Just out of curiosity

[den]

What was stopping private companies from developing re-usable orbital vehicles before the X-Prize came along? Why are we seeing this now after 50 years of humans in space?

Comments

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Mix of money, fear, and legislation. Until sometime not long ago - five to ten years - it was illegal for civilians to attempt spaceflight. Not simply unlicensable, but criminal to even try.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Legislation! I didn't know that. Ok, that sort of explains it. I didn't accept it was just money because large corporations often throw buckets of the stuff at problems because the possible payoff was worth it.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

I still go with money, though. Come on.. if industry thought they could make fortunes in space, wouldn't they get their bought-and-paid-for Congress to authorize it?

There's also that space exploration has been done so far by government contract. And government contracts I've seen don't encourage innovation. They tend only to take bids on doing certain things in ways they, at NASA, have already chosen. When industry is paid whatever it costs to build bigger and bigger 'kerosene bombs,' that's what they'll do. Why should they do anything else?