Re: The job of NASA

On 22 Nov, 17:49, ohara...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Nov 22, 10:11 am, simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg)
wrote:





On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 05:45:41 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

NASA is a Socialist orgainization. By this I mean it an organization
with goals and budjet set the the government. There is no competition.
If a NASA solution costs 10 times as much as a competitive product it
will use its political muscle to force its solution.

Cost per Kg of LEO launch vary enormously, with NASA being the most
expensive and Soyuz, Long March the cheapest.

NASA doesn't launch anything other than the Shuttle, you ignoramus.

Best way - everyone to launch on Soyuz/Long March until someone can
compete.

Do you mean like Delta, or Atlas?

If we assume that Atlas, Delta, Ariane, Long March etc are
representative of the costs of competetive space flight, then we have
to assume there is little hope of cheap access to space. Would you
really say that they are non-governmental or represent competetive
space flight? They were developed with govt funds with no incentive
to be cheap. Would non govt funding make things cheaper?- Hide quoted text -

This in fact represents the technology of expendable rockets. I am not
going to get into a detailed argument about whether an expendable
rocket is the only possible technology. If an alternative technology
was possible and economic free enterprise would have come up with it.

I am looking at this from the point of view of an economist, not that
of an advocate of any particular technology. The striking fact, from
the economic stand point is that there is too much launch facility for
the available market. Thus if you want cheap access the solution,
again talking from an economic perspective, is to increase demand.

I think that Buzz Aldrin should "weigh" a space solar power station,
and then go to industry and ask how much it would cost to launch given
economies of scale. Let us say we need 10,000 tons at GEO. OK this is
a figure from the top of my head. How much would it cost? Well with
present day launch costs something like a trillion dollars. We may
also point out that a space solar power station would be phase linked
and so require no heavy indivisible loads. Ares not needed.

What would you be offered? A trillion dollars represents the stating
point. Industry might develop a 2STO, a hypersonic plane, ion drive
tugs a whole host of technologies. Point is we simply say 10,000 tons
GEO and let the bidding start. I think the final cost might be 100
billion or even less.


- Ian Parker
.

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