Re: An alternative to Orion/Constellation?



Jorge R. Frank wrote:

This is only the case at low flight rates. At sufficiently high flight rates (> 40-60/yr) RLVs beat ELVs.

Which brings up the question of why would you see those flight rates.
Right now the comsat launch business is about the only thing keeping commercial spaceflight alive, and it's split up between so many countries that all of them are having a hard time making a profit off of it due to the fairly low launch rate per annum.
Fiber optic cables have really cut into the need for comsats in GEO, so those monster comsats that you would see paintings of in the 1970's never needed to be built.
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