Re-visiting The Nuclear Rocket, Part III

Another thing to comment upon:  his idea for a NucRocketCorp.

My first take on this was that it was to be like a GSE ( Government Sponsored Entity).  That would like the Federal Reserve, or Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac.

But it isn't exactly like that.  He says on page 77 that it's a variation on the GOGO concept that NASA uses, or the GOCO concept that the DOE uses.  GOGO means government owned, government operated.  GOCO means government owned, corporate operated.  His is called COGO: short for corporate owned, government operated.

I think there'd be an ideological objection to this.  His idea to have the government in charge of the HEU ( highly enriched uranium) makes sense.  But to have corporate entities turning over their assets to a government operated organization--- I don't think so.

He'd probably have more luck sticking to current models like GOCO that the DOE uses now.

There'd have to be some kind of incentive for the corporations to want in on this.  I can't see the government spending a lot of money to reconstitute the nuclear rocket facilities currently in disrepair only to have no interest shown by the corporations in running it for profit.  The corporations would be making their chemical rockets obsolete, so they'd have a strong incentive not to join in without adequate compensation guaranteed to them.

Dewar believes that they must join or die.  Well, that's an incentive, but you have to get past the politics of it.

Update:

Corrected some poorly worded discourse.

Update:

Further thought on this does not preclude a COGO concept.  That could come later after the bonds are retired for the startup.  You'd have to government fund the startup though.  There's no way I could see private companies just willing themselves into oblivion by joining up with this concept.  They'd had to be brought kicking and screaming into this and they'd have to be compensated fairly---maybe even more than fairly if you catch my drift.  Later on, they could get it back once it is on its feet.  In the interim, they'd could run the enterprise until it is successful, or it isn't.  In the end, it must be privatized.