A few weeks ago, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke at the National Defense University, and while he was talking about how America fights its wars today and will fight them in the future, I found one of his remarks to be pertinent to the fiscal and development challenges NASA is facing with its Ares and Orion programs.  Consider this: "Platforms have grown ever more baroque, ever more costly, are taking longer to build and are being fielded in ever dwindling quantities."  (As somebody commented many years ago, one day our weapons will be so expensive that the US military will have one airplane, and the Air Force will fly it on Mondays and Thursdays, the Navy on Tuesdays and Fridays, the Marines on Saturday and Sunday, and the Army on Wednesday).

Whether we're talking about Pentagon or NASA procurement, the problems are similar because the civil space program evolved from military rocket development efforts and continues to rely on the same companies that evolved in a cost-plus government-contractor environment that provides little incentive for minimizing costs.  You might argue that fighters, bombers, submarines, and tanks have to be expensive to develop because they must survive the rigors of combat in strenuous environments.  You might argue that NASA's manned spacecraft and rockets have to be expensive to develop because they must survive the rigors of launch and the space environment.  While the operating environments are certainly not benign, they are not the primary reason for cost overruns.  Two forces put downward pressure on the development costs of all products, whether they will be used in space, in combat, or in your kitchen (I know, for some that feels like combat); competition and economy of scale (build and sell a gazillion reasonably-priced gadgets rather than a few expensive ones).  Neither of these forces is present in sufficient quantity in the defense and traditional space industries because there aren't enough producers and consumers (i.e., markets)... and there never will be in any economically sustainable manner when government is the sole or primary buyer.

How do you bring these forces into play in the space industry?  There is only one way; raw, unflinching, ugly, open to all and fair to none, ruthless capitalism combined with hordes of consumers screaming, "Oh my God, I simply must have that new framizam!"  It may not be pretty, but it gets the job done like nobody's business because it relies on... business (as practiced in commercial marketplaces).

Hello NewSpace, the other space program.