“When he answered a congressman’s question that he didn’t care if the Chinese beat us back to the moon, that congressman replied, “It does to me.” These are the people who write the checks for NASA, and if you get on their wrong side, your proposals don’t get funded. “

Obviously it doesn’t matter what side you are on, becasue that congressman never got the funding NASA said they needed to return to the moon.

I actually did listen to that committee session you refer to. What the congressman said made a great sound bite for the folks back home in his space district, but making a catchy sound bite is a lot different and easier than getting funding for a return to the moon with the apollo on steriods model of architecture.

If you read through comments I posted on the china thread you will find links form the Reagan era. President Reagan wanted a lot more commercial for NASA and his highway in space was never able to break the back of the usual suspects in congress and NASA and the pork machine.

Yes, because the companies are still not integrated and still maintain heritage practices.

A heritage is not a practice, which in itself is a nebulous thing to define and identify. But…

Legacy Lockheed Sunnyvale is vastly different than legacy Martin Denver when it comes to spacecraft. Boeing Seattle was different than MDAC Huntington Beach.

…you were just saying the line between oldspace and Newspace lies in OR. So exactly how are you drawing any such line given variation between companies you’d prefer to group together?

No, because that is not the difference.

If it isn’t, then this debate over what oldspace and Newspace is a meaningless distraction.

Rewarded for its failures even. Challenger got them ISS, Columbia got them Constellation and Constellation is getting them SLS + Orion.

No one that posts here that I’m aware of is paid by SpaceX, from its government or commercial contracts. Most of us just don’t want our elected representatives to spend 40 _billion_ of our taxpayer dollars to develop a government-designed, -owned, and -operated system that SpaceX can provide to NASA for less than $300 _million_.

Don’t make stuff up.

And if you can’t make an argument without namecalling, then take your ugliness elsewhere.

“I would have no problem with them having a commercial space company. Do it. Just don’t use government funds… You can’t have it both ways.”

Boeing, LockMart, and OSC are all commercial space companies that sell rides on their launch vehicles to commercial payloads. They all also bid on and undertake federal contracts that are paid for by government (taxpayer) funds.

It’s always been both ways. What alternate universe are you posting from?

Oy vey…

“This is senseless. It was Constellation that put them all in one basket, which Senator Hutchison and (apparently) you were all in favor of. The commercial “basket” is multiple baskets — SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, etc.”

Here is a basic history of NASA having all it’s eggs in one basket.

The History of Shuttle Launch Delays

“A 2007 analysis of shuttle launch delays by the Associated Press found that the NASA spacecraft launched about 40 percent of the time. The AP analysis found that of the 118 shuttle flights that had flown at the time, 47 lifted off on time. More than half of the delays were caused by technical malfunctions, while foul weather made up about a third of the delays,”

it goes on with:

“The price of launch delay

Over time, repeated delays can have a ripple effect across NASA’s later shuttle missions, since the launch schedule must sometimes shift to accommodate a difficult flight.”

This is all your eggs in one basket “on steriods”. With commercial services if they do not launch they do not get paid. NASA gets paid for it’s failures commercial firms don’t. Unless of course you give them a cost plus contract with escalator clauses and failed flight clauses.

So you are saying if America was the only country on the planet with commercial destinations and commercial rides to space, dominating an entire sector of the global economy we would not have any pride in that?

What we should be ashamed of our entrepreneurial spirit and innovation, the cornerstone of what makes America great? Proving once again it is American private enterprise and not government that makes our economy the strongest one ever in the history of planet earth?

Ya I guess you are correct, America could take no pride in that. Let’s dump billions more down the rat hole.. but at least they will have a NASA sticker on them before the big flush.

Buy rides from Russia at 56 million a seat.

Fund a domestic, dual use,commercial service start up, that is currently not available, and buy the rides after it is in place for a projected 20 million per seat.

Design, develop and then pay commercial aerospace companies to build it at proposed costs of 75 – 125 million per seat. (ares1 projected costs were closer to 250 million a seat)

Which way do you proposed is the cheapest way forward for America to get it’s astronauts to their workplace in LEO?

I am aware of no one who holds such a belief. But please, keep making a fool of yourself spinning straw men in your obvious antipathy and fear of Mr. Musk.

There is a concern (rightly or wrongly) that by having LEO an exclusive commercial operation, it puts our launch eggs in one basket-a serious mistake with shuttle in the 1982-86 time frame.

This is senseless. It was Constellation that put them all in one basket, which Senator Hutchison and (apparently) you were all in favor of. The commercial “basket” is multiple baskets — SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, etc.