True, but operating a Tristar launch platform is, I am sure, a much cheaper timng than would be a Vulcan launch platform.

After all, Orbital Sciences IS a commercial, for-profit enterprise… not a government-run/sponsored money-pit.

And to forstall the knee-jerk screaming, I was not talking about TVOC, or any other such thing… I was referring to NASA.

If the US government was less protective of NASA’s near-monopoly on non-military space-flight in the US, the International Space Station and other manned space-flight projects would be far more numerous, and far more advanced… but the government has until recently refused to allow serious private/commercial space work.

Orbital Sciences is one of the few exceptions, but I remember when they were starting up that the US only granted them their permits to operate with a hard limit on the maximum payload size… that would prohibit any attempt at launching major satellites or a manned craft.