On Wed, 28 May 2003 14:42:38 +0000, "Jonathan Andrew Goff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>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. Couldn't have said it better myself. >As I see it, the first RLVs or ultra low cost >commercial ELVs will have to be profitable at >current flight rates. This, OTOH, is, IMHO, OTL. (Working on gummint stuff today. Can you tell?) Current launch rates are about one a week nationwide. There's no way to make money at that launch rate without charging an arm and a leg. At that launch rate, it doesn't matter what the vehicle costs, or what the fuel costs. Overhead eats you alive, because you have to pay your people and your landlord whether you're launching once a week or once an hour. >But anyone who needs >dozens of flights a year to make their business >plan connect must have been enjoying a little >recreation herbage in your humble opinion. I disagree with you, and I somewhat resent your statement that because I disagree with you, I smoke dope. I don't smoke dope, never have, never will. Let us *reasonably* disagree. >> But more to the point, no RLV company could afford >> 1000 test flights unless someone was paying them >> to do them. > >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. Well, I think there are three phases, for conscientious developers. The first phase is pure flight test, where even the developer doesn't know if the thing is going to crash. The second phase might be called validation. The developer is satisfied the thing won't crash, but he hasn't convinced everyone else. So he flies it and flies it until he has convinced everyone else. The third phase is routine operations. The second phase is the troublesome one. Everyone agrees that developers should do some flight test, and that they will eventually be safe enough to meet EC/MPL under less then draconian operating restrictions. The questions are when is flight test complete and when is validation complete. One certainty is that complete validation to politically acceptable levels of risk is too expensive for industry to do it on its own dime. -R -- "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." -- Robert Wilensky, UC Berkeley _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
