Re: DIRECT question for Oberg, Simberg, Spencer, et. al.


"Fred J. McCall" <fmccall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jirfe3ddge1p182eh698bv7e3upi62d70h@xxxxxxxxxx
"Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:Because NASA ought to be pursuing sustainable architectures involving
things
:like reusable TLI stages that can be refueled in orbit as opposed to
throw
:away stages based on 60's era thinking.
:

Why?

Where's the business case that demonstrates that this would actually
be cheaper at the flight levels we anticipate?

I doubt it. At the flight levels NASA anticipates, fixed costs dominate
everything. I still think it's a chicken and egg problem. With NASA's,
more or less, fixed funding levels, you can't seriously anticipate high
flight rates because launch costs are too high. And it's awfully hard to
get cheaper launches when your flight rate is so low that fixed costs
dominate everything, including the design of new launch vehicles and manned
space initiatives like returning to the moon.

I still think a step in the right direction would be ditching the Ares V
philosophy of launching everything you can on one vehicle and focusing on
techniques to make due with the biggest launchers we have now, which are
Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V Heavy. Those techniques will be needed if we
ever want to go to Mars.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)


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