Re: SeaDragon and the Soviet N1

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 12:22:50 GMT, in a place far, far away, Monte
Davis <monte.davis@xxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote:

All same-same for high-flight-rate RLVs.

Those are much more scalable (if properly designed) than heavy
lifters, by definition.

If your RLV has so low a payload fraction that it only pays off with
more flights than anyone wants...

I don't understand what you mean by "payload fraction."

And/or if your RLV cost so much to develop that ROI can only be
achieved with more flights than anyone wants...

You're just as dead, economically, as if you had Sea Dragons sitting
around with more heavy-lift capacity than anyone wants.

But much less likely to be in that position. You're more likely to
find markets, at least initially, for small payloads than for
Sea-Dragon-sized payloads.
.

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