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To: Sparta
Why doesn't NASA finally procure better, cheaper launching services through Newt Gingrich's idea of awarding competitive prizes, instead of wasteful cost-plus contracts? NASA's flirting with the idea but.... For more details:

http://www.spaceprojects.com/prizes

7 posted on 11/30/2002 9:40:30 PM PST by End The Hypocrisy
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To: End The Hypocrisy
Why doesn't NASA finally procure better, cheaper launching services through Newt Gingrich's idea of awarding competitive prizes, instead of wasteful cost-plus contracts? NASA's flirting with the idea but.... For more details:

I think NASA would have to be abolished first. NASA was formed from NACA in so that the space program would be in civilian control rather than military. NACA had primarily been a research institute for aeronautical engineering problems. With the start of the space program, it became a monopoly provider of launch services for both manned exploration missions but also military, scientific, and commercial payloads.

Even worse it was a monopoly supplier of satellites. A company that wanted to use a communications satellite had to contact COMSAT which was the domestic communication satellite monopoly which would buy it from NASA. INTELSAT was the corresponding legal monopoly supplier of international communications satellites. NASA would then order the satellite from a satellite manufacturer order a rocket from one of the rocket manufacturers and launch the satellite from its facilities. It was not till the Reagan administration that satellite procurement was decoupled from launch services, although until the Challeger explosion launch services and launch vehicles were sold bundled by NASA.

Actually the US was very fortunate the Challeger disaster did not happen a year later. NASA had decided to cut costs and eliminate all expendable launch vehicle procurement after the ones on hand had been used up. McDonnel Douglas and Martin Marietta were going to start destroying the dies and machine tools for the Delta and Atlas rockets. One result of the Challenger disaster was to ban the use of the space shuttle for launching commercial satellites. The Reagan administration debundled launch services from launch vehicle acquistion. Companies wanting to buy a communication satellite could now buy satellites and launch vehicles directly from the manufacturers they chose, and they would pay NASA to launch them from their facilities.

NASA should go back to being a research bureau and let the private sector provide space transportation.

14 posted on 11/30/2002 10:44:44 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
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