The Failuof NASA: And A Way Out

On Monday, June 2, 2003, at 01:47 PM, Ian Woollard wrote:

> They might be able to do it; but it would be unwise for NASA to try
> because NASA currently has a USA monopoly on manned space flight. That
> can be nothing but harmful- no companies would ever go up against a
> state sponsored monopoly. And state monopolies are usually inefficient;
> and space is the ideal place to hide inefficiency right now, everything
> is so expensive that nobody notices.

Right now the market for commercial manned flight is just getting
started with the Russians flying to the ISS at $20 million a pop and
sub-orbital tourism for $100,000 a pop in a few years if all goes well.
NASA did make a stink about the first space tourist but eventually
gave in. Although NASA has the only manned launcher from US soil, note
that the first space tourist (Denis Tito) was an American and didn't
fly with NASA -- so the market is clearly global and there isn't a
monopoly.

In spite of the party line repeated endlessly by NASA bashers, NASA
actually has a pretty good record of getting out of the way when a
space segment becomes profitable. NASA no longer does communication
satellites (except TDRSS for it's own unique uses) or unmanned launch
vehicles; and Earth observing satellites are almost profitable, even
though NASA still does science (read no profit) oriented EOS. In each
case NASA started or helped develop a field and left as it became a
profit making business. Note that this analysis depends only on what
was *done*, not what someone *said*.

Note that without NASA's multi-billion dollar investment in the ISS
Russia's space tourists would be going to an old, smelly, cramped Mir
rather than a shinny new facility. Might affect their experience a
bit, you think?

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.