On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 12:28:54 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Terrell
Miller" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

I don't have to have built a dining-room table to assert confidently that
it is possible for me to do so. I *did* design and build the desk I'm now
sitting at; it is not as large as a dining-room table, but it is actually
significantly more complicated. The same tools and skills apply.

Fine. Now build two hundred of them each year for the next decade.

I'm sure that if you gave him budget, he could easily do so.

Are you *now* getting the picture, H?

It's yours that seems out of focus.

In the case of launch *rate*, it's particularly easy. Building rockets
that are ten times bigger can be a technical challenge, but building ten
times as many of the existing design is just a matter of more production
plants.

Henry, Henry. That is *exactly* the same kind of wild-assed handwaving that
you, I, and a buch of other people here have been criticizing NASA for. I
really, really hope you can understand what you are doing, but it seems to
me like you're just substituting one castle-in-the-air for another one.

How is it "wild-assed handwaving" to point out the simple fact that if
one factory can be built, that many can be built? Where are the
roadblocks?

The Soviets showed that they -- with their poor technology and
miserably inefficient economy -- could launch 100 times a year. And that
was never a large fraction of their government spending. Even they could
have launched 200 times a year quite straightforwardly: all they needed
to do was build and staff a second copy of each facility involved.

So why didn't they? Probably because they were feeling the pinch from those
100 launches (or more specifically, because 100 launches is all they could
squeeze in with the other Oppressive State **** they had to do).

Because they were broke. We're not.

More
manufacturing plants, more assembly buildings, more rail lines, more pads.
The only really scarce resource -- engineering brainpower -- doesn't have
to be duplicated, not when you're just building a second copy of something
that's already debugged. Want 300/year? Build a third copy.

And have massive QC failures (read: disasters) because there aren't nearly
enough people around who actually understand how all the parts are supposed
to fit together, and besides the ones that do haven't been paid in a year so
they keep all that info to themselves and parcel it out piecemeal when
somebody offers a good enough bribe.

That's an interesting speculation, but I doubt if you have any idea
whether it's true or not. Hire the people who understand the plant to
draw up plans. Build more plants. Have them train people to operate
them. Employ standard TQM.

Sorry, but this actually *isn't* rocket science.

Look bro, nobody wants a robust space infrastructure more than you and I,
but it's still a pipe dream and will be for decades *at best*, unless we
find a way to dump our chemical rocket dependency.

Your obsession with the inadequacy of chemical rockets is not supported by
facts. While not ideal, they are perfectly adequate to get us into orbit
cheaply and conveniently, if built and used properly.

again: this is a prime example of "don't let the facts get in the way of a
good theory".

The simple fact is that *nobody* anywhere, anywhen has sustained the kind of
production for chemical boosters that you insist is a piece of cake.

Becaue there's been no demand for it, not because it's technically
challenging. And you remain hung up on the notion that chemical
rockets are the problem. There's no technical or economic basis for
this.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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