See my proposal for a decentralized approach to developing space in this week's The Space Review here. What people don't seem to understand about my subsidy proposal that I first put forward last year (See recommendations 10 and 14) is that NASA and DoD would no longer be directing the space programs. It would be private industry and individual citizens who could book whatever missions they wanted. That would lead to the following benefits:

1) Freedom and liberty
2) Capitalism instead of central planning allocating capacity
3) Private development instead of government development

Government would be the primary beneficiary of cost savings since they are the primary space user. They would have more responsibility since all of space would become open for business.

Private industry and citizens would have new services that would be less valuable at first, but would be more price elastic than the government demand.

I see. A $150 billion handout from the government as a libertarian option for space development. While I do think you're right in so far that the space transportation infrastructure should be considered similarly to the earth based one, you miss one very important point. You can sell highway subsidies because everyone uses them. Selling space subsidies is not gonna fly, dude.

In another column at today's Space Review, I believe it was reported that Burt Rutan told Congress that routine airliner like service all the way to orbit was not feasible without technology breakthroughs that are not now imminent.

As reported by Jeff Foust: "Those required technological breakthroughs don’t exist for human orbital spaceflight, Rutan said, but do exist today for suborbital spaceflight, as amply demonstrated last year by SpaceShipOne."

Routine suborbital? Sure, no problem. Orbital RLVs? Not for a while. Sorry, Janis:

Oh Lord, won't ya' buy me a Mercedes RLV, our rivals fly Soyuz, we're filled with envy.

Sam Dinkin is spot on, however, in saying we need to use the rockets we got (and find a way to make money) not the rockets we wished we had.

With more apologies to Don Rumsfeld. ;-)

I will settle for frequent even if I can't have routine for a while after that.

K-

I try to sell space because many want to go and see us go to Mars. I try to sell space because everyone has (who donates to Congress) satellite radios and GPS. I am open to hearing a better pitch.

Do you prefer the national highway system or Amtrak? I admit that the argument is dissonant, but compared to spending $15 billion on NASA or DoD directed development, a subsidy is indeed the libertarian option. Call me selfish for not just asking for NASA be cancelled and the money put into further tax reduction.

Why indeed wouldn't we demand that the money that NASA is wasting be put into tax deduction?

One note: A Saturn V-class rocket would not drop launch costs to anything near $260/kg. Going from the data on Astronautix.com, the Saturn V cost (in 1967) $431 million per launch, with a LEO payload of 118,000 kg. That comes out to $3,652/kg. From other sources I see $113 million as the per launch cost. Using that number instead we get $957/kg. The problem is that those numbers are in 1967 dollars, not 2005 dollars. Using the inflation calculator available at NASA's website: In 2005 dollars a Saturn V-class vehicle would launch at $24,599.872/kg and $6,446.352/kg. Even using your estimate of $260/kg and adjusting it equals out to $1,751.36/kg. A lot lower than the norm certainly, but not as cheap as you make it sound.

I get a different answer at http://www.transterrestrial.com/uploads/PHYSICS-AND-ECONOMICS-OF-LEO-ACCESS.doc

We also get to use 2005 technology.

Here's another take from Mike Griffin:
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep 533/FALL2001/lecture29.pdf (delete the space)

He thinks $1156/kg in 97$ is reasonable for an updated Saturn V--to the Moon! That works out to about $230 in 97$ or $273 in 05$. That is with $50 of labor per kg! Imagine $5,000,000 just in labor. That seems high to me for handling costs if we are going to have 6 flights a day. He doesn't amortize R&D, but if it's $10 billion divided by 20,000 flights, that's $5/kg and another $1 in interest costs.