Beal Aerospace and NASA Launch Subsidies

> I am confused about something. I know NASA use to launch commercial
> payloads and subsidize the high launch costs, thus undercutting the
> commercial launch services market. But I thought they were no longer
> allowed to do either (launch commercial payloads/subsidize launch
> costs). Is NASA still doing either? Beal Aerospace shut down (10/00)
> because they couldn't compete with NASA's subsidies? Does anyone know
> the real story here?

Beal's official statements were to the effect that NASA was
undercutting investor confidence by pushing various schemes to
dramatically lower the cost of access to space. IOW, NASA is
subsidizing the likes of LockMart (X-33) in their efforts to build low
cost launchers. This greatly increases the perceived risk to investors
of investing in Beal or one of the other fully private efforts. That's
his public story. There is evidence that there were cost overruns and
other issues starting to arise that drove up the costs to Beal, so it
may have been simply convenient to blame NASA. That doesn't mean that
NASA hasn't been doing a grave disservice to launch vehicle startups
(as well as the taxpayer) by pissing away vast sums on projects that
deliver nothing except a perception that spaceflight is harder and more
expensive than it actually is. It just means that in the particular
case of Beal NASA may not have been the only issue.

......Andrew