Joe Strout wrote:

http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/3722

Pretty neat. $15M for a 4-week stay on orbit; that's quite an
improvement over $20M for a 5-day stay. And $88M/year to lease your own
300-m^3 space station module? That's a real bargain.

That's a _prediction_, not a bargain, based on zero experience and
much speculation.

In such an environment, I can imagine a lot of smaller countries
developing an astronaut corps that way. NASA will look a bit foolish
when there are twice as many Japanese astronauts on orbit as Americans,
and they're paying a fraction of what we pay for that capability.

They are also getting a fraction of the capability - or did you miss
the difference between being a passenger and being an operator? (My
guess is that did, seeing that you call them astronauts.)

The cool thing about this is, even if the schedule slips and the prices
creep a bit (as they are almost certain to do), it's still a starting
point much lower than anything governments have done.

There have been many powerpoints projecting starting points lower than
anything the goverment can do. Note how many have actually borne
fruit.

And once there are regular paying customers, prices will continue to
come down and performance will go up, both in the launchers and in the
on-orbit facilities. Bigelow won't long be the only player in that
space. And besides direct competitors, there will be lots of room for
support companies providing on-orbit fuel, power, tug service, and
much more. Real space infrastructure at last!

Ahh... and the closing hymm of "Marching Hand in Hand to a Brilliant
Future" rings out of the chorus!

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL