Congressional Hearing on Commercial Space Transportation

Dangnabit. The link on the committee web site for Greason's testimony gives you Nield's testimony instead. The rest of the links work (inlcuding Nield's).

Hello,

there is something more we should have learned from the past. The money to do manned space flight comes from the taxpayer. Nevertheless building a new launcher is not a matter of a democratic majority. This does not work. Two percent of payload is too small to allow everyone’s opinion. There will never be a real good space transportation system continuing like this. No idea how to solve this contradiction. But it is necessary to look for! If you want a car to win a race, you will not look for a democratic round to discuss it, you will look for professionals. You will look for someone to handle the system and not only the components.

Its interesting that when Jeff Greason's testimony is selected I get Dr Nield's testimony instead. I hate to be picky but why don't the folks who put this information
up take it more seriously. Perhaps the democratic majority does not work for web pages either.

Not sure what you mean by "Two percent of payload is too small to allow everyone’s opinion." As far as I can tell that was the focus of your remarks, so I may be missing the point.

About the money coming from government-- that's true unless there's an immediate and obvious market, such as with automobiles, transistors, lasers, and computer chips. We can also compare with space remote sensing, which was initially funded exclusively by the government (though often built by industry), but now can be supported by purely commercial ventures with private capital.

Similarly, aviation in its early years was heavily supported by government war expenditures. After a decade or two, private ventures in aviation became feasible also, and now I think civilian aircraft outnumber government owned aircraft (in number, perhaps not in $$).

Likewise, the advance toward space is funded by the government when it's in the country's strategic interest but is not yet commercially viable. When/if a commercial ticket to orbit costs less than my house, it will become viable as a business, but until then look to government to continue as a leading customer for private spaceflight providers.