Re: Orbiter shape.
From: Perplexed in Peoria (jimmenegay_at_sbcglobal.net)
Date: 07/22/04
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Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 19:03:59 GMT
"Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote in message news:7lTLc.4676$oB6.1158@fe37.usenetserver.com...
>
> "Dave O'Neill" <dave@atomicrazor.com> wrote in message
> news:381574c2.0407220120.28a8c982@posting.google.com...
> > Rand Simberg <newsgroups@transterrestrial.com> wrote in message
> news:<8tHLc.11463$Qu5.954@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
> > > And right now, the key to low-cost lift is satisfying the vast market of
> > > people who want to visit space.
> >
> > There we go again, "vast market" - could we please be a little more
> > specific about what exactly you mean by "vast".
> >
> > It might be "large" but not anything like large enough to fund the
> > development of vehicles which can operate at the necessary price
> > points.
>
> Basic economics. As the cost for the product is lowered, demand soars. The
> key to getting "large" demand is getting the cost "low enough".
>
> Right now, the only private, paying passengers on spaceships have flown on
> Soyuz for around $20 million per flight. If you drop that cost by an order
> of magnitude ($2 million), the demand will go up. Drop it three orders of
> magnitude ($20,000) and I think you've arrived at a cost low enough to
> generate the demand that Rand is talking about (millions of people).
>
> Of course, the devil is in the details. Just how much you can decrease the
> cost of spaceflight is very much a topic of debate.
>
OK, just to have numbers to play with, assume a million paying passengers
per year and a ticket price of $20,000. Assume that $15,000 of that goes
to pay the tour guides, buy fuel, amortize the capital costs, and pay for
the liability insurance. Assume that the other $5000 goes to pay back the
investors for the R & D and development costs they incurred. Of this $5000
in development costs, assume that $3000 was tailored to the specific
requirements of the tourist industry, but that $2000 went into technological
innovations that will reduce the cost of all lift for all missions that
require lift (such as lunar colonization, SPS construction, and so on).
$2000 times 1 million passengers per year is $2 billion per year. Hmmm.
That is not peanuts. What is NASA's annual budget?
Of course, different numbers will give different results.
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