Re: Is suborbital a real market?

On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:59:50 +1100, in a place far, far away, Sylvia
Else <sylvia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

As Jeff Greason of XCOR says, it's a lot easier to build something
that's operable and affordable, and gradually expand its performance
envelope, than to take something that achieves the needed performance
at an insanely high cost, and make it operable and affordable.
It's the "gradually expand its performance envelope" that is in
question. Can this be done with a suborbital craft to the point where it
becomes an orbital one?

Once again, no, at least not until one is building point-to-point
vehicles for transport, which requires almost as much performance as
orbital. But one learns how to build vehicles with similar
operability characteristics, but higher performance.

Sounds like learning how to built airliners by getting experience in
painting them.

What utter nonsense. That's an absurd analogy.
.

Relevant Pages

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