Is it ever going to happen? VSE

[wdobner]

<i>The private sector is currently focussed on lowering the costs of earth to LEO transportation, as they should be. They'll achieve better results than NASA ever could.</i><br /><br />That's just blind faith. SpaceX is out there with their cheaply built rockets, we'll see if they get off the pad. NASA is doing all sort of development work in other aerospace fields side by side with corporations like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, so your 'NASA impedes progress' argument holds no water when applied away from the contentious area of manned spaceflight. Look at the work NASA is doing with Northrop Grumman on hushing sonic booms, look at their work with avionics manufacturers to improve pilot situational awareness, or their work with Pratt and Whitney and GE to develop next generation propulsion systems and tell me they have no place in research and development. Saying NASA has no place in researching a cheaper way into space alongside private industries is ludicrous when you look at their activities with the commercial sector in other fields. I would be all for that kind of development, which brings the long-term, very scientific viewpoint NASA *should* bring to the program with a practical eye toward manufacturing and production of a private industry. <br /><br /><i>Let NASA be the trailblazer, let them do what they're good at which is space *exploration*. </i><br /><br />Creating new technology is not trailblazing? And since when is NASA good at exploration? Their one jaunt off the planet ended after only a dozen men stood on the moon and that was it. If you're going to dismiss the shuttle program and all the RLV programs that have come since because they didn't help you get your pictures of astronauts on the moon then why can't we dismiss the Apollo program as a failure since we didn't stay there in the long term? <br /><br /><i>The X-33 was projected to be ten times cheaper to operate than the Shuttle... </i><br /><br />Yeah, sure projected, and what