High Launch Costs - Result of Physics?

On 5 Jul 2003 19:27:18 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(George William Herbert) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Arguing that space tourism won't be 'low cost' until it competes
with budget theme parks is idiotic.

But par for the course with Mr. Ordover. "Idiotic" should be his
middle name, if it isn't.

--
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interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
John Ordover wrote:
Okay. The cost of a trip to disneyworld for a family of four.

This is a ludicrous price point.

There are tens of thousands of people paying tens of thousands
of dollars each or more per year for travel and tourism.
Look at how many luxury cruise ships go out now, and how much
those cost, and how many people take multiple cruises each year.

Note: For -luxury travel and tourism- not for -joyrides into space-.
Not many people take multiple cruises each year, actually. It's
usually one per year.


The annual Everest season now has 3 digits of people who are
guided up for a 6 figure total expedition price per person.


Everest costs nothing to maintain, but on top of that, the Everest
types are doer types, not passenger types.


There's already a traffic jam of more interested participants
in orbital tourism than there are available seats at a going
rate of $12m/seat.

Have they put down 1.2 million deposits yet? What's a "trafic jam" of
interested participants in hard numbers? Where are you getting your
figures?

Arguing that space tourism won't be 'low cost' until it competes
with budget theme parks is idiotic.

Not at all. Have you priced a vacation at a theme park lately?

"John Ordover" wrote in message
om...
(George William Herbert) wrote in message
...
John Ordover wrote:
Okay. The cost of a trip to disneyworld for a family of four.

This is a ludicrous price point.

There are tens of thousands of people paying tens of thousands
of dollars each or more per year for travel and tourism.
Look at how many luxury cruise ships go out now, and how much
those cost, and how many people take multiple cruises each year.

Note: For -luxury travel and tourism- not for -joyrides into space-.
Not many people take multiple cruises each year, actually. It's
usually one per year.

I know several people that take multiple cruises a year.

Besides, once again you're moving the goalposts. I don't know many people
that go to Disney World more than once a year. So by your original
definition going multiple times a year was obviously never a requirement.



The annual Everest season now has 3 digits of people who are
guided up for a 6 figure total expedition price per person.


Everest costs nothing to maintain, but on top of that, the Everest
types are doer types, not passenger types.

Boy, it continues to amaze me the things you're willing to pontificate on.

But let's use your example. LEO costs nothing to maintain. The surface of
the Moon costs nothing to maintain.

So what's your point?

Everest is a great example. Essentially folks have to bring their
infrastructure, including for most, AIR, with them.

As for doers, try reading about some of the "tourists" who make it to the
top essentially being pulled by sherpas.

Read about the ill-fated summer a few years back.

These are essentially passenger types.


Arguing that space tourism won't be 'low cost' until it competes
with budget theme parks is idiotic.

Not at all. Have you priced a vacation at a theme park lately?

Non-sequitor.

What does PRICING a vacation at a theme park have to do with claiming it as
a valid cost for LEO flights?

No wonder you don't think space tourism will ever work. You've set a price
point so ludicrously low that it's almost funny.

(George William Herbert) wrote


John Ordover wrote:
Okay. The cost of a trip to disneyworld for a family of four.

This is a ludicrous price point.

[megasnip]

Arguing that space tourism won't be 'low cost' until it competes
with budget theme parks is idiotic.

But what is a non-ludicrous price point? $10,000/head, $1e5, $1e6...?
Does it make any difference if we're talking about few-orbit
joyrides or several days on an existing space station, such as
the Russians are offering for $1e7? I assume that trips to purpose-
built hotel/casino stations would come only in a third or forth
round of LEO tourism once CATS transportation was developed, markets
were shown to exist and there was reasonable potential for profit.

(I'm sure all this has been gone over before, but it doesn't hurt
to review such things every now and then.)

John Ordover wrote:

Everest costs nothing to maintain, but on top of that, the Everest
types are doer types, not passenger types.

All the proposals for suborbital tourism I've seen have an extended period
of ground school prior to the flight. This ground school is far from
passive, satisfying the needs of the "doer type."

Even if you dislike the Everest analogy, there are market studies which
show a clear demand. Even allowing for the fact that some people who say
they'd buy a flight will back out when asked to actually write a check,
there is still plenty of demand.

.......Andrew
--
--
Andrew Case |
|

It turns out that Forbes did a relevant story a year ago:

http://www.forbes.com/2002/04/18/0418feat.html

Comments are solicited, especially wrt the costs.

Mary Shafer wrote in message . ..
On 6 Jul 2003 03:22:18 -0700, (John Ordover) wrote:

(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
John Ordover wrote:
Okay. The cost of a trip to disneyworld for a family of four.

This is a ludicrous price point.

There are tens of thousands of people paying tens of thousands
of dollars each or more per year for travel and tourism.
Look at how many luxury cruise ships go out now, and how much
those cost, and how many people take multiple cruises each year.

Note: For -luxury travel and tourism- not for -joyrides into space-.
Not many people take multiple cruises each year, actually. It's
usually one per year.

Not necessarily luxury travel, though. We've taken a number of
non-luxurious vacations, like taking a DC-6 to the heart of
Antarctica, in the price range being discussed. We've been on photo
safaris, living in tents. We have also taken multiple cruises, always
back-to-back.

So-called "adventure travel" isn't luxurious but it is expensive.
However, the cost is amortized over a number of days, even weeks. A
cost of a quick trip into space would be amortized over hours or,
perhaps, a couple of days. Would-be rocket riders will take that into
consideration.

Mary

Which is why I call them joyrides or amusement park rides rather than
vacations or tourism.

(John Ordover) wrote in message . com...
Which is why I call them joyrides or amusement park rides rather than
vacations or tourism.

It might be suggested that we shouldn't care what you call things at
all. But of course I would never do that.

And it might be, perhaps reasonably suggested that you are just an
attention seeking troll. But people must draw their own conclusions
and act accordingly.

"Mary Shafer" wrote:
[snip]
So-called "adventure travel" isn't luxurious but it is expensive.
However, the cost is amortized over a number of days, even weeks. A
cost of a quick trip into space would be amortized over hours or,
perhaps, a couple of days. Would-be rocket riders will take that into
consideration.

Not necessarily. The zero-g rides, for example, have quite a
lot of related training and whatnot associated with them on
the ground. I'd imagine sub-orbital rides would be similar,
precisely so that buyers would feel they'd gotten more out of
their money than just a short ride.

If we sit on our backsides and pontificate about what isn't possible
with outdated concepts then we are stuck on this little planet aren't
we?

Come up with a way to make oodles of money out of travelling into
space. Make it bird-in-the-hand, low-risk profit. That's when we'll
go.