Re: Fixed costs dominate launch costs

On 5 Mar, 20:38, "Alex Terrell" <alexterr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 5 Mar, 15:20, "Jeff Findley" <jeff.find...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:> Current issues in NewSpacehttp://www.thespacereview.com/article/823/1

From above:

Sowers was optimistic that additional demand for the Atlas 5
from commercial orbital manned missions could benefit all users
of the vehicle. "The launch vehicle industry is very highly
invested in fixed costs," he said. "If there's a new big market
we think we can get factors of two to four, nearly, in cost
reduction by increasing launch rates by factors of two to four."

I know NewSpace is looking for even greater cost reductions, but what stuck
in my mind is the potential launch costs reductions that are there if NASA
would abandon Ares I/V and buy Atlas and Delta launches instead.

Quite - and that's from LM. What would Spacex offer?

That's why Constellation should be launched with a contract for about
24 Atlas V Heavy / Delta IV Heavy / Falcon S9 Heavies every 24 months.
Even on current list prices, NASA would save money.

Problem is too much competition. Any capitalist worth his salt would
buy Proton/Soyuz - At any rate until the market was big enough to
reduce costs by a factor of 4. As I said in "Establish Demand" we are
quite happy to leave other pieces of technology to the marketplace.
Somehow space is a symbol of national virility in a way cars are not.

OK we need the knowledge - True. We sinply archive CAD we don't
destroy it. Apart from that why is space different from cars?


- Ian Parker

.

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