🚀 go-pugleaf

I disagree with Mr. Gillies. An industry is ready for passenger service
as soon as they can find someone who is willing to buy a full cost
recovery ticket despite the real or percieved risk level.

And if you can take out a life insurance policy on them, so much the
better.

Imagine placing a SpaceHab module a shuttle with an extra 3 passengers
in it at $10M each. It would pay for nearly 10% of the real cost of the
flight (including R&D amortization) even at low flight rates. I'm quite
sure there are enough wealthy oldsters out there to bring in an extra
$100M or so a year.

I would rather see that done by a private company. If the government
had the smarts to do it, they'd probably turn it into a permanent low
volume price gouging (or heavily tax subsidized money loser) monopoly
like they do with everything else.