macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) (04/08/89)
In article <1989Apr3.174529.1476@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >Aircraft capable of carrying useful passenger loads were more expensive >than you think, especially compared to the purchasing power of the fledgling >airlines. The fact is, airlines which tried to make money carrying >passengers and ordinary freight consistently went broke in the early years. >The US airline industry, and its aircraft suppliers, were kept alive by >lucrative government air-mail contracts. No equivalent for spaceflight >has yet appeared. Airlines are still going broke, and the survivors are often hurting. Under government regulation, "the trains ran on time"; after decades of doing "business" in this way, one might expect it to take a decade or more to convert over to an unregulated system. Unfortunately the airlines are such vital services that the public won't stand for much in the way of chaos; I suspect the carriers are closer to re-regulation than they realize. Part of the blame for the chaos goes to the *non*-deregulation of gate slots at airports - _Reason_ magazine had a good article about this recently. I hope that the same thing doesn't happen to the US space program - i.e., years of operation as a state-operated and regulated monopoly, losing money and remaining noncompetitive - then a catastrophic deregulation that follows creating an even bigger problem. Michael SLoan MacLeod (amdahl!drivax!macleod)