My first thoughts on reading....
- Sounds too much like a SCUD, we must be anti that here.
- No communications network. You could only talk to satellite a couple of times
a week.
- Lastly a mental image of someone calling your transport service to get a
package to the far side of the globe quick. A brown truck appears at their door, you
get the package and the check, take it to the truck, stuff it in the nose cone and
launch right from their parking lot. Cash the check before it lands.
On reflection...
An issue Kennedy raised during the 60 election was the "Missile gap". The
country built thousands of ICBM's in this time period. Johnson was involved. The
motive? Being kind, he was patriotic, and being more real the country was in
recession in 59 and it was military Keynsian or benevolent pork barrel. Whatever it
was it was big and for whatever reason it became a national goal to get into space
first. A lot of resources were available.
A non technical question for ERPS is how to get the resources on a grand enough
scale to do a big project. Randall is right that this need not be considered now. I
brought it up as folks are talking about NASA problems and though it might be worth
while figuring out how is ERPS going to avoid the same problems.
David Weinshenker wrote:
> Randall Clague wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, 09 Feb 2003 12:10:24 -0500, Alex Fraser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Do the problems come with the scale of the venture? Looking at NASA
> > >what can you learn about being big. This is what I had in mind. I think
> > >getting big will be a bigger challenge to ERPS than any technological
> > >hurdle.
> >
> > I think you're right. I also think it's something we don't need to
> > worry about at the moment.
>
> And in the long term, it will quite likely (for us as distinct from NASA)
> be more of an issue of dealing with the technological hurdles involved in
> "going to orbit without getting big".
>
> (It has been said that the government lunar program as it actually happened
> was originally LBJ's idea - he suggested it to JFK, with the motive of bringing
> large amounts of new government business to Texas. The Shuttle program continued
> this tradition - on a national basis. Consider it as an experimental _upper_
> bound... how many people _can_ you keep busy launching a vehicle to orbit?)
>
> The WW2-era "V2" IRBM could, as I understand it, be fired by a
> couple of operators from a truck... with modern electronic control
> systems, a small orbit-capable vehicle might not need much more.
> (Three guys, a truck, and a portable computer?)
>
> -dave w
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