"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On 16 Sep 2003 11:15:05 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Kim Keller"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
.. .
Then again, given the value of satellites, and the insurance rates,
why didn't they design this way to begin with?

If you're talking about just unmanned launchers, then the answer would be
that the builder strove for an economic balance between launch cost and
launcher reliability. The satellite industry seems to tolerate a .95
reliability rate or thereabouts. Would they be willing to spend the much
greater launch cost on a booster that has .99 reliability? That's the
compromise the industry currently looks for, because that extra .04 seems
to
be exponentially more costly.

I don't think that "tolerate" is the right word. The idea behind new
launchers such as A-5 and the EELVs was not just reduced costs, but
increased reliability. I doubt if the insurance industry expects, or
is happy with five losses out of a hundred, and I suspect that their
disappointment is going to be reflected in their rates, which should
encourage the builders to do something about the problem, regardless
of what the payload is.

Considering how much these vehicles cost now, if it raises it
"exponentially" to make them reliable, then we can't afford to put
people up on them.

While I can not speak specifically for the Delta-4, I can say with some
knowledge that, for the Atlas V, the idea of what the insurance industry
wanted to see was not a big factor. When the Atlas V EELV program was first
developed, it was with the idea that the vehicles would be used for
government missions, not commercial ones. That was the big driver. There
were only going to be three basic configurations: 301, 401, and Heavy. The
first time that anyone thought of marketing it for a commercial mission was
when they decided to go after Teledesic. That was what drove them to
finally expand the number of configurations to include SRBs. Up until that
point, they had never even thought of adding solids! By that time though,
the basic design of the core was set, and it was too late (or too costly) to
change the core in such a way that they might have been able to have up to 6
solids; that's why they have to settle for 5.
Oops...sorry to stray here...merely meant to show that the commercial
market, and the associated insurance industry considerations of extra
reliability, etc, were not big factors in the original design of the Atlas
V.