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Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 02:24:53 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #207

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 207

Today's Topics:
		  Re: Government vs. Commercial R&D

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Date: 26 Feb 91 06:50:54 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Government vs. Commercial R&D

In article <21234@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>We badly need somebody doing what Marshall is supposed to do -- propulsion
>>engineering -- and the same goes for several of the other centers.  
>
>In an earlier post, you wrote that major launch costs reductions would be
>be useful for bringing down the cost of space exploration.  I agree.  Observe 
>that Marshall et. al. have been researching chemical propulsion technology 
>since the 60's, without bringing about significant drop in costs...

How can I observe something that hasn't been happening?

With the exception of work directly related to the shuttle, Marshall has
done *nothing* major in propulsion research since the early 1970s.  Zero.
Note what I said:  "what Marshall is *supposed* to do".

I stand by my statement:  we badly need someone doing propulsion research.
We're still using 1960s propulsion technology for everything, even things
that would benefit enormously from better systems.  Like a comet-rendezvous
mission using hydrazine/N2O4... it's enough to make you ill.  This will
not change unless we have *somebody* doing such work *without* it being
tied to specific missions.  Specific missions rarely want new technology:
they don't want to endanger their mission by being the first to depend
on something new.  We need the space-technology equivalent of the X-planes,
pioneering new technology on a modest scale without trying to make it
show a profit in the first prototype.

If not Marshall, who?
-- 
"But this *is* the simplified version   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for the general public."     -S. Harris |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry

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End of SPACE Digest V13 #207
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