Re:God bless 'em (Score 1)

The problem with outsourcing to X-prize people is that they are going for a straight up- straight down approach. It's like throwing a rock up as high as you can get it (in this case above the 350,000 foot mark). That's a long ways away from launching usable payloads into low, mid, and high earth orbits like the shuttle does. Oh, and by the way, ensuring that you can take a crew of highly qualified people, enough food for three meals a day plus two snacks for each astronaut, enough hypergolic fuels to maneuver around with, oh, and let's not forget the highly volatile oxygen and hydrogen tanks used to make electricity and water.... Yeah, show me an X-prize contestant that can do all that, and I'll show you NASA...