NASA's plan to share a space shuttle launch pad being modified for its new heavy-lift rocket with commercial users may have a fatal flaw. "As a commercial customer, you want some assurances that that pad is going to be available in the futuve and the way the government's budgets are structured, if I have a customer who wants to fly to space in three years and I sign them up, I need to know that I have a launch pad to do that," Rob Meyerson, president of startup Blue Origin, said. "There are no technical issues" with having multiple users of the pad, Meyerson told SpaceNews. "The issues are more with long-term commitment: Can a commercial customer be certain that access to that pad is going to be there for two, three, four, five years out?"
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