Thread: Armstrong lauds another spaceman
View Single Post
  #93  
Old February 12th 06, 01:41 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.moderated,rec.arts.startrek.current
Fred J. McCall
external usenet poster
  
Posts: n/a
Default Armstrong lauds another spaceman
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:29:59 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Fred J.
:McCall" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
:in such a way as to indicate that:
:
:::Only because there's little demand for it from the traditional
::roviders of launch system development funds.
::
::Largely because they don't believe it can be done and don't want to
::fund yet more development of another system that doesn't hit the
::target (again).
::
::Do you truly believe that a system that cut price to LEO to the $1500
::range wouldn't rapidly become the launch system of choice (assuming
::payload capability similar to what is currently extant)?
::
::Of course not. Do you truly believe that I wrote such a thing?
:
:That's how I read the "...there's little demand for it from the
:traditional providers of launch system development funds" comment,
:yes.
:
:Then you misread it.

Or you miswrote it.

::Why would commercial users (in particular) stick with a higher-cost
::system, all other things being equal?
::
::They wouldn't. Nice straw man, though. Chock full.
:
:Just going by what you say, Rand. If you don't mean it, don't say it.
:
:I didn't say it.

Well, perhaps you didn't MEAN to say it....

::What I said was that there was no demand for it, or at least not
::enough to justify the investment. I didn't say that they wouldn't
:refer a cheaper ride if they could get one. But they're obviously
::satisfied with current prices.
:
:We're obviously using a different definition for 'demand'.
:
:Obviously. I'm using it the sense that they are willing to purchase
:at the current price, and are not demanding a lower one.

Which is no definition at all, since 'demand' implicitly includes 'at
a given price'. The way you have to make this determination is to
look at demand at the current price vs demand at the lower price and
use THAT to determine whether it makes sense to develop something that
can operate at the cheaper price (including business captured from
competitors, of course).

See pretty much any Econ 102 book.

:That doesn't
:mean that they wouldn't prefer to pay less, if they thought they
:could. They're not stupid, but they're also not sufficiently
:dissatisfied with the current prices to make major investments and
:accept risk in lowering them. Also, I said that there's no demand
:from the traditional providers of launch development funds. That's a
:different group of people from the purchasers of launch services.

Yes, well that group would generally be the government, which is not
real 'demand-based' in any event.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn