So no, I don’t think that federal funding for buggy whips, coal-powered battleships, astronauts, or any other such ephemera is inevitable. Call me crazy. (Oh wait, you just did that).

“What a whoppingly bad assumption to make, especially in these budgetary times”

Are you insane? I do not mean figuratively, I mean really .. are you nuts?

The Nation has spent money on mannned spaceflight, for 1/2 a century. I am willing to assume The Nation will be spending money on manned spaceflight tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, next decade.

The person making the insane assumption is the person suggesting that manned spaceflight spending by the United States of America Inc. is going to ZERO OUT every dollar of manned spaceflight funding anytime in the for seeable future.

Now if you have a crystal ball, can you tell me what year I can expect a ZERO manned spaceflight budget? Give me that year, and I will adjust my assumptions on how much bang for the buck the Nation could be generating utilizing different economic strategies.

We have three, Atlas V, Delta IV, Falcon 9 examples of companies putting their own skin in the game. This weird freakin’ assumption, that seems to be unique to NASA, that companies will absolutely refuse to bid on a contract because they have to fund part of it, well it is crazy. In a cut throat economy we are in right now competition would be fierce. Just because congress devises a contracting system to maximize revenues for their districts does not mean it is the only option they have.

You have not told us about Sensenbrenner’s role while all of this went down., which was generally to make life as difficult as possible for Clinton, including carrying out vital national security activities.

Since the SLS will never fly as designed, the point is moot.

The >99.5% is the historical and current fact of how HSF has been and is funded. You have put forward no credible evidence that your “infrastructure” to nowhere would be any less heavily subsidized, much much less producing a net return of tax revenue to justify such a government investment.

Of course I have never claimed that you have expressed awareness of these basic financial facts regarding HSF. In fact, I have often and quite accurately complained that you don’t bother to look at even the basic financial facts and don’t bother to even do the even the basic financial arithmetic. Instead, you perpetually fantasize about the astronomically lowballed balloons promoted by a UFO chaser, and you see yourself as having perpetual cosmic source of free money:

The congress, through NASA, is going to provide funds for NASA to burn up.

What a whoppingly bad assumption to make, especially in these budgetary times — that government funding is just there to be had to “burn up”, without even a modicum of justification needed, except that in the future you have dreams of burning up far more fantastic amounts still.

Is that what you write when you write letters to Congress? “Dear Congressperson: I and my special friends have a vision of the future. It’s a vision where we import lots of oil and turn it into lots of propellant and burn it in space. And to do that we will so need to burn tens of billions of taxpayer dollars that you must provide us here on earth. We have to burn all this money so that we that we can burn far more of your money still in the future to send my diapered heroes back to the moon or to Mars. Or maybe an asteroid. I heard we are facing a fiscal cliff but nevertheless government money is just there to burn so fund this infrastructure to nowhere now. Disrespectively yours, ….”

Still thinking about what is going on

BTW everyone have a Happy Hijri New Year…make 1434 the best year ever RGO

Can you provide quotes where I suggest 99.5% of the cost is born by the taxpayer? If there is one thing I have been absolutely clear on is lower the taxpayer to private sector ratio of funding. Tactics for achieving higher multiplier effects and technics for private sector capital movement.

The congress, through NASA, is going to provide funds for NASA to burn up. What is the cheapest items you can launch into space, that will be needed and push the development of human spaceflight?

Hardware is expensive, so minimize the hardware, like a Nautilus – X. The cheapest thing to burn up after that is fuel. No matter what we do in manned spaceflight, fuel handling will be a factor. The sooner we learn it the better.

The farther away you fly the more expensive. So where is the end of our frontier? GEO, also where all our assets are. Short LEO2GEO flights burning up one of the cheapest cargos we can put in space. Hell put up a platform and they can swap out experiments, test closed loop life support, power, reusable propulsion, fuel storage and handling, create a new commercial sector for fuel station activities.

Cost estimates for the Nautilus was 6 billion, plus a 50% cost overrun and you are at 9 billion with traditional FAR, we already know we can do better with SAA’s. We blew through 12 billion for Constellation. No new market, no space based infrastructure, not even one orbital test launch.

We could have a competitive launch market for fuel. Anyone could launch. NASA doesn’t even have to be involved at all. They just have to be the anchor customer and be a bulk purchaser.

All this falls easily in NASA’s current budget and the Nation would be seeing a constant increase is infrastructure at realistic costs. If NASA is only allowed to lease the vehicles the commercial sector would be positioned for dual use. Something I have hammered on from day one.