Space review: The vision thing

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
Anybody out there think it's remotely feasible for anybody on Earth to
assemble, check out, and launch a couple thousand boosters within a 5-10
year span? Didn't think so.

With a properly designed booster, and production/checkout system,
there's no particular reason why a one-launch-a-day rate can't be
sustained indefinitely. (Assuming the money is available...
....
It's not merely remotely feasible, it's clearly and straightforwardly
feasible. Good design in the launcher and the ground-support facilities
will certainly help, but the only part that's *necessary* is ample money.
Does anybody have a clue how much money is needed to design such a
booster (Zenit?, Angara?, ??) and the related automated production and
launch facilities? The scale (thousands of launches) would certainly
justify investing
quite a big $$$ into production/launch automation.

A rocket could (and should), after all, be simpler then the car I am
driving. While it would have much more metal and fuel, the costs of
those should be in the noise (about as much as in my car).

Stefan

P.S. What I would like to see (in addition, and in parallel with the
research into cheap launchers) is basic engineering research into
- simple, low cost and reliable reentry systems (ballutes?, ...)
- how to operate machinery in the lunar environment (dust, thermal
extremes)
- how to process lunar regolith into solar panels (the panels
could be inefficient, but the process should be automatic)
- trying out a small scale rotovator with currently available
technology (spectra?), just to figure out the potential unknown
problems
- ...

All of this done in real space, not just viewgraph engineering.