I can see my financial lessons are starting to sink into your brain. Instead of claiming that investors want “quarterly profit”, now you’ve upgraded your language to “high yield on investment”. Why pretty soon you’ll be able to talk about financial stuff in public without embarrassing yourself…

Which may explain why you can’t see the light. Yeah, you “…got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals” alright.

Ronnie, stop talking. Start flying.

=sigh= Ronnie, your ignorance of how capitalism operates is chilling. No wonder private rocket companies can’t get flying. You don’t seem willing grasp the core of it– return a high yield on investment for your shareholders/stockholders. That’s what it’s all about. You want — and need- investors who demand a return on those investments to give that up and invest in your high risk venture hoping the ROI will come at TBD time. Dealing w/t government, no less, who award contracts to the lowest bidder. Jeeez. Sure, some investors willing to play that game but the vast deep-pocketed majority arent and in the age of austerity they simply arent going to wait ‘hoping’ for a return on that investment from a high risk venture with a limited market. You’re going to have a very hard learning curve. Everything you post shows it:

“I have worked for a number of them (selling to the gov’t) , both large and small, mostly satisfying niche product & service needs for the government.” =sigh= That’s nothing to brag about. ‘Nuff said.

High time you see Destination Moon and duke it out in the private sector and see how unfettered free market capitalism operates. Musk learned the hard way. Looks like you will too.

“ Start with Musk– the ‘free market’ has handed him a hard lesson– he’s broke.”

You need to get your AM radio fixed. First of all, he has stated he ran out of cash. There is a big difference between that and “broke”. But we already knew that you were not a financial expert (see prior post)

Also, Musk sold some of his Tesla stock during their IPO and netted $24M, so he now has cash (even if that is your definition of broke).

He also has those little things, oh what do you call them… oh yes, LOTS OF STOCK in Tesla and SpaceX, which will net him a nice sum as he sells it off.

You’re a day late, and a dollar short. Actually many days and many dollars, but hey, we’re talking about you here, so it’s assumed you’re behind the times.

“The ‘value’ to ‘free market capitalists’ is in returning the highest quarterly profit possible to your investors.”

You apparently don’t own stock, and you’re not an investor of any kind. This is not a knock against you, but it does help to understand your ignorance of the capital markets, venture capitalists, and when investors get returns on their investments.

Here’s a hint – Startup investors, or those investing in new markets, don’t typically see an ROI until there is a significant event like an IPO or trade sale (M&A). They invest for the long term, not “quarterly profits”.

“It’s called capitalism — and you’ve got a steep learning curve ahead of you about it. Especially when it comes to peddling goods and services in the ‘free market’ with a limited demand for said product and services in an age of austerity. You propose that profit driven capitalists, ever hungry for the largest return on their investments, invest in a high risk venture that peddles its services to an unprofitable, losing concern, the U.S. government, which contracts for said services to the lowest bidder.”

I don’t know what industry you make a living in, but it’s also clear that you do not work for one that sells products or services to the government. I have worked for a number of them, both large and small, mostly satisfying niche product & service needs for the government.

You wouldn’t see it if you worked in food service (not implying that’s you, but who knows), but there are many companies that focus just on government contracts – and they do very well. One of my companies used to have a 30/70 split for commercial/government, and then decided to change to 70/30 because of the huge opportunities. They are doing just fine (~$10B in revenues).

The DOD already uses commercial transport providers to move people and cargo around the safe parts of the world. For NASA, this would be equivalent to transporting crew to LEO. And just like all levels of government use tax dollars to pay for infrastructure (airports, roads, etc.), the government also provides direct assistance to many companies to help them acquire skills or capabilities they will need to perform work for the government. This also is nothing new, and this is what the commercial crew part of the NASA budget is meant to do.

Whether it’s $6B over 5 years, or $1.2B over 3 years, commercial space doesn’t need the massive amounts of investment that any NASA vehicle does. Boeing only needs to build a capsule and LAS, and SpaceX only needs the LAS.

Finally, you seem to think that commercial space must create a market. A market already exists, and it starts after the Soyuz-ISS contract ends in 2015. That is the big initial contract that everyone is targeting, and anything earlier (Bigelow, ISS crew increase, etc.) is just that much better. SpaceX can afford to bide their time, since they have the lowest cost & earliest solution. Remember, they said they could have commercial crew ready within 3 years, so they have plenty of time to focus on their COTS program and build up a supply of Dragon capsules. Patience is a virtue, in business as in life.

Commercial space can wait for this budget mess to settle, and use Congresses shortsightedness with the end of the Shuttle to ride to the rescue and protect the U.S. Taxpayer from future Soyuz purchases.

The future’s so bright I gotta wear sunglasses!

“. My point was that Russia is far from being a charity case. And by using partnerships not only do you share costs you also spread expertise and good will.”

Agreed. And I also think that more activity by other countries will spur our government to pursue the “We Always Have To Be First” policy, and invest more in space. Competition is good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tortoise_and_hare_rackham.jpg
I wonder if we can talk up a new Race?

=blink= The ‘value’ to ‘free market capitalists’ is in returning the highest quarterly profit possible to your investors. It’s called capitalism — and you’ve got a steep learning curve ahead of you about it. Especially when it comes to peddling goods and services in the ‘free market’ with a limited demand for said product and services in an age of austerity. You propose that profit driven capitalists, ever hungry for the largest return on their investments, invest in a high risk venture that peddles its services to an unprofitable, losing concern, the U.S. government, which contracts for said services to the lowest bidder. Good grief. Try pitching that BS to deep pocketed private sector investors on the premise it ‘saves the government money’ and you’ll get laughed out of the room. Savvy investors, using the cold calculus of the marketplace, will sink capital in something like offshore oil drilling, where the return on investment delivers a much more profitable yield for much less risk. Jeez. If you’re going to be a proponent of capitalism to fuel your rocket companies you’d better start understanding how it operates. The goal of capitalists is to turn a profit for stockholders/shareholders/investors, not ‘save the government money.’

“Again, you look to the past for limits, and I see lessons.” =blink= Past is prologue and you aren’t learning the lessons it is showing you.

“ULA and Orbital Sciences have been flying for quite a while, but I see you apparently don’t know about them.” =blink= Uh, free market Earth to Ron, free market Earth to Ron— not nearly enough to elicit the kind of massive capital investment to establish private rocketry as a viable alternative to government funded space operations– because the demand for those services simply isn’t there. Learn a few lesson about the dynamics of free market capitalism. For starts, avoid pitching investors you’ll be ‘thrilling’ the U.S. taxpayer. Good grief. Start with Musk– the ‘free market’ has handed him a hard lesson– he’s broke. But he’ll build confidence with investors vowing to ‘save the government money’ when he waves to the crowd, climbs into the first operational commercial Dragon capsule and bravely rides it into orbit and pilots it safely back to Earth. Should be a good show– just like Destination Moon.

“Russia is building a new capsule, two rocket families and a new launch complex. As well as updating their old Soviet military infrastructure.”

Russia has been releasing happy announcements like this for the past decade, but they haven’t pulled the trigger on any of it because they can’t afford it. Look at any defense project they have been working on, and you’ll see they have been stretching out production – a sign that they are not getting enough funding.

What Russia has been doing to get around this is partner with other countries. They have partnered with ESA to build a Soyuz launch pad at the ESA Guiana Space Centre, and India, China and others use Russian space hardware. The same is true for their military hardware such as their newest generation of fighters (co-production with India).

Russia may have hopes and aspirations, but we’ll have plenty of notice when they finally decide to create something new – their development cycle is longer than NASA’s!!