrated Syrian Air Defense and the Syrians did not even know the IDF was there.

There is the smart way and the Rummy way; He is retired.

Robert G. Oler

I’m not really interested in getting into theological discussions.

But, that’s what we have to plan for is a major threat. The others we can deal with someway. Also, the issue is 2010 the issue is 2025-2030 as we aren’t going to have a new first line fighter until after 2030. We also have to deal with the surface to air missiles that Russia will sell to other countries in that time period.

Rand Simberg:

I have my doubts that whole reusable whole vehicles are cost-effective right now. I think that reusable first stages have a lot of promise. We could also make a reusable orbiter like the HL-20/DreamChaser, etc. But getting the second stage back and usable? We could use an aerobrake perhaps.