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Re: starship-design: NASA Should Buy New Space Vehicles, Not Build Them



Damn this would be a fantastic boost for space -- assuming its not bull.  
I.e. NASA has talked this talk before.



In a message dated 5/11/03 9:28:29 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net writes:

>NASA Should Buy New Space Vehicles, Not Build Them
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>Los Angeles - May 09, 2003
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>Challenging testimony by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, the Space Frontier
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>Foundation called on NASA to transform itself into a customer for private
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>enterprise, rather than a competitor.
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>O'Keefe told the Senate subcommittee overseeing NASA's budget, "We will
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>pursue activities unique to our mission -- if NASA does not do them, they
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>will not get done. If others are doing them, we should question why NASA
>is
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>involved."
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>Citing several recent announcements of privately financed space vehicles,
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>the Foundation's Rick Tumlinson asked: "If private enterprise is developing
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>this capability with its own money, why is NASA wasting billions to pay
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>government contractors to design a spaceplane specifically for NASA?
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>"NASA should transform itself into a customer for private spaceplanes,
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>instead of a competitor. The agency should buy rather than build, when
>it
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>comes to future transportation from the Earth to space."
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>The Foundation pointed out that a number of new and innovative commercial
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>firms are investing in developing vehicles to fly humans and payloads into
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>sub-orbital space. Famed designer Burt Rutan recently rolled out his Space
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>Ship One in Mojave, California. Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com has reportedly
>made
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>a large investment in a suborbital spaceship.
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>Elon Musk of PayPal fame is building a commercial rocket system, and the
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>entrepreneurial firm XCOR recently flew their EZ-Rocket test bed live in
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>front of hundreds of thousands of people at the Oshkosh air show. The
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>Foundation believes that with NASA offering to be a customer for rides
>and
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>payload delivery, these companies could continue all the way to orbit.
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>"Giving NASA managers and government contractors who have failed over and
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>over again billions of dollars to design and build a spaceplane specifically
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>and only for NASA's use is the old way of doing things," Tumlinson said.
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>"We don't need one Orbital Spaceplane, we need many spaceplanes. We
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>shouldn't be laying off astronauts, we should be opening the space frontier
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>for more Americans. If this is done right, NASA can get all the
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>transportation it needs, save billions in taxpayer funds, kick start a
>huge
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>new industry and along the way, the people will at last get a chance to
>go
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>into space themselves."
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>The Foundation is calling on Mr. O'Keefe to keep his promise to transform
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>NASA and act "as only NASA can" to make real changes. Rather than competing
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>with private enterprise, the Foundation urges NASA to replace government
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>development contracts with launch service purchases, flight data purchases,
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>and competitive prizes for spaceplane development.