On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 07:02:57 CST, in a place far, far away, "Dholmes"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
.. .
That's the title of my latest column at Tech Central Station, in which
I discuss why the economics of OSP make no sense.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/091903E.html

I see several flaws with your argument.

1) By using development costs for the OSP vs. not including them for the
shuttle you compare apples on oranges making the cost comparison worthless.

Nope. I addressed that in the column. You can't compare sunk costs
to avoidable ones, at least if you're trying to make a rational
economic decision.

2) Using three launches have nothing to do with rocket capabilities. The
heavy versions of both the Delta and Atlas could launch a Big Gemini with
lots of cargo mass left over totaling more people and more cargo then the
shuttle. It has to do with reducing risks even though it raises costs.

I don't understand what you're saying here, or the relevance.

3) The vast majority of the 12 billion cost estimates has to do with "man
rating" Atlas and Delta not the OSP itself.

So? It's still a cost that has to be amortized.

4) If you are using 3 OSP flights to replace a shuttle flight and you
replace at least 4 shuttle flights a year that totals 12 not 4 or 8. If you
replace 6 shuttle flights then you have 18 flights.

How do you figure? You can't count the cargo flights.

5) If they use the capsule version they will be reasonably cheap.

That remains to be seen.

There is
no reason a private company with its own rocket could not buy an OSP.

No, but there are many reasons that it wouldn't--the high costs.

All
they need is the ability to launch 8 tons to LEO, less if they want to sell
suborbital flights.

6) Reusability is in the early stages not all that important. Without
sufficient rate of launches to support a decent number of vehicles and
absorb fixed costs reusability can easily raise costs.

That was exactly the point of the column.

7) Delta and Atlas rockets at low launch rates cost less then $100 million.
Shuttle flights cost right now over $600 million.
Even at an extra $100 million you only have the same cost not more for a
safer vehicle. With a little luck and decent launch rates you should be able
to get launch costs under $100 million. Based on 4 people and 500 kg of
cargo that is around $20 million a person considerably cheaper then the
shuttle at around $50 million.

You apparently didn't read the column carefully.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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