Ahem...professionals...lol...ok, slipping right by that (did you ever own part of a space station - I did - it was called Mir....couldn't resist.)

Lori doesn't get paid that kind of money either. BTW the reason it is $25 million or so 10 years after I signed up Dennis Tito to fly is Because we don't have a market operating in any form for orbital transportation. And yes, this kick start isn't a purely commercial market yet, it will help us get to one. Commercial schlommercial...I used to think banks were commercial...who knows anymore?)

Anyway, we have been "wishful thinking for more than 20 years...NOT. A lot of hard work and many many battles have been fought to get us to this point. At last we have real companies building real rockets mainly (so far) with their own and their investors Real money. And now we are trying to do right by the taxpayers by not wasting their funds while helping get this new industry a boost so it can help us all realize our dreams. All good stuff so far.

Stay with your first point about the accountant. Your second one about the explosion falls apart when you look at the NASA safety record....BTW it was Morton Fireball errr....Morton Thiokol....errr....ATK ...who gave us Challenger. So NASA decides to go to ATK and build an entire launch stack around the element that failed and killed that crew....nuff said.

Need I say more...hell, you guys have it figured.

Again...right on! So even the "traditionals" can play! And exactly right. NASA trying to say their "stick" has more reliability than commercial systems is completely bogus.

You have to start somewhere my friend. If you are going to spend a billion dollars and can use it to incubate and leverage a new industry vs. prop up an old dead end system then lets do it. The companies trying to open space do not want to stay as contractors - in fact we need to create systems not based on old style aerospace contracting, but pay for delivery contracts etc. As they grow the capacity they create will shift to more and more purely "commercial" paylods and passengers.
This is a kickstart effort. Let's be clear.

Amen brother!

See the above. Absolutely.
Let's also bne clear on this. The shuttle was a failure. It Never met its design goals nor the the level of use it was pitched to have (it was supposed to fly 25-50 times a year and help bring costs down to tens of dollars a pound.
Government rocketships cannot do this. We need competition.
From adapted Atlas and Delta "traditional" rockets to new generations ships from SpaceX and OSC, if we nurture these guys the cost will drop and we will get our settlements on the Moon, Mars and the space between worlds.

Actually. it does follow. Constellation as designed is anti-commercial, unsustainable and anti-frontier. There is along history of proponents of NASA programs sabotaging, killing or otherwise undermining commercial/private sector efforts to develop systems that are seen as competitive with their own feeding troughs.

Thanks for tuning in though. Honorurable debate is a good thing. And please spread the word. This is my first ever blog (I know, welcome to the 21st century etc.) I intend to stir up a lot of issues over time to advance the cause.