Randall Clague wrote: > ... they have a number of challenges ahead of them. For one thing, > they believe they can go from clean paper to launch in 18 months. > Are they really *that* much better than everyone else who has ever > done a launch vehicle?
Not too familiar with SpaceX, but if you took a bunch of "us" and gave us the infrastructure to work continuously at will, we could get a _long_ way in 18 months... the KISS project (in its present incarnation, at least - I know there were earlier plans based on a clustered configuration of smaller engines) went from configuration commitment to first successful flight in about 23 months (May '00 - Apr '02)... and that was with time-slicing it in around day jobs, the availability of borrowed workspace, etc... circumstances that really cut down on the "man-years per calendar-year" figure. With a dedicated shop space and no external time demands, a small group could do a *lot* in 18 months... -dave w _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
