Re: Vision of the three Rs: Regular, Reliable and Reusable

On Mar 6, 6:36 pm, "Hyper" <hyperbor...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 6, 11:52 pm, simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg)
wrote:





On 6 Mar 2007 13:11:51 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Hyper"
<hyperbor...@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

On Mar 6, 2:45 pm, simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote:
On 5 Mar 2007 22:22:53 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Totorkon"
<aertr...@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:
<...>
Probably. In fact I suspect it could be done in five-ton increments,
as long as the cost per ton were low enough.

This would certainly keep an RLV busy for some time.

Yes, it would, but too many people have a heavy-lift fetish.

Heavy lift spares you a lot of headaches.

And keeps the cost of doing space activity high.

I could argue that a program that drags on for years before it shows
any result is equally costly, and it damages the public perception
regarding space exploration.

Costly in public perception or dollars? If you divide the cost of the
shuttle program, $150G, by the number of flights, almost 120, you get
$1.25G per flight. Compare that with a 20 ton to LEO first stage RLV
that likely would be under $100M per launch and the actual economy of
RLV access is clear. The public would see that real work is being
done in orbit, the professed purpose of the ISS.

If you think about it, a
higher price may be worth it if your station/vehicle is assembled in a
couple of flights instead of 20-30 (to say nothing about EVAs. Plus,
you can't fly large diameter components on existing launchers.

There's no need for large diameter components. The bottom line should
remain low costs, not shying away from assembly because we draw false
lessons from the past.

The lesson from the past is that a single giant can get the job done
in a single giant step. The lesson that has to be learned is how to
assemble things in orbit. The uncertainty is greater but so are the
rewards, it will be a learning experience for NASA, its contractors
and the public.

How about heat shields? Any tug/OTV that goes to GEO or beyound needs
a pretty large one.

An orbital transfer vehicle is intended to stay in space. The Apollo
command module was 12.8 ft in diameter. The delta IV is 5m or over 16
ft in diameter, wider than the shuttle payload bay, fully enough to
cover any heat shield requirements for plausable reentry needs.

.