re alaska pipeline and space station in pq rj q u access digex net prb access digex com pat writes in article apr mksol dseg ti com mccall mksol dseg ti com fred j mccall writes i think this would be a great way to build it but unfortunately current spending rules don t permit it to be workable for this to work it would be necessary for the government to guarantee a certain minimum amount of business in order to sufficiently reduce the risk enough to make this attractive to a private firm since they generally can t allocate money except one year at a time the government can t provide such a tenant guarantee fred try reading a bit the government does lots of multi year contracts with penalty for cancellation clauses they just like to be damn sure they know what they are doing before they sign a multi year contract the reason they aren t cutting defense spending as much as they would like is the reagan administration signed enough multi year contracts that it s now cheaper to just finish them out i don t have to try reading a bit pat i work as a government contractor and know what the rules are like yes they sign some damned few which is why everyone is always having to go to washington to see about next week s funding multi year contracts they also aren t willing to include sufficient cancellation penalties when they do decide to cut the multi year contract and not pay on it which can happen arbitrarily at any time no matter what previous plans were to make the risk acceptable of something like putting up a private space station with the government as the expected prime occupant i d like a source for that statement about the reason they aren t cutting defense spending as much as they would like i just don t buy it the other thing i find a bit funny about your posting pat is that several other people answered the question pretty much the same way i did mine is the one you comment and incorrectly i think on i think that says a lot you and tommy should move in together insisting on perfect safety is for people who don t have the balls to live in the real world mary shafer nasa ames dryden fred mccall dseg ti com i don t speak for others and they don t speak for me
