A “not sufficiently mature market” has been blamed for NASA’s decision to ultimately reject proposals for two commercial launch pads.
The number of proposals NASA received for the launch pads – which would have been built at the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral – has not been disclosed.
Yet NASA officials also admitted that the decision could very well be reversed in the future, as the local market, forever altered by the arrival of SpaceX, continues to change and grow.
As ROOM author Igor Afanasyev recently pointed out, both in the U.S. as well as globally, commercial space is slated to transform the entire space industry, whether government agencies are ready or not. The question is really that of timing – at this point, it is hard to predict whether or not major changes will occur by 2020 or later.
