[AR] Re: Introduction to Aphelion Aerospace and a new RGHP system
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2021 00:13:55 -0400 (EDT)
On Fri, 1 Oct 2021, Matthew Travis wrote:
True there was politics and Beal claiming NASA was preventing private
companies from entering the industry by doing things like developing SLI
or whatever failed program at the time. Interestingly, 2 years later,
Elon Musk founded SpaceX. Beal just didn't have what it takes.
One difference: Beal specifically wanted to *avoid* becoming a government
contractor, while Musk was happy to jump into bed with first DoD (which
extensively supported Falcon 1 development) and then NASA.
Also, don't underestimate what a difference a few years made in NASA's
attitude toward commercial launch. SpaceX caught the early stages of a
wave that was just a ripple when Beal was making his decision.
Henry
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