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

Re:An oxymoron

[david duncan scott]

What if the government is paying for part of the demand? It's not hard to imagine situations in which some demand exists, but not quite enough to justify any particular company making an existential wager on it. An additional demand from a government customer might tip the balance.

How much purely commercial demand was there for small, portable computers before the Air Force wanted them on-board ICBM s? We went from "the world needs maybe six mainframes" to our current state pretty quickly, once some of the R & D was picked up by the Feds.

There aren't very many things for which there is absolutely no demand, but there are many things for which the price is as yet too high.

Besides, I like my interstate highways, even if they were just an Eisenhower-era military-industrial conspiracy. They have turned out toi be useful for a good many things besides rapid mobilization of troops.