High-flight rate Medium vs. New Heavy lift launchers

(ed kyle) wrote in message . com...
"Kim Keller" wrote in message m...
"Magnus Redin" wrote in message
...
What is the rough number of employees for different parts
of the shuttle system?

I can only speak to the situation at KSC, where roughly 7000 people work on
Shuttle in some way, shape or form.


Here is another way to look at it. NASA's shuttle budget
is roughly $3.2 billion per year (6 flights). Roughly
$1.31 billion of that cost is attributed to the cost of
processing and upgrading the orbiters and their SSMEs.
Purchase, refurbishment, processing, and upgrade of ET
and SRB elements accounts for about $1.1 billion. Mission
and launch operations costs account for the remainder.

Taking away the orbiter costs leaves $1.92 billion. The
orbiter will have to be replaced with something roughly
the size of an EELV Medium, which costs on the order of
$0.1 billion each to build and launch. Additional cost
reductions in the "Mission and Launch Operations" category
(perhaps $0.3-0.4 billion) would also be likely, since the
new vehicle would not require human spaceflight support.

This hints at a potential non-orbiter, non-SSME shuttle-
derived vehicle (SDV) annual program cost on the order of
$2.2 billion for a program that could handle as many as
6 launches per year. Such a program would produce lower
costs than an EELV-based effort only if a 75 ton to LEO
class SDV were flown at least five times per year every
year. Note that this does not include the SDV development
costs, which would add $3-4 billion to the initial program
costs.

- Ed Kyle.

I think there'd be scope to shave a little more off the ET / SRB bill,
but that brings the cost to about $1.8bn, or $300 million for 75 tons,
exlcuding development costs.

Giving the whole operation to a private sector could reduce this, but
I guess we're still talking $250 million per launch, plus development
amortisation. Each launch is the equivelant of 3 Delta IV heavy
launches.

What is the marginal cost for 18 Delta IV launches per year, given a
competitive bid situation?

Even with an active moon program, is there this level of demand?

"David M. Palmer" wrote in message
...
In article , Strider\
wrote:

I can't speak for battlefield conditions, but this past week the local
newspaper did have an article on a now closed production plant in the
area
that apparently has caused gross contamination of the soil. (something
like
up to 75% of weight in 1st meter of topsoil was depleted uranium.)

Wow, 75%, really? That's fantastic. 75% by weight. Imagine that.

Yes, it was surprisingly high. That's why I noted it.


http://www.timesunion.com though I can't seem to find the
article online at this time.

And a totally reliable source. Not just "I think I read it somewhere",
but "it was in this newspaper, but I can't find it again".

Hey, I can't help it if their search engine sucks, and I'm not about to call
the recycling company and ask them to return my newspapers to pelase you.



75%.

Unbelievable.

--
David M. Palmer (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)

(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
SpaceSavant wrote:
(George William Herbert) wrote:

Invented gibberish removed.

Sorry...But you dont generally find these things in human bodies
especailly in civilians to which the US widely uses them.

Could you please restate that claim in a manner that
contains some parseable english? I have no idea whatsoever
what you were trying to say.

Seems straight forward to me. Humans are not made of tungsten.
Churches, apartments and crowds of people are not made of tungsten yet
warrant the use of DU ammunition by the US.

Please give a reference to any armour operation that would warrant DU
ammunition.

Botton line, just because you invent a interpretation of how treaties
work doesnt mean that the world will suddenly stop the currently
accepted norms. Just because you ignore the information provided to
you doesnt make it go away. The least you could do is at least put
some factual information in your rant.

People can see for themselves following the previously posted links
that you are in dire need of medication. Just about every aspect of
you ravings are disproven given even basic research.

In article , Strider\
wrote:

"David M. Palmer" wrote in message
...
In article , Strider\
wrote:

I can't speak for battlefield conditions, but this past week the local
newspaper did have an article on a now closed production plant in the
area
that apparently has caused gross contamination of the soil. (something
like
up to 75% of weight in 1st meter of topsoil was depleted uranium.)

Wow, 75%, really? That's fantastic. 75% by weight. Imagine that.

Yes, it was surprisingly high. That's why I noted it.

Maybe that's why you noted it, but why did you _believe_ it?

That's not contaminated topsoil, that's impure depleted uranium.

Even if DU has a price of a buck a pound, that's like $10,000 per cubic
meter. You'd think that someone would have offered to clean it up for
free.


http://www.timesunion.com though I can't seem to find the
article online at this time.

And a totally reliable source. Not just "I think I read it somewhere",
but "it was in this newspaper, but I can't find it again".

Hey, I can't help it if their search engine sucks, and I'm not about to call
the recycling company and ask them to return my newspapers to pelase you.

If the newpaper actually said that, not only is it not worth getting
back from the recycler, it wasn't worth buying in the first place.

--
David M. Palmer (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)

In article , P Woodlock wrote:

Botton line, just because you invent a interpretation of how treaties
work doesnt mean that the world will suddenly stop the currently
accepted norms. Just because you ignore the information provided to
you doesnt make it go away. The least you could do is at least put
some factual information in your rant.

People can see for themselves following the previously posted links
that you are in dire need of medication. Just about every aspect of
you ravings are disproven given even basic research.

Can you keep this up? It's enlivening a dull weekend... I haven't seen
an attempt so misinformed *and* futile for weeks... :-)

(it's always nice to see "factual" being subjective, too...)

--
-Andrew Gray

In article , George William Herbert wrote:

Modern (post-WW2) kinetic penetrating ammunition is made of two substances
(in various alloys, but two basic elements used): either Tungsten,
or Depleted Uranium. This is true for Tank guns, lighter ground
cannons, aircraft cannons, even to some extent small arms like
machineguns or rifles, though machinegun/rifle armor piercing ammo
has either used tungsten or just steel and not used DU.

So the alternative to using Uranium is to use Tungsten.

And, indeed, vice-versa - the alternative to tungsten is uranium. The
factor that finally hammered the nail in the already well-closed coffin
of any possible WWII German atomic bomb project was the release (on,
IIRC, Speer's orders) of the national uranium stocks - for the
production of penetrating ammunition.

[On a historical note - they had a large pre-war stockpile which was
intended for machine tools, and a small level of imports from
Spain/Portugal. When it became important to produce tungsten-cored
penetrators, the stockpile depleted fast, and the imports were nowhere
near sufficient. W got priority for machine tools, as it couldn't be
easily substituted, and in ~43 they began to use U in penetrators
instead, to eke out the W supply.]

--
-Andrew Gray

P Woodlock wrote:

(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
SpaceSavant wrote:
(George William Herbert) wrote:

Invented gibberish removed.

Sorry...But you dont generally find these things in human bodies
especailly in civilians to which the US widely uses them.

Could you please restate that claim in a manner that
contains some parseable english? I have no idea whatsoever
what you were trying to say.

Seems straight forward to me. Humans are not made of tungsten.
Churches, apartments and crowds of people are not made of tungsten yet
warrant the use of DU ammunition by the US.

Please give a reference to any armour operation that would warrant DU
ammunition.

Botton line, just because you invent a interpretation of how treaties
work doesnt mean that the world will suddenly stop the currently
accepted norms. Just because you ignore the information provided to
you doesnt make it go away. The least you could do is at least put
some factual information in your rant.

People can see for themselves following the previously posted links
that you are in dire need of medication. Just about every aspect of
you ravings are disproven given even basic research.

Actually the reverse seems to be true of your claims that are
completely unsubstaniated by an online search.

George Herbert has proven his credibility over a long period of
years in these newsgroups.

Mike Walsh

(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
Side note for other s.s.policy readers: "P Woodlock", "SpaceSavant",
"Jack Hume", and "Paul Rezzo" are the same account at asiaonline.net
in Australia. Header analysis starts about halfway down through this
posting. Keep this in mind if you see further trolls from the netblock
210.215.230



Actually, no I'm only one person. And my emails are written from the
conference hotel so again unless this hotel masquerades unders the
name asiaonline.net which it doesnt, your wrong their too.

How sad you have to invent diversions to cover your own inadequacies.

"SpaceSavant" wrote ...
(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
Side note for other s.s.policy readers: "P Woodlock", "SpaceSavant",
"Jack Hume", and "Paul Rezzo" are the same account at asiaonline.net
in Australia. Header analysis starts about halfway down through this
posting. Keep this in mind if you see further trolls from the netblock
210.215.230

Actually, no I'm only one person.

Nobody doubted that.

How many people you are pretending to be online was the question.

"Paul Blay" wrote in message ...
"SpaceSavant" wrote ...
(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
Side note for other s.s.policy readers: "P Woodlock", "SpaceSavant",
"Jack Hume", and "Paul Rezzo" are the same account at asiaonline.net
in Australia. Header analysis starts about halfway down through this
posting. Keep this in mind if you see further trolls from the netblock
210.215.230

Actually, no I'm only one person.

Nobody doubted that.

How many people you are pretending to be online was the question.

Only 1 actually, me.

Your attempts to indicate otherwise dont detract from George's
mentally challenged behaviour. I think his comments speak for
themselves and his mental state.

Their certainly generating some humour around here. Given the topic
and the opening statements from the US delegation about how informed
the population is in general, his emails in particular have frequently
generated grimaces from them.