“But commercial crew is not a solely pay fo rservice system, unless building a space ship is a “service.””

Have you even looked at the CCDev and CCiCap milestone schedules? It doesn’t sound like you know what NASA is paying for. NASA is paying these companies to demonstrate that they are capable of performing what NASA wants for crew transportation, not that they know how to build a “space ship”.

“The government is not only the sole customer of these “commercial” space ships but, with it providing 90 percent of the cost of developing them, for all intents and purposes the sole investor.”

I explained this already above, but apparently you are not in any industry that uses the same funding solution. What is your background?

NASA is developing Commercial Crew for their own use, not anybody else’s, and they don’t want to buy “industry standard” crew transportation services, but services that satisfy NASA’s standards. Why is that? Because there are no “industry standards” for crew transportation to LEO, the field is too new. So instead of having to deal with two or more proprietary standards, NASA imposes it’s own – which, by the way, is not even completely defined.

That means what Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX are doing is far beyond what they would do for a non-NASA customer. And since NASA is the only customer for NASA-standard crew transportation services, the risk would be that if the companies spent their own money to develop NASA-standard systems, NASA still may not buy transportation services from them. No company in their right mind would risk so much for a government agency, since EVERY government contractor knows that Congress can change their minds on a daily basis.

However, because Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX will be able to use the same vehicles to offer non-government transportation services (Bigelow for instance), NASA feels that it is appropriate to have CCiCap participants co-invest in the program, which they all are. But NASA is pushing CCiCap for their own use, not anyone else’s.

Funny, he has no problem with Ares and SLS developers being paid for what they do whether they produce flying actually hardware or not.

One difference between Mark and me is (as many times as I have seen him state erroneous comments and never admit his errors), I will admit it when I am wrong.

Kind of hit and miss on your arguments too…

“From Investopedia”

Why didn’t you provide the WHOLE definition?

“Investopedia explains ‘Subsidy’

There are many forms of subsidies given out by the government, including welfare payments, housing loans, student loans and farm subsidies. For example, if a domestic industry, like farming, is struggling to survive in a highly competitive international industry with low prices, a government may give cash subsidies to farms so that they can sell at the low market price but still achieve financial gain.”

And you haven’t shown how paying for services rendered is somehow a “subsidy”. You say:

“Cash payments to companies to build space ships is, by definition, a subsidy.”

So $8B in “cash” payments to Lockheed Martin to build the MPCV space ship is, by definition, a subsidy? Funny how you don’t complain about that…

By your definition any time the government pays for a product or service, then that is a subsidy? Boy, you can tell you’ve never taken a class in economics, because then our whole economy is one GIANT subsidy.

No Mark, you fail to convince because you fail to understand that a milestone schedule, in which payments are not made until a specified product or service is delivered, is not a subsidy.

Oh, and when are you going to start complaining about the $8B MPCV subsidy, and $30B SLS subsidy?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/010/076dnifo.asp?page=3

“Definition of ‘Subsidy’
A benefit given by the government to groups or individuals usually in the form of a cash payment or tax reduction. The subsidy is usually given to remove some type of burden and is often considered to be in the interest of the public.”

Cash payments to companies to build space ships is, by definition, a subsidy.