h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:46:11 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Wayne Throop) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
:in such a way as to indicate that:
:
:: Joe Strout
:: - Flight rate. So far, about 500 humans have ever been in space.
:: Virgin Galactic plans to fly about 500 passengers per year. Manned
:: space launches currently happen at a rate of about half a dozen
:: (launches, not people) per year; Virgin will be flying more than once
:: per week. And of course, VG will not be the only game in town; Space
:: Adventures also seems pretty credible to me in their plans for
:: suborbital tourism. So in a few years, we're looking at a flight rate
:: orders of magnitude higher than what we have now. Even if this is
:: suborbital rather than orbital, this will result in a much faster
:: feedback & revision cycle, and so faster progress.
:
:My problelm with this one is that you can revise and improve suborbital
:flight all you want, and you're still no farther along than the X15 was,
:in terms of basic capability. Is there some reason to think this will
:spill over to orbtial capability?
:
:Suborbital will gradually increase its speed and altitude to the point
:that it becomes orbital, in a more natural progression than occurred
:with the unnatural jump to Apollo, which was a cost-is-no-object
:response to the needs of the Cold War.

Why will that happen? The jump from suborbital to orbital is a big
step requiring correspondingly big investment. I'd love to see it but
it doesn't seem to me that we're talking about the near-term future
here.

:Projects like
:Iridium might have been profitable if the costs of keeping the satellites
:up and supplying more were less.
:
:Even they weren't willing to spend enough money on the necessary
:development to lower the cost of launch, and they didn't provide
:enough market to do so. So far, there's only one clear market that
:could, and doesn't require ancillary technology development--people
:who want to go and are willing to pay their own money for the
pportunity.

Again, I'd love to see it. I've been pleasantly surprised at the
number responding for a suborbital trip (and two week luxury resort
vacation, which may have a bit to do with it), but it seems to me that
number will fall rapidly at the increasing price of actually getting
to orbit unless there's a similar luxury resort to stay in once they
get there.

--
"We come into the world and take our chances.
Fate is just the weight of circumstances.
That's the way that Lady Luck dances.
Roll the bones...."
-- "Roll The Bones", Rush