The technology just hasn't gotten to the point that
>private venture investment can make a go of it. There aren't any
>intermediate steps to orbit to establish an incremental approach that
>smaller, private ventures can build on one step at a time: The initial
>threshold of success is just too high. Until material and manufacturing
>technology get to the point where a relatively small group of people can
make
>a go of it n one relatively short push from start to finish, I think space
>access will continue to be the domain of governments and huge institutions.
The X-Prize Foundation offers a 10 million dollar prize to the first
private group to fly 3 passengers to 100 km in a re-usable vehicle.
There are 18 entries listed on their web site.
David Stern
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:16 MDT