Private industry cannot afford to do nothing, wasting time and money, while NASA assembles the Space Station. If arrangements are not made to fly commercial payloads during the interlude, the development of space commerce may be dealt a severe setback. Skilled personnel will leave projects to work in other areas, and we will have to rebuild a pool of expertise to promote the commercializing of space. Delays in the development of space commerce will impact American companies that are hoping to use space research to gain a competitive advantage in the global marketplace. At stake are many high-paying jobs.
Space research promises to give U.S. businesses a leg up in competition.
But the embers of commercial space commerce will dim if we shut out research opportunities during the next several years. The cost of traveling to space remains the single, largest impediment to the commercial development of space. The shuttle requires a slew of technicians to rebuild its powerful engines and make repairs to the orbiter after each flight. The RLV, like the Space Shuttle, will launch vertically and land horizontally. But, unlike the shuttle, it is being designed to substantially reduce maintenance costs.