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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Because most aerospace industries have determined that space travel and the associated research isn't profitable without government support.

The only company I know of still actively researching space travel is Virgin Airline's Galactic sub-company, and their CEO is a little bit... Yeah.

Lockheed Martin gave up on the X-33 because satellite launches (for example, for Globalstar and Iridium) are beginning to decline in the private sector.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
But Lockheed Martin gave up on that because they realized it WASN'T profitable. Hence the cancellation of the X-33 (an orbital commercical space-ship/aeroplane) once NASA and federal funding was cut.

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Originally posted by Geezer:

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
But Lockheed Martin gave up on that because they realized it WASN'T profitable. Hence the cancellation of the X-33 (an orbital commercical space-ship/aeroplane) once NASA and federal funding was cut.

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But when you're building stuff for NASA, you have to follow their design philosophy, which isn't always the most economical, and so you end up relying specifically on their money to complete the project. Folks who know from the start they will have to have a financially viable plan sans NASA design to mission requirements, not bureaucratic requirements.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Originally posted by whozit:
Maybe they can't go to the Moon right now, but maybe they can go from Europe to the U.S. (or anywhere) in a few minutes?

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by whozit:
Maybe they can't go to the Moon right now, but maybe they can go from Europe to the U.S. (or anywhere) in a few minutes?

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The laughing Chrisisall

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
But Lockheed Martin gave up on that because they realized it WASN'T profitable. Hence the cancellation of the X-33 (an orbital commercical space-ship/aeroplane) once NASA and federal funding was cut.

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Originally posted by whozit:
The key word is "profitable", the people at "Virgin" think that in the near future they can make a profit. Maybe they can't go to the Moon right now, but maybe they can go from Europe to the U.S. (or anywhere) in a few minutes?

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Originally posted by Geezer:
But when you're building stuff for NASA, you have to follow their design philosophy, which isn't always the most economical, and so you end up relying specifically on their money to complete the project. Folks who know from the start they will have to have a financially viable plan sans NASA design to mission requirements, not bureaucratic requirements.

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
But Lockheed Martin gave up on that because they realized it WASN'T profitable. Hence the cancellation of the X-33 (an orbital commercical space-ship/aeroplane) once NASA and federal funding was cut.

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Originally posted by whozit:
The key word is "profitable", the people at "Virgin" think that in the near future they can make a profit. Maybe they can't go to the Moon right now, but maybe they can go from Europe to the U.S. (or anywhere) in a few minutes?

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Seems to me, Concorde, which was ultimately scraped because it wasn't profitable, already answered that question.

Course I heard it argued that there was a certain American element that wanted Concorde to fail, because they didn't do it first. :p

Though that would explain the restrictions America placed on the aircraft...

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Originally posted by Geezer:
But when you're building stuff for NASA, you have to follow their design philosophy, which isn't always the most economical, and so you end up relying specifically on their money to complete the project. Folks who know from the start they will have to have a financially viable plan sans NASA design to mission requirements, not bureaucratic requirements.

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Bureaucratic requirements? I think it's a fallacy that Government operations are more wasteful and Bureaucratic than private enterprise. In fact most of the Bureaucracy and waste of government enterprise seems to be down to the Private Enterprise the Government hires to do it most of the time.

I find the idea that private enterprise will lead the way in space laughable, since when has private enterprise led the way anywhere.

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"I'm a former history teacher and I can tell you many history books today do not include the moon landings. With the level of science being taught in todays public schools many questions would be brought up during history class when discussing the moon missions, so they just took them out of most history books all together to avoid questioning the actual events. People just accept it as fact when it is fiction. I studied the moon landings back in the mid 1990's and I concluded that it must have been faked for a large number of reasons. My favorite besides the science behind it is that we went to the moon with the computer power of todays basic calculator. Makes me giggle everytime I think about it."

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=47982.0

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Originally posted by whozit:
The Concord went out of buisness because of the cost, if they can make a "profit" then that'll be different. If you can move people around the world faster for the same money, "profit" yes?

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Thing is, services like this are rarely profit centers for their parent companies. They're "halo" services - they're there to raise the IMAGE of the parent company, not necessarily the profits.

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Thing is, services like this are rarely profit centers for their parent companies. They're "halo" services - they're there to raise the IMAGE of the parent company, not necessarily the profits.

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Which is also why BA didn't let Virgin, a major competitor, have Concorde even though BA was getting rid of it.

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