Ian Woollard wrote: > That's why payload is important, because it provides income that leads > to profit; and that's why I'm concerned about a 4x reduction in income > per flight. My gut feel is that the profit margin isn't necessarily a > factor of 4 over cost in the first place. > [ .. ] > The other, perhaps better way to go is to differentiate the market and > command a higher price per kilogram- it may not matter if it is 4x more > expensive if it means you can launch a spy sat every half an hour or > something. If having a well designed, simple LAP can do that, then it > might be a preferred system after all. Or something. > > > The devil is in the details. You have to > > make common assumptions about design parameters > > and then compare apples and apples. > > Sure. But this payload reduction seems to be rather important, and I was > getting the impression people aren't completely getting the implications > of this particular architecture.
As you suggest in the second paragraph above, "value per flight" is not necessarily proportional to "payload _mass_ per flight". A flexible, available capability for launching even a very mass-constrained payload (especially if it can be done on very short notice) may have a value out of proportion to the raw payload mass in certain situations. (This may well drive a diversity of vehicle designs, depending on how the economics of various missions work out.) -dave w _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
