Death Sentence for the Hubble?

On 2005-03-19, Jeff Findley wrote:

I wonder how much it would cost to ship a crawler, launch platform, and a
shuttle stack to Washington D.C.? It's either that or answer the question,
"How much would it cost for a building big enough to hold them and strong
enough to survive a Cat4 or Cat5 hurricane?"

Ship? Drive!

....thus making you persona non grata amongst the highway police of about
five intervening states, but hey :-)

--
-Andrew Gray

"JATO

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 13:49:41 -0800, Richard Morris
wrote:



Rand Simberg wrote:

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 19:17:41 GMT, in a place far, far away, Fred J.
McCall made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:33:48 GMT, in a place far, far away, Fred J.
:McCall made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
:such a way as to indicate that:
:
:::Of course there is, but we're talking about developing systems that it
:::is claimed are easy to do and will have a huge market (which is a big
:::piece of the rest of the business plan).
:::
:::But up until now, the "huge market" part generated a great deal of
:::skepticism. That's what's kept it from happening, not the
:::technological side.
::
::That doesn't seem to track, either. One need merely look at the
::number of current launches. Being able to come up with a reliable and
::inexpensive launcher would quite obviously allow you to capture a lot
::of those existing launches, even if lower launch costs didn't enlarge
::the market.
::
::That doesn't constitute enough business to amortize the development
::costs. You need a much bigger market than that. The claim is that
::it's easy to do, not that it's inexpensive to do. It still takes a
::lot of up-front investment.
:
:If it takes that much up front investment in "development costs", then
:it is *NOT* "easy".
:
:What's not "easy" is raising the money, not designing and developing
:the launch system. The latter isn't a big deal, given the appropriate
:investment.

If it's "not a big deal" then why does it cost so much, Rand?

Major aerospace development programs cost a lot. Even developing an
airliner takes billions. That doesn't mean that it's technically
difficult. There's very little technical risk to the 7E7.

We appear to be using different definitions for 'easy'. Yours seems
to be "I don't need to invent any totally new technologies or engage
in magic". Mine is "I can put it together out of off-the-shelf
parts".

We will use off-the-shelf parts wherever feasible, but there is still a great
deal of cusom design work in a project of that magnitude. What will be
off-the-shelf is the required technologies.


Even COTS components are very expensive, guidance systems, telemetry
processors, power control systems, batteries, telemetry transmitters. Are
you also prepared to write all the specs to give to the companies that
build all the "off-the-shelf required technology"? Those specs are required
to insure you get the items you really need.

Where did you get the idea that I said that all of that would be cheap?

Also where are you going to
do your testing? Or for that matter where are you going to build your
launch tower, control center, range safety center? Where are you going to
get your weather info before launch? Are you going to launch your own
sounding rockets for that weather info? Or do you plan on relying on the
internet to give you real time high alt wind data? You are seriously
underestimating what is really involved with a rocket launch, or developing
a new one.

After 35 years of experience in aerospace, I think not.

But when you are ready, I'll be glad to spend your money as a
consultant, because you sure are going to need one.

I certainly would not ask for advice from someone who believes that the extra weight
of a fully-reusable launcher would add massively to the launch cost. I would only
ask for advice from someone who understands reusable systems, and your experience
appears to be of the wrong kind to be of any use. Thanks anyway.



-JATO
http://jatobservatory.org

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:49:43 -0800, Richard Morris
wrote:


But when you are ready, I'll be glad to spend your money as a
consultant, because you sure are going to need one.

I certainly would not ask for advice from someone who believes that the extra weight
of a fully-reusable launcher would add massively to the launch cost. I would only
ask for advice from someone who understands reusable systems, and your experience
appears to be of the wrong kind to be of any use. Thanks anyway.


Don't worry I wasn't banking on any project of yours getting off the ground
anyway. I'll am perfectly happy to continue with my aerospace job using my
20 years experience, and we'll continue to use those cheap, reliable, gonna
be around for a long long time ELVs to launch our spacecraft. I love 'em,
Long Live ELVs!!!!

See ya!
-JATO
http://jatobservatory.org

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 04:39:35 GMT, in a place far, far away, JATO
made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I certainly would not ask for advice from someone who believes that the extra weight
of a fully-reusable launcher would add massively to the launch cost. I would only
ask for advice from someone who understands reusable systems, and your experience
appears to be of the wrong kind to be of any use. Thanks anyway.


Don't worry I wasn't banking on any project of yours getting off the ground
anyway. I'll am perfectly happy to continue with my aerospace job using my
20 years experience, and we'll continue to use those cheap, reliable,

That's pretty funny.

"JATO @jatobservatory.org" jatoNo-Canned-Ham wrote in message
...
Don't worry I wasn't banking on any project of yours getting off the
ground
anyway. I'll am perfectly happy to continue with my aerospace job using my
20 years experience, and we'll continue to use those cheap, reliable,
gonna
be around for a long long time ELVs to launch our spacecraft. I love
'em,
Long Live ELVs!!!!

You seem to be suffering from a severe case of NIH Syndrome. I suggest you
get that checked out a.s.a.p. Entire companies have gone under due to this
syndrome, so I'd be cautious.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 11:42:57 -0500, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:


"JATO @jatobservatory.org" jatoNo-Canned-Ham wrote in message
.. .
Don't worry I wasn't banking on any project of yours getting off the
ground
anyway. I'll am perfectly happy to continue with my aerospace job using my
20 years experience, and we'll continue to use those cheap, reliable,
gonna
be around for a long long time ELVs to launch our spacecraft. I love
'em,
Long Live ELVs!!!!

You seem to be suffering from a severe case of NIH Syndrome. I suggest you
get that checked out a.s.a.p. Entire companies have gone under due to this
syndrome, so I'd be cautious.


I wouldn't worry about the company I work for Jeff. Their launch vehicle
business is healthy, and so is their spacecraft business. But thanks for
your concern

-JATO
http://jatobservatory.org

"JATO @jatobservatory.org" jatoNo-Canned-Ham wrote in message
...
I wouldn't worry about the company I work for Jeff. Their launch vehicle
business is healthy, and so is their spacecraft business. But thanks for
your concern

Why am I reminded of the buggy whip?

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

Jeff Findley wrote:

Why am I reminded of the buggy whip?

Perhaps it's because of your strong predisposition to dismiss out
of hand opinions that contradict your own.

Jim Davis

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 18:28:12 GMT, in a place far, far away, JATO
made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Don't worry I wasn't banking on any project of yours getting off the
ground
anyway. I'll am perfectly happy to continue with my aerospace job using my
20 years experience, and we'll continue to use those cheap, reliable,
gonna
be around for a long long time ELVs to launch our spacecraft. I love
'em,
Long Live ELVs!!!!

You seem to be suffering from a severe case of NIH Syndrome. I suggest you
get that checked out a.s.a.p. Entire companies have gone under due to this
syndrome, so I'd be cautious.


I wouldn't worry about the company I work for Jeff. Their launch vehicle
business is healthy, and so is their spacecraft business. But thanks for
your concern

But their prospects for building vehicles that are either cheap or
reliable in the near future are almost nil.

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:37:58 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 18:28:12 GMT, in a place far, far away, JATO
made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Don't worry I wasn't banking on any project of yours getting off the
ground
anyway. I'll am perfectly happy to continue with my aerospace job using my
20 years experience, and we'll continue to use those cheap, reliable,
gonna
be around for a long long time ELVs to launch our spacecraft. I love
'em,
Long Live ELVs!!!!

You seem to be suffering from a severe case of NIH Syndrome. I suggest you
get that checked out a.s.a.p. Entire companies have gone under due to this
syndrome, so I'd be cautious.


I wouldn't worry about the company I work for Jeff. Their launch vehicle
business is healthy, and so is their spacecraft business. But thanks for
your concern

But their prospects for building vehicles that are either cheap or
reliable in the near future are almost nil.

Well looking at the backlog there are a bunch of customers that don't seem
to support your claim.