Well, if we're going for extremes anyway... Start by magnetizing the launch pad, or something near it, such that a rocket hovering (or, at least, moving slowly) near by will be drawn to land right on the pad. If that's not enough, make the mile or so around the pad sloped and slippery such that a rocket landing near by will fall to the pad (without tipping over), and/or make it a set of giant, reinforced conveyor belts configured to move a rocket landing on them to the pad without waiting for anyone to go out to the rocket.
Once you've got the rocket on the pad, enclose it in a scaffold studded with sensors - ultrasound to detect cracks, movable cameras for the crew to check the entire vehicle (no blind or difficult to see spots) without leaving the cockpit, et cetera. The computer runs the main check, though the crew backs it up. Any sections of the airframe deemed by either one to be too damaged get replaced by teleoperated robots within or part of the scaffold, which has enough parts to rebuild the entire airframe at least once (though hopefully you'd only replace a tiny bit, if any, on each visit). Of course, refuel during all of this, as has been previously discussed. Also swap out the old cargo modules and swap in a new, pre-prepared one; these modules may be satellites, tourists already in their seats, or whatever else. Possible total turnaround time: whichever of these three parts takes longer. Quite possibly this would be the inspection; if a crew of two could do it in half an hour (and that's probably being generous), that's one man hour, and half a customer hour, from touchdown to liftoff, not counting time to get clearance for the next flight (most, preferably all, of which would be taken care of before the rocket landed). Granted, this is an extreme vision, possibly far more so than will prove practical to implement, but like I said... _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
