Any comment I made would only be pointing out the obvious in terms of the cost to NASA of serving its political masters.
Imagine you’re the administrator of the National Appetizer and Soup Agency. Obviously, you want to keep a whole lot of chefs employed, along with a whole bunch of cooks, kitchen hands and even some waiters and bus boys for the test restaurants. It’s important work, making all these new and innovative appetizers and soups, and compared to other countries, yours are the best in the world.
Now imagine you’re an entrepreneur who wants to open a restaurant. Clearly, you’re going to want to partner with the experts at the National Appetizer and Soup Agency so you can provide the best product. Sure, the paperwork requirements are much more burdensome than just hiring a garage tinker chef or two, but no-one can seriously suggest self-trained amateurs can do the kind of work the government does. Besides, the government has all those big ovens and other equipment. That kind of stuff is hard to make yourself, and it’s not like you can just go out and buy a big industrial oven or stove like you could for the home all those years ago.
I think it’s important to maintain government funding for cooking.. otherwise people would only cook whatever was ordered.
Good job Trent. Getting the obvious point across often requires a bit of poking.
Commerce has to take over at some point or we will forever lament our lack of progress. To say it’s not affordable now is to completely ignore the potential revenue.
SpaceX has been profitable for almost their entire history even before reaching orbit. They will continue to be even if they do nothing else. They have a lot of ‘else’ in the hopper.
A private station is going into orbit by somebody soon because it will be a profitable research station. Six on the I.S.S. does not cover the demand. FH, crew and $500m puts an Alpha station in orbit with about a one year ROI.
Operation of a space transportation company going from orbit to orbit is much easier than operating a launch service company. A one time cost of $100m would put a six passenger ship in orbit ready for continuous service of many potential repeat customers. Needing to be refuelable and amortizing it’s cost over a long useful life it creates a market for other services.
Activity will bring costs down. But profit is available now even at these ridiculously high costs. It’s time for business to make the leap.
The wild west was a good thing overall. We don’t need no stinkin’ govt. badges to lead us.
I’m glad my father died before he could see what a mess NASA made of itself. He was a career NASA pilot who ended up as flight ops director at one of the flight research centers. Very sad.
Any comment I made would only be pointing out the obvious in terms of the cost to NASA of serving its political masters.
Imagine you’re the administrator of the National Appetizer and Soup Agency. Obviously, you want to keep a whole lot of chefs employed, along with a whole bunch of cooks, kitchen hands and even some waiters and bus boys for the test restaurants. It’s important work, making all these new and innovative appetizers and soups, and compared to other countries, yours are the best in the world.
Now imagine you’re an entrepreneur who wants to open a restaurant. Clearly, you’re going to want to partner with the experts at the National Appetizer and Soup Agency so you can provide the best product. Sure, the paperwork requirements are much more burdensome than just hiring a garage tinker chef or two, but no-one can seriously suggest self-trained amateurs can do the kind of work the government does. Besides, the government has all those big ovens and other equipment. That kind of stuff is hard to make yourself, and it’s not like you can just go out and buy a big industrial oven or stove like you could for the home all those years ago.
I think it’s important to maintain government funding for cooking.. otherwise people would only cook whatever was ordered.
Good job Trent. Getting the obvious point across often requires a bit of poking.
Commerce has to take over at some point or we will forever lament our lack of progress. To say it’s not affordable now is to completely ignore the potential revenue.
SpaceX has been profitable for almost their entire history even before reaching orbit. They will continue to be even if they do nothing else. They have a lot of ‘else’ in the hopper.
A private station is going into orbit by somebody soon because it will be a profitable research station. Six on the I.S.S. does not cover the demand. FH, crew and $500m puts an Alpha station in orbit with about a one year ROI.
Operation of a space transportation company going from orbit to orbit is much easier than operating a launch service company. A one time cost of $100m would put a six passenger ship in orbit ready for continuous service of many potential repeat customers. Needing to be refuelable and amortizing it’s cost over a long useful life it creates a market for other services.
Activity will bring costs down. But profit is available now even at these ridiculously high costs. It’s time for business to make the leap.
The wild west was a good thing overall. We don’t need no stinkin’ govt. badges to lead us.
I’m glad my father died before he could see what a mess NASA made of itself. He was a career NASA pilot who ended up as flight ops director at one of the flight research centers. Very sad.
But funding for useless missions continue.