Pierce Nichols wrote:
> To my mind, beam launching (laser and microwave) is the same sort
> of technology as space elevators -- they only make sense where a mature,
> robust market already exists. There's substantial amounts of basic research
> to be done in several fields to make them practical, and they have massive
> infrastructure costs on top of the development costs. However, if your
> flight rate is high enough, even those can eventually sink into the noise.
Well ... 100+ G's at take-off is a little hard on the passengers as
well. 8-)
> Personally, I think that $100/lb is probably achievable with
> rocket vehicles, given sufficiently high flight rates. This is because the
> lion's share of the cost of flight now is not operations (well, as long as
> you don't count the Shuttle :), but vehicle acquisition (R&D +
> manufacturing). High flight rates cut into that by allowing those costs to
> be spread over a greater number of payloads. This also allows the
> developers to mount an attack on operations costs by devoting more
> development time and manufacturing expense to improving operations.
The current problem is that it's ALL vehicle acquisition cost because
you can't use it again. Even the Shuttle is much more "rebuildable"
than "reusable".
First you need a vehicle that can fly multiple missions per month,
then per week, then per day. We're still a ways from flying more than
once a quarter and that flight rate is only sustainable by
Governments.
Michael
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Wallis KF6SPF (408) 396-9037 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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