Yes. Or you find a very rich guy like Beal who will fund most or all of the development.Randall said:Ian saidRandall said:The tricks are to keep the development cost downIf you're worrying about that too much, you're not >>launching enough.The point is that a market that has enough demand for you to "launch enough" doesn't exist yet, and won't just spring like Athena out of the head of whatever RLV manages to be the first to appear on the stage. It will take time to develop, and if you don't keep development costs down very low for your 1st generation commercial RLV, then you'll likely end up going belly-up from cashflow issues.
Not necessarily flight rates.As I see it, the first RLVs or ultra low cost commercial ELVs will have to be profitable at current flight rates.
Actually, I think that the first RLVs will have to be profitable at a small fraction of current total launch mass (or nearly so).
If you make the RLV a minimum size, then launching 100x, might only launch as much mass as one Shuttle. But the vehicle would have already paid for its R&D (because small vehicles are cheaper than big ones to design, build, test, and you've just worn the vehicle out in a short period of a year or two. Note that the Shuttle hasn't worn out, and may never wear out- this represents a considerable loss money.)
So I think that RLVs probably optimise at a lower size than ELVs.
No. It would take a few years to design a new vehicle anyway. Whilst you are doing that, you can be trying to sell contracts. If you don't manage to sell any; you might as well pack up and go home.Down the road once the news has been spread that you have a low cost and responsive access to space, the market will grow to the point that higher development costs will be justified. But anyone who needs dozens of flights a year to make their business plan connect must have been enjoying a little recreation herbage with those guys up in Eugene I saw this weekend. It just isn't going to happen immediately.
Note, I'm talking about orbital RLVs not suborbital.If you're worrying about it much at all, you're not launching yet anyway. You're still in development.Which is where pretty much all of us are (if that far).But more to the point, no RLV company could afford 1000 test flights unless someone was paying them to do them.
Yes, but if your test flights generate an asset that you can borrow against, it helps. For example the RLV company buys a bunch of rocket fuel at a few dollars a kilogram. They stuff it in the nose of the test vehicle. Launch it. If it makes it; great, you can potentially sell that payload; it's now worth about $1000-4000/kg. If it doesn't- it didn't actually cost you anything except the test flight, which you were going to do anyway. Of course nobody would necessarily buy that payload at the time you launch it; but it still counts as an asset, and you may be able to borrow against it to help fund further launches. It helps if there are space taxi services around, or you have a contract with a GEOsat launcher or customer anyway.
Exactly. Which is why it may be better off getting that experience *as you operate* then going back later to get youre EC and MPL reassessed, and your RLV relicensed under better terms.~Jon
-- -Ian Motto: "You're Not Authorized to Know Our Motto." So, like, how many lives DOES Shroedinger's cat have anyway?
