🚀 go-pugleaf

in SPACE Digest V10 #349 Jim Barnes (barnes@Xylogics.COM) writes:		
>In article <31536@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) writes:
>>
>>o Date: 13 Dec 89 16:08:45 GMT
>>o 
>>o 	TOKYO -- A Japanese firm has bought Moscow's only surplus Mir space
>>o station and an experimental science module for $10 million to help
>>o promote Japan's space industry, the company's president said Wednesday.
>>
>>Say what?  I figure the price may be off by a few orders of magnitude,
>>but what's this really supposed to mean?
	
>Does anyone else see a parallel here with what the Japanese have done
>in the electronics and computer industry?  Namely, buy the best technology
>available and improve it? 

>Which brings me to another point.  If the Russians are willing to build
>and sell MIR stations for a reasonable price, what's to prevent (for example)
>Hughes and Martin-Marietta from buying one and putting it up with their
>own boosters.  Or even paying the Russians to launch the station and
>then staffing with their own (Hughes and Martin-Marietta, that is) personnel?

Well, for one thing, the Russians didn't build that MIR to sell it, and they
are probably as well equipped to build another as we are to build another
Skylab.  That was the backup core for the MIR station, and most experts are
absolutely shocked that the Russians would even consider selling it.  Some 
people think that this means that the USSR is getting ready to pull the plug
on the MIR project due to the truly dismal state of thier economy.

However, there where some articles a while back on the sci.space newsgroup
about a study that Livermore did regarding an inflatable space station made 
from reinforced Kevlar (TM).  They claimed that they could have one ready to go
up in '95, that they could put it up on a single booster (didn't say what kind
of booster, hope it wasn't a Saturn V...), and that it would cost around $40M
(that's right, $4.0e7).  That's still a price not many companies can swing, but
there _are_ companies out there with supercomputer facilities in that range, so
I would think that there would be companies (Like maybe 3M) that would/could 
spend $40M to set up a microgravity materials/pharmeceuticals research and/or
production station.

The big question is, would Hughes or Marietta, or any of the traditional 
NASA biggies, want this technology to come to fruition?  Fact is, they stand to
make a much bigger profit off a $40B space station than from $40M, and I
don't think sales volume is going to be a big factor here.  I have no doubt that
NASA is capable of picking the best design at the best price, but they might not
be allowed to, once congress starts getting a whiff of the pork barrel.