"Tom Cuddihy" wrote in message
oups.com...

Pete Lynn wrote:

Which do you think has the greater chance of
success - one $100 billion ESAS approach, or one
thousand $100 million SpaceX/Airlaunch/Origin
efforts?

That's easy to sco

Apparently not.

$100 billion at $15 bil a year for NASA -- 7 years
to reach full funding based on slightly less than current
NASA funding. Odds are pretty good.

In not first addressing the problems of CATS the odds of ESAS
accomplishing the commercialisation of space are negligible.

1000x 100 million = $100 billion in private financing
required. At current SpaceX (~$80 mil a year in
investment from Musk's dwindling private stash--
generous) + all other FALCON expenditures
(AirLaunch, Microcosm) programs (~$30 mil a year,
again, generous) + Blue Origin (~ complete guess, but
let's say a really generous $100 mil a year).
==total $210 mil a year, 500 years to reach full
funding.

hmm. That's easy. Oh I know, that's no fair. I should
be funding SpaceX / AirLaunch / Origin at the same
rate as NASA. But that's completely unrealistic for
many reasons, one of which is that injecting that much
money into new private efforts would completely
distort their development.

Indeed, which is why one would for this hypothetical comparison assume a
similar time frame for both scenarios. A five billion annual budget
would infer $100 million each to fifty start ups per year. Methods of
holding such funding accountable have been discussed elsewhere.

Solving the CATS problem will require open competition, that probably
means five plus groups intensively competing to get costs down. After
that the best approaches for getting to the Moon and Mars might be
re-evaluated. Sure there will be one off exploration missions, but I
expect a degree of on going open competition will be an essential
element of such a program.

Pete.