But I'm beat. Got up about 4:30 this morning to catch a flight out of Palm Beach to Reagan, and worked all day, and just got in to the room a few minutes ago. My brain hurts.

Nothing much to say, except that as others have noted, the administration belatedly released the space transportation policy that was supposed to have been released a couple years ago, before the loss of Columbia put everything on hold. I have some heartburn with it, as does Clark Lindsey (which I share), but won't get around to commenting on it specifically until the weekend.

I think Clark Lindsey incorrectly interprets the paragraph he calls out regarding maintaining US commercial space programs via patronage. Latter the policy talks specifically of EELV, and all the same, it seemed simply that the policy was to continue the viability of both Boeing and Lockheed Martin's program. I've heard many rumblings that this also includes Northrop Grumman. I absolutely didn't read that as support of projects such as SpaceX.

Alternatively, I read Section 4 paragraph 2a along the lines that this space policy is also to create regulations for certifying as safe projects like SpaceX.

Leland, do you mean these snippets?

The Secretary of Defense shall maintain overall management responsibilities for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program and shall fund the annual fixed costs for both launch services providers

and this:

New U.S. commercial space transportation capabilities that demonstrate the ability to reliably launch intermediate or larger payloads will be allowed to compete on a level playing field for United States Government missions.

At what point does Elon Musk get HIS annual fixed costs paid by DoD?

> At what point does Elon Musk get HIS annual fixed costs paid by DoD?

At the point where he stops spending money on R&D and starts spending it on lobbyists instead.

At that point, of course, the government will take over funding (and control) of his program because, obviously, "industry can't afford to fund R&D on its own."

Note that in addition to the EELVs, the policy calls for the government to support development of a new heavy-lift vehicle and a next generation launch vehicle. If NASA has any money left over for payloads, and Atlas, Delta, HLV, and NGLV don't need the business, SpaceX will presumably be allowed to compete. (Sarcasm intended.)