http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/10/19/7979.aspxNASA is a potential customer for trips aboard privately developed suborbital spaceships, the agency's chief told entrepreneurs building those spaceships today during the Wirefly X Prize Cup Executive Summit in Las Cruces, N.M.en-USCommunityServer 2.0 (Build: 60608.1)http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/10/19/7979.aspx#8031Fri, 20 Oct 2006 00:51:45 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:8031Chris E.All I know is that if Virgin Galactic has 60,000+ people interested in such flights that is JAW DROPPINGLY AMAZING... Can that possibly be right? Ten years we might be asking NASA who? I have absolutely no problem with space tourists and one might draw a similarity between those who admired the Concord so much that they saved their whole lives just to fly on it regardless of where it went of how fast it actually got there. It's an affection for aviation and a symbolic pride in our enthusiasm and wish to truly "navigating the seas of the sun (Bruce Dickinson)!" One can assume upon landing we'd at least have 60,000 more environmental and peace advocates having seen the true scope and grandure of our world. Last I knew The Planetary Society was promoting very high alt. flights to try and find Vulcanoids (asteroids orbiting closer to the sun than Venus. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/10/19/7979.aspx#8037Fri, 20 Oct 2006 01:45:37 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:8037Dave RacenNo to NASA. THey have their own toys and will not make them available to us. Leave this commercialization to the public. Next thing you know, they, with Uncle Sam's clout, will muscle all of us out. As long as there are private citizens, NASA should stand aside. Later, if there are no customers, NASA can have turn. Davehttp://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/10/19/7979.aspx#8056Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:18:03 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:8056Frank GloverDave, to the contrary, this should be welcomed. In any other form of transportation, when there are more customers (and plenty of people fly commercial airlines on the government dime already), it's a reason to buy more vehicles, schedule more flights (and increased flight rate is one of the keys to lower-cost operations) and make more profit for those manufacturers and operators in this still-fledgeling business. This isn't like the shuttle, nowhere is it written that there can be only four or five SpaceShipTwos (or whatever vhicle) at a time. Increased demand from any direction is just what one wants, government included (how much air cargo is the US Mail, for example? No carrier turns away those contracts if they can help it, or make other customers 'stand aside,' they increase their capacity to handle it all). And it's likely cheaper for NASA (and thus, taxpayers) to buy the launch service, than for them to pay for the development of some additional sounding rocket of the same capability, if, indeed, they could justify doing it at all. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/10/19/7979.aspx#8352Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:12:36 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:8352Jack KennedyMaybe NASA being in the suborbital human space flight business will help lower launch facility costs --- like at Wallops Island on the east coast. It would be quite good if Dr. Griffin and Rex Geveden took the next step in this regard rapildy, e.g. a RFP for about a dozen suborbital flights with NASA astronauts in say 2009 or 2010. Launch contracts would help the fledgling space firms build capital 'skin' to build the game board, so-to-speak.