Air Force Wants Commercial Spacecraft

coondoggie writes "The US Air Force is preparing to take a long look at how commercial space technology can help it better operate in the cosmos. The Air Force today said it will host a space test program meeting next week ahead of expected contract offerings, or Broad Agency Announcements looking to recruit commercial space providers."

Comments

Is this really any different?

[elrous0]

NASA and the military have always relied on commercial companies to design and build their spacecraft/aircraft. All this really does is add launch and maintenance to the mix.

Of course, on the downside, this leaves them more dependent than ever on private contractors--which will only strengthen a military/industrial complex that is already draining U.S. coffers dry. But hey, a credit card is just as good as cash as long as they keep giving you credit, right?

Terrorists... in space?

[Skywolfblue]

Is this really where tax dollars need to be spent? I'm all for space, but I'd rather that budget go to NASA to get some exploring done, not to hire a private contractor to put an F-16 in orbit to defend against... what exactly?

An oxymoron

[roman_mir]

A government agency wants a 'commercial' product that does not really exist? So what makes that product 'commercial'?

If there is a commercial product and a government agency decides to buy from the manufacturer - well, that's one thing. Good for the manufacturer if he lands the tender. However if the product does not exist because the market hasn't found the reason/money/customers for it yet and the government then comes and says: here is a bunch of money, go build us a 'commercial' solution - well then, there will be a solution. But it will have NOTHING to do with market. The government money comes in, creates the demand, but except that government demand there is no private demand, so the solution will be totally inefficient, unusable under normal market conditions (without government subsidies).

What I am saying is this: government wants to prop up yet another bunch of companies and call it 'commercial', well, don't be fooled. Sure, they'll subsidize something there with fake money, like they always do, but it won't help the economy in any way, as the demand is artificial, as the money is not coming out of savings but instead creates more inflation, because it's printed and as the economy goes into worse trouble, because debts are increased and not repaid.

Don't call it 'commercial' if government pays for all the demand, it ain't no such thing.

Re:An oxymoron

[david duncan scott]

Profitable private rail? The private rail that was built on massive amounts of federal land, and supported through government strike-breaking? That private rail?

And no, my argument is not that "people like things for free, so let's get government to do those things." My argument is that, on certain occasions, government can prime a pump. Do you honestly think that there is no demand for air travel? There wasn't nearly enough back in the twenties, so the Post Office came up with "airmail." Who really cared if a letter got there a day sooner, especially since a good many ended up strewn across fields amidst smoking wreckage--the point was to provide some of that demand until the airlines could get a market going. I know it's hard to picture Charles Lindbergh and Eddie Rickenbacker sucking up to the socialist trough, but without airmail contracts, speed and distance prizes, and other such interventionist folderol the US air transport industry might well have stopped with the Curtis Jenny (you know, that plane that the Feds pretty much gave to anybody who asked after World War I

Re:An oxymoron

[roman_mir]

You figure silver is the index of all things?

- silver, gold, cotton, wheat, pork bellies, concentrated orange juice, copper, land for agriculture, oil, gas, uranium, etc. - those things are real.

Dollars are not real.

Yes, I consider silver to be real money, I consider gold to be real money, etc. I also do not consider dollars to be real money (or ANY fiat currency for that matter, though relative to each other some do better and some do worse, but they are all fiat and all are printed at the whim of a politician, none of them are money.)

Silver, gold, etc. - they are stores of value, they can be easily used as units of account and means of trade. They are valuable because of their various properties. Gold is money because it is rare enough, it can't be printed, it does not change over time, it can be reclaimed from any industrial use, it can be easily tested to be real or not, it is accepted as money and has been accepted as money (means of trade) for thousands of years nearly universally.

Gold does not need to be made 'legal tender', it is money on its own, without any government stating it to be so. Of-course people can use all sorts of things for barter, it doesn't have to be gold. But as long as government cannot print the stuff that you use as money, it's already better than fiat paper.

It was worth more in 1980 then it is now--are we on the right track?

- relative to what?

Do you realize that today oil is the CHEAPEST it has EVER been?

If you have a silver dime minted prior to 1965 that is, then oil is the cheapest. In US dollars the silver coin is not the most expensive as you are pointing out, but in oil it is the most expensive and oil is the cheapest. You can buy a gallon of gas for a silver dime minted prior to 1965. With US dollars you have to spend how much? 4 dollars, soon to be 5?

On the other hand, the medications that are currently keeping me alive didn't exist, at any weight of silver, gold, or unobtanium, in the fifties and sixties.I had a smallpox shot back in those halcyon days of economic splendor, a shot that my children didn't need.

- good for you. The reason for the increased innovation is capitalism and industrialization and not fiat money though. It is reliance on under-utilization, savings and real money that made it possible in the 19th century to build the economy, that allowed such concentration of wealth that pushed innovation forward. It was not fiat money that caused your medication to appear, it's the real capitalism - based on savings and re-investment. And real capitalism that is based on savings exists despite the fiat money, not because of it.

Capitalism is based on savings and investment and fiat punishes anybody who is trying to save (in fiat currency). The only way to save is to have real assets that appreciate in currency that is being debased by the government. The only real investment comes out of the savings (capital) and the only way to save is not to be in fiat, which is printed every day by politicians, who want to buy your vote for giving you 'free stuff'.

Do you really believe that people command 1/26 of the spending power their parents did, just because the price of silver has changed by that much?

- yes.

Yes.

How else do you think it was possible for a man to support a family - a house wife and a bunch of kids, to own a house and maybe a boat and maybe another property and a couple of cars and be debt free before 1971? It was because the purchasing power was that much bigger. Was it precisely 26 times greater than? Nothing is exactly precisely 100%, but today people own mortgages, not houses, they don't have a bunch of kids and the wife is working too (and maybe there is a second job, who knows) and they still can't afford all that stuff they want and they don't see their kids enough to be able to raise them properly.

Do you