Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: proposed "space-mail" incentive
Message-ID: <1989Dec18.235518.17270@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <5711@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 23:55:18 GMT

In article <5711@ncar.ucar.edu> steve@groucho.ucar.edu (Steve Emmerson) writes:
>... the original question, viz. a description (preferably financial)
>of those currently existing demands for `space-mail' services which are 
>analogous to the early-aviation demand for more rapid mail delivery.

Uh, Steve, I hate repeating myself, but:  *what* early-aviation demand
for more rapid mail delivery?  There wasn't any, not that you could
point to and measure in dollars and cents.  Why are you asking for
analogies to something that didn't exist?  (Indeed, the analogy is
very close, since cheap launch services have the same problem:  there's
little demand that can be quantified and sold to venture capitalists.)
If there had been solid, quantifiable demand, the Post Office wouldn't
have had to subsidize it.
-- 
1755 EST, Dec 14, 1972:  human |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
exploration of space terminates| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu