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NASA Wants To Fund Space Taxis

NASA plans on using $50 million in stimulus funds to seed development of a commercial passenger transportation service to space. Potential space taxi inventors have 45 days to submit their proposals. The proposals will be competitively evaluated and the winners will be announced by the end of September. It is unclear what other Commodore 64 games NASA plans on making a reality, but I hope Arkanoid makes the short list.

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  1. Someone has to build the vehicles by hellfire · · Score: 4, Interesting

    First, engineers and scientists get jobs, and practice their craft. And do you think the scientists and engineers assembled the rockets with Erector sets in their own private labs? No, they had manufacturers build the parts and the craft. You have small manufacturers building the parts, and large ones assembling the pieces, with distributors in the middle moving the material and making sure it's all on time and available when needed.

    And then those people go home and spend their money on stuff...

    The best kind of stimulus is the kind of stimulus that puts people in jobs. And if you think space taxis are nothing but an idea for the very rich to go into space, just realize that the next thing we need to figure out in space is how to get people into space both safely and cheaply. Hey, get people safely and cheaply into space? That means more satellites, more repairs, more tourism for the common man, more economic opportunities.

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    "All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"