NASA may soon have competition from the Private Sector!

[Guest]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/902224.asp?vts=041920030800

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/index.htm

AWESOME!!!!

[Supreme Cmdr]

I knew it!! This had to happen. And good thing too!

[Guest]

It's about fricking time, NASA is a behemoth, and takes 10 years or more to actually get something off the ground and by the time they do it's 10 times over budget and it normally blows up or shuts down or just plain old disapears.

Private enterprise can get the most modern design up and running for fraction of the cost, fraction of the time, and it should be MUCH more reliable.

Don't get me wrong, NASA has done some incredible things, it is just that it is a HUGE behemoth and takes forever and a load of money to get anything done, and politics, don't forget politics, UGH!!!

[Guest]

That and private industry wont have the military humping at their legs or threatening to cut funding.

Shuttle was the result of the military's need to deploy and retrieve spy satellites, and NASA was pressured into the shuttle design when they had made it clear they did not consider the shuttle to be cost effective.

[Epsilon 5]

NASA is stuck with a small budget and is not pressed to complete objective because the government doesn't have any serious advantage at colonising planets and exploring deep space in the short to medium term. It's still mostly a space fantasy, but fantasy is what drive the individual to go ahead.

China wants to build a moonbase by 2010, yet, why should they do it? Not like you could mine the moon for iron and come back with a few megatons a month

Anyway, those are great news

[Guest Grayfox]

about damn time we get some new blood into the mix.

maybe i will see the colonization of the moon in my lifetime afterall... and maybe mars too... total recall stylie