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NASA proposes keeping commercial income
SEWilco writes " NASA suggests keeping extra income from commercial projects. Present laws require that money from commercial projects, such as a satellite launch from the Shuttle, go to the U.S. government rather than allowing NASA to use the money. ". On a tangential note, the Italian government changed their laws regarding income from historical sites, allowing them to keep their profits, rather then just funnel it to the gov't, and it's worked great. I see no reason why NASA wouldn't benefit as well-especially considering their budget cuts.
NASA is SUPPOSED to be doing R&D, and releasing it to the public, so PRIVATE companies can use it to design their OWN spaceships, just as they do for ariplane improvements.
They have already put a major crimp on the private space program, by pressuring their suppliers with threats that if they provide stuff to the private COs, NASA will find new suppliers. (Just TRY to get a guidance system component, for instance, even if you are squeaky clean and have a couple senators in your back pocket.)
Letting them self-fund would give them even more incentive to suppress the people they're SUPPOSED to be helping, by setting them up as a direct competitor, and making their funding dependent on out-competing any independent private company.
Better would be to require them to STOP doing space shots themselves, but fund them to BUY their launches from private companies. That would turn things around, big time.
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NASA does good, even great, as a research and exploration agency. NASA does horribly at operations, though. This is why they have turned over the day-to-day ops of Shuttle to USA (United Space Alliance- Boeing and Lockmart).
At every turn, NASA's Administrator, Dan Goldin, slams commercial space startups, like Rotary and Kistler. He, and by extension, NASA, have a serious beef with companys other than the Big Two having any piece of the launch market, or the exploration market.
NASA, in it's current, supposedly non-commercial guise, has killed many companys and efforts (Conestoga, almost Kistler, and Jim Davidson's "tourist to Mir" sweepstakes). If NASA became a competitor in an open market, it would wield an incredible and destructive influence, since it would still have huge contacts in other govt. agencies and the Big Two, it could effectively strangle any company that didn't fit 'the agenda'.
This might sound slighlty paranoid, until you reflect on how much damage NASA has done to commercial space efforts, even it's own commercialization efforts with Shuttle and Station, without being an actual competitor.
Be very afraid for the future of space exploration and utilization if NASA tries to go commercial.
J05H
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