Re: Man-Rating Atlas V

In article <6ohih2lg7e2q01p2lh1f1v20sge15r32s8@xxxxxxx>, Fred J McCall wrote:
"Michael K. Heney" <mheney@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:In article <1159209129.597308.217300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Will McLean wrote:
:>
:> Rand Simberg wrote:
:>> On 25 Sep 2006 09:47:14 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Will McLean"
:>> <mclean1382@xxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
:>> way as to indicate that:
:>>
:>> >
:>> >Rand Simberg wrote:
:>> >>
:>> >> But not because they don't want to build a big enough launcher to do
:>> >> it all it once. It's because of their nonsensical policy of not
:>> >> wanting to mix crew and cargo (one of the many foolish "conclusions"
:>> >> from the Shuttle).
:>> >
:>> >Not really. They considered launching the crew on the cargo launcher.
:>> >They chose not to do it because they concluded the big cargo launcher
:>> >would be less reliable than the stick.
:>>
:>> In other words, they don't want to mix crew and cargo.
:>
:> They don't want to launch people on the less reliable launcher. Not
:> mixing crew and cargo is the outcome, not the justification.
:
:Stoopid question - why would you want to launch ANYTHING on a
:less-reliable launcher?? Loss of life is bad - but loss of
:hundreds of millions in cargo isn't good.

Now do the calculation. If the less reliable launcher costs less to
get a pound to orbit, is the number of additional cargoes you lose
worth more than the extra cost of using the more expensive, more
reliable vehicle for everything?

Probably, once you take into account the need to rebuild the payload
(or build a spare to stand by), lost schedule time / lost revenue
service time, the cost of a new launch vehicle, etc. Cost per
pound to launch does not dominate the cost of operating in space,
If you do the math, you find that higher reliability is cheaper in
the long run.


.

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