From the above article:
“The former Speaker of the House made no apologies for the boldness of his amibitions, WHICH DEPEND PRIMARILY ON THE EMERGENCE OF A VIBRANT COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT INDUSTRY. (Caps mine, texokie) He said the U.S. space program needs a kick in the pants like the one President John F. Kennedy gave it in 1961, when he promised to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.”
I interpret his quote as meaning that he wants the taxpayers to dump billions into the aerospace industry. “kick in the pants.”
Interesting, how is Newt going to create a vibrant commercial space industry? The EU, Russia, China, Japan and up till now the USA all massively subsidize their space programs. A for profit is going to have to over come a huge price bias in flavor of the government run programs.
“The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight.
Created in May 1996 and initially called just the “X Prize”, it was renamed the “Ansari X Prize” on May 6, 2004 following a multi-million dollar donation from entrepreneurs Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari.
The prize was won on October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch, by the Tier One project designed by Burt Rutan and financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, using the experimental spaceplane SpaceShipOne. $10 million was awarded to the winner, but more than $100 million was invested in new technologies in pursuit of the prize.
Several other X Prizes have since been announced by the X Prize Foundation, promoting further development in space exploration and other technological fields.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansari_X_Prize
IIRC, the X-Prize Foundation bought an insurance policy from Lloyds against the prize being won. The premium was $1 million, the payout was $10 million. I doubt that Lloyds would issue another policy like that!
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