What is your thought on private space flight.

[happyflower]

Who's going to pay Elon's engineers down in Brazil, who so far live exclusively off US gov business?

Well it seems to me that US gov. doesn't really want to do business with SpaceX (at least if Congress keeps cutting funding for SpaceX and other commercial launch companies) it seems that they dont want to do business with them. So I am not sure SpaceX will be getting that much more money from US Gov. if Congress has its way.

On the other hand Brazil has one of the hottest economies in the world right now, they are flush with cash, and the government of Brazil is hot and heavy to join the exclusive launch club.

So I guess the simple answer to your questions is: The Brazilian Government.

[Robotbeat]

SpaceX has a cargo services contract with NASA. And a huge list of largely American customers on their manifest.

[nec207]

As my frustration with Congress builds sometimes late at night when I am tired of political B.S. I think to myself, what if Elon just closes shop in the US, takes all of his engineers and goes to Brazil and start commercial space program there.

Bypass this insane Congress completely. Let them dump as many billions they want into the Senate Launch System and play the violin as Rome burns down.

But then as the Sun rises the next morning I take a deep breath and hope that things will change for the better here. What can I say I am an optimist.

What does the governemnt have to do with private space flight they are suppose to come up with their on money for private space to work?

We just pay them to take people or cargo to where we want.

[QuantumG]

What does the governemnt have to do with private space flight?

Preferably nothing, but we don't live in a preferable world. Every "private" entity today suffers under the burden of government, private spaceflight companies just a little moreso.

[nec207]

What does the governemnt have to do with private space flight?

Preferably nothing, but we don't live in a preferable world. Every "private" entity today suffers under the burden of government, private spaceflight companies just a little moreso.

What do you mean?

[happyflower]

What does the governemnt have to do with private space flight they are suppose to come up with their on money for private space to work?

We just pay them to take people or cargo to where we want.

Well NASA did solicit SAAs for developing human space flight. So the government did ask for companies (such as SpaceX) to give them a proposal about how they will deliver astronauts to the ISS in CCDEV2. NASA also came up with how much money they would give said company(s) to stimulate the private industry to develop human space flight. And through this act spur economic growth as new capabilities on human space flight are created. This has the added benefit of flying US astronauts on US rockets and capsules to the ISS instead of paying a foreign government our tax money.

So why is it that NASA engineers and SpaceX engineers can agree how to proceed but Congress who is a political body decides to cut that funding in half (for less than solid reasons)? I mean Congress who has no problem dropping several Billion dollars on Constellation without getting a rocket for that money, has reservations about 800 million suddenly to fly astronauts to the ISS cheaper? Against the judgment of their own engineers?

This by the way is not something new. The commercial airline industry pretty much started the same way with another branch of the federal government (US Post) paying them to get them started. By the way US Post wanted pretty much the same thing as NASA, which is cargo (mail) delivery. What they got was the current airline industry that employs a lot of people. Would you now begrudge that tax money spent to stimulate airline industry back then?

What the current government has to do with this is apparently to get in the way.

[Patchouli]

CCDev is one of those things you'd be stupid to not fund.
I can't think of any government program that gives more bang for the buck.
Fully funded you get maybe three separate transportation systems and help kick start a new industry.

It's also absolutely necessary for NASA to be able to explore new places.
We will still need a space station in LEO or L1 for research and testing new technologies to mitigate the effects of microgravity.

Private companies can handle mundane things like resupply and crew transport.
Aurthur C Clarke got that right in 2001.