[AR] Re: Future Exploration Policy (was Re: Re: Congrats SpaceX

  • From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2018 10:30:14 -0500 (EST)

On Wed, 7 Feb 2018, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:

It will take time for a substantial heavylift market to develop.

Time, or a high-volume government customer. Say, a serious human deep-space exploration program that actually wanted to accomplish something interesting for the ~$4G/year that's the likely max politically-practical funding.

Even that will take time to materialize to the point that it's actually spending money on launches. It has the strength that because it's a command economy, it can (in principle) make fast decisions, so at least you know the business is coming; it has the compensating weakness that it can also change its mind quickly later.

Henry

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