What's the cheapest cost to orbit a chemical rocket is likely to
yield in the next fifty years? BRBR


The trouble is that there's no simple answer. "It depends" sounds like a cop
out, but it's true. The market demand, and thus the flight rate, are as or
more important than the vehicle design and operation in determining cost per
pound to orbit of the system. For example, the Pegagus guys say their cost
would be about 1/3 what it is now if the flight rate was 4x higher, so the
fixed infrastructure could be spread over more flights.

Assuming a robust market, the likely low-cost approach is a mix of dumb simple
ELVs for medium and heavy lift and TSTO RLVs for specialty missions like
shuttling humans to LEO. (An SSTO RLV should be cheaper to operate but will
take more upfront investment than TSTO, and again, the market wil ldetermine
which approach would produce the lowest cost.)

Confusing enough? It gets a lot worse in practice


Matt Bille
)
OPINIONS IN ALL POSTS ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHOR