Spaceship One stepping-stone or dead-end?

(Richard D. Latham) wrote in message ...

Well, admittedly, the median age of the GA SEL fleet is probably 20+
years .

But there's several hundred thousand of them out there .

http://162.58.35.241/acdatabase/acmain.htm

is an interesting interactive map. I'm too lazy to click on all 50
states, and add the numbers up, but there's ~100,000 aircraft
registered in just California, Texas, and Florida.

Those are not all GA single-engine light aircraft, however.

Also, the FAA registry seems to contain a lot of bad data, including
aircraft that were long ago converted to static display.

"Edward Wright" wrote in message
om...
"Dave O'Neill" wrote in message
. uk...

Commercial Space Technologies does not agree with your claim. Their
website says, "Price across the board is around $12,000/kg."

(http://www.commercialspace.co.uk/16%...n%20Russia.htm)

That means you're off by a factor of 24-120.

That's not what they say in private, or at least what they were saying
earlier in the year.

Perhaps CST offers special private discounts to cell phone salesmen.

Nope, wrong again.

Or perhaps you simply misunderstood them.

I was on a panel with Gerry Webb at a conference last year. I'm seeing him
again at Easter, probably, I'll ask him.

No, that's not what we did. The first passenger jets built on decades
of experience with prop airliners, military jets, racing planes,
barnstormers, etc. The Comet was far from the first airplane
DeHavilland built.

And what happened to the Comet...

And more importantly why it happened to the Comet and not to the 707.

The Comet had some structural flaws (as does your sentence.)
What was your point?

You made it thanks.

Dave

"Edward Wright" wrote in message
om...
"Dave O'Neill" wrote in message
.uk...

You'd rather insult other people's studies than defend your own?

Mine wasn't a study, it was an observation.

Calling it that is being kind.

So, you'd rather insult other people's studies than defend your
"observation"?

Again, that says a lot.

Well, about your style of debate, yes.

I'm not aware I was being insulting, which bit did you find insulting btw?
I think it is sensible to include new data in any argument as it becomes
available. The Futron study was not available when I made the observation
that I did. The Futron studied simply confirmed that there was, indeed, a
pretty significant chunk of the population who are not interested in
sub-orbital travel.

It also concluded that there was an even bigger group who don't want to do
Orbital, which actually surprised me. So, I'm not entirely sure where the
insult is anywhere apart from your imagination.

Anyway, Ed, believe what you like. I hope it keeps well for you.

snip really daft stuff

Dave

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:59:41 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Dave
O'Neill" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


The Futron study was not available when I made the observation
that I did. The Futron studied simply confirmed that there was, indeed, a
pretty significant chunk of the population who are not interested in
sub-orbital travel.

Who in the world ever disputed that? Once again, you parade strawmen.

h (Rand Simberg) :

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:59:41 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Dave
O'Neill" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


The Futron study was not available when I made the observation
that I did. The Futron studied simply confirmed that there was, indeed, a
pretty significant chunk of the population who are not interested in
sub-orbital travel.

Who in the world ever disputed that? Once again, you parade strawmen.

The fact is Dave for the last little while has been implying that there is no
orbital market and used his wife and himself as his market survey.

Earl Colby Pottinger


--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote in message ...
h (Rand Simberg) :

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:59:41 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Dave
O'Neill" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


The Futron study was not available when I made the observation
that I did. The Futron studied simply confirmed that there was, indeed, a
pretty significant chunk of the population who are not interested in
sub-orbital travel.

Who in the world ever disputed that? Once again, you parade strawmen.

The fact is Dave for the last little while has been implying that there is no
orbital market and used his wife and himself as his market survey.

Actually, I haven't done any such thing.

I used my wife as an example, yes. But the rest is drawn from Ed
Wright's fevered imagination.

I have not implied that there is no market, what I have said is I am
not convinced the market is sufficiently large to be enough to
bootstrap the development of space. In conjunction with something
else we don't know about, or other government spending it might lead
to full on space development, but I don't believe it will be enough by
itself.

But, hey, who cares what I think? Except, for some reason I seem to
draw a lot of flames in here for pointing out stuff that, in the rest
of the world is relatively uncontroversial. Never mind. I'm already
trying not to bother and frankly it's easier than I thought.

Dave

"Dave O'Neill" wrote in message .uk...

I'm not aware I was being insulting, which bit did you find insulting btw?

Your repeated claim that every single study ever done on space tourism
is flawed, based on insufficient data, "fisked," etc.

I think it is sensible to include new data in any argument as it becomes
available. The Futron study was not available when I made the observation
that I did. The Futron studied simply confirmed that there was, indeed, a
pretty significant chunk of the population who are not interested in
sub-orbital travel.

Which no one has denied.

The existance of a signficant group who are not interested in
something does not prove the nonexistance of a significant group who
are interested in it.

On 18 Oct 2004 19:06:39 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Edward Wright) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I think it is sensible to include new data in any argument as it becomes
available. The Futron study was not available when I made the observation
that I did. The Futron studied simply confirmed that there was, indeed, a
pretty significant chunk of the population who are not interested in
sub-orbital travel.

Which no one has denied.

The existance of a signficant group who are not interested in
something does not prove the nonexistance of a significant group who
are interested in it.

Dave's always been a little slow when it comes to the "logic" thing.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On 18 Oct 2004 19:06:39 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Edward Wright) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I think it is sensible to include new data in any argument as it
becomes
available. The Futron study was not available when I made the
observation
that I did. The Futron studied simply confirmed that there was,
indeed, a
pretty significant chunk of the population who are not interested in
sub-orbital travel.

Which no one has denied.

The existance of a signficant group who are not interested in
something does not prove the nonexistance of a significant group who
are interested in it.

Dave's always been a little slow when it comes to the "logic" thing.

The vast majority of the population is not buying new houses now.
Doesn't keep me from working 70+hour weeks in construction.