Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

SpaceNut · 2005-02-14 05:31:07

With all the planned down sizing of Nasa and external contractors, it would seem to me that if the alternative space industry wants to get there faster it would campus the facilities and try to hire some of these people that soon will have no job.

Martin_Tristar · 2005-02-14 17:06:56

The fact of getting there is the easy part , like spaceshipone and branson has shown , you can always come up with methods and processes to get you there but what comes after that.

We haven't got the necessary infrastructure on the planet earth for large scale movement into space of humanity. We need that infrastructure and also with different laws across the world we will have different facilities and different emergency processes and more .

Grypd · 2005-02-14 17:55:59

It is not that simple. The white knight and spaceship one did not actually enter LEO they only touched the zone we call space. For them to actually enter LEO or further and to actually to have an independent access to space rather than NASA etc is a whole more powerful boardgame.

We do not have the capability to enter space in the Alt space community and we certainly dont have an independent way to put infrastructre up there.

Martin_Tristar · 2005-02-14 18:17:35

Grypd,

I am looking at a different standpoint !!!!!

I see that we have the technology to get into space but we don't have a overall strategy for space for humanity. We are like the "three blind mice" in the fable we can't see where we are going and we don't have a plan for the future. I have start on that and then working backwards working all the issues and nearly have all them worked out on paper the next thing is to implement the strategy.

The first and most important thing is having space expertise for humanity in all areas including all aspects to colonization including construction, command, argiculture and medical just to name a few.

GCNRevenger · 2005-02-14 19:10:30

But Trinstar, we can't plan too far ahead, because we don't know how well the various projects will work. We will beyond doubt need some very advanced hardware compared to today in order to do anything in space besides explore or dig up He3 or PGMs on the Moon in kilo quantities.

As such, you don't make detailed plans too far into the future, and you don't start on the biggest goals first. Should we have begun designing the F-15 jet fighter back in the 1940's with propellar planes? Should we have begun pouring the concrete for the Saturn rockets' launch pad back when Goddard invented a practical liquid fuel rocket? Should we have started drawing up the map of streets for a Lunar city back in the Gemini days?

One step at a time... in order to expand into space for real, we need to be able to at least extract oxygen and something useful from the Lunar soil or build early Martian factories or figure out how to mine asteroids for PGMs/H2O. In order to do this given today's financial circumstance, that means starting with a limited, like a Lunar program able to place a sustained human presence on the Moon and the ability to deliver supplies & equipment without breaking the bank. This points to using expendable rockets, which are more expensive per pound but have low development costs, and eventually set up a mining camp.

I should also mention, that "going blue" and making space ventures international is a great way to ruin them. Allowing too many different engineers, different interests, and different laws to influence a single project is an invitation to disaster like the ISS has become.

Martian Republic · 2005-02-14 19:54:21

On this issue I agree Martin_Tristar. We need to have a forty or fifty year mission and then figure out how to accomplish it. Or otherwise we are like a fish out of water that just flapping around and not making much progress. I suppose that we might not hit our target, but if you don't aim at something you hit it like the target we been hitting for the last thirty years or so.

The bottom line is, we need a Kennedy type Moon Mission Goal so everybody knows what we are trying to accomplish within a certain time limit. There a good chance that if we would not have had Kennedy for our President, that the United States may have never gone to the moon. It was basically Kennedy that put going to the moon on the radar screen for the United States. Kennedy ask one question about how the United States can redeem itself as far as being the leading technological country and landing on the moon was the answer that came back.

If the United States wants to redeem it space program, we will have to pick an aggressive space program that will take us forty to fifty years to accomplish or our space program will continue drift aimlessly and probably do very little for the forseeable future. That just the way it is.

Larry,

GCNRevenger · 2005-02-14 20:02:59

If it is too aggressive and too long term and too expensive though, the plan will go the way of Bush-I's space exploration initiative (SEI)... and go no where at all.

Kennedy didn't put the Moon on our radar, communist Russia and the Soviets did.

What we NEED is a medium term objective with short term goals that are relativly easy and affordable to accomplish. Public faith in NASA is bascially at an all time low, and so NASA needs to show that it is up to the task and can yeild something useful for the massive investment in it.

That means going to the Moon with the purpose to extract a useful material from it, and going on to Mars to inspire the world.

Martin_Tristar · 2005-02-14 20:36:10

GCNRevenger,

I agree and disagree with you and Martian Republic in essence you both are right. But we need both a realistic long term objective. The main question we should be asking is - Are we going out into space as tourists or Are we going to immigrate to space ?

When we have that answer, then we can work from that, because If we are tourists then we don't need mass infrastructure in space and supply facilities and large robotic construction / engineering equpment and other facilities for our immigration into space.

If its immigration to space then we need to teach the common human person to work, and live in space and have a human society in space , alot different to taking a holiday in space as a race and coming back to earth.

SpaceNut · 2005-02-15 05:39:07

The same way that america's wild west was conquered though homestead acts and claims to property.

But as I understand the vision. We are not going as pioneers, though we are termed explorers we are however IMO Meaning we go, we learn and we come back. Far short of the average person ever seeing anything beyound Earths upper atmosphere.

Tourism looks like the only means to go beyound.
At this point if the russians could provide enough vehicles and there were the destinations to go to IMO we could get tourism going and it would commence at least for the rich. Then someday it would be much more of a chance for the average person to go.

Martian Republic · 2005-02-15 10:24:58

The same way that america's wild west was conquered though homestead acts and claims to property.
But as I understand the vision. We are not going as pioneers, though we are termed explorers we are however IMO Meaning we go, we learn and we come back. Far short of the average person ever seeing anything beyound Earths upper atmosphere.
Tourism looks like the only means to go beyound.
At this point if the russians could provide enough vehicles and there were the destinations to go to IMO we could get tourism going and it would commence at least for the rich. Then someday it would be much more of a chance for the average person to go.

That true either SpaceNut. To prove that, go to any third world nation that revolve around a tourist industry. The hotel is nice, but walk out of that hotel and down the main street and you will see shanty town all over the place. Most of those people that are manning those hotel live in those shanty towns and just work in the hotel. Tourist industry pays low substandard wages to it employee's and are at the end of the food chain of an economic society. They follow the rest of society and the economic system and are not the ones that are leading the economic system.

What I'm saying is, you could not put a thousand person hotel on the moon as the primary industry and make is work. You can not have a shanty town on the moon to support your hotel and that would make any attempt to the tourist industry as the engine to drive a space colonization impossible. The tourist industry develops as a result of government project and/or private industries like farming, manufacturing and mining and not the other way around. So before you will see any serious tourist industry in space that will go anywhere, there will either be government project of building a permanent base on the moon or in orbit and/or a sponsored private venture by the government. Once that infrastructures in place, then the hotel business and tourist industries will go in to full the vacuum for those needed services.

With all the hoop law going on about the white knight and space ship one. They may spend tens of million or several hundred million to build five passenger shuttle for five people, but that not going to justify build space station for tens of billion or even hundreds of billions of dollars or even a return to the moon that may cost hundreds of billions of dollars. beside, beside space ship one, still can't achieve orbit even. So it still not a possibility of tourist industry making any significant impact if any at all on opening up space. If we could compare the economy to a train, then the tourist industry would be the caboose and not the engine, that position is reserved for either the government and the industries like farming, manufacturing and mining.

Larry,

Grypd · 2005-02-15 11:01:00

If there was to be any building of a space Hotel on the Moon take it that low wages will not be a problem the workers that build it have. Actually at first anyone willing to pay the Millions to go there will simply have to take the rather antartic type accomodation that will be present.

But for space tourism to "fly" then we will need a reasonable cost 100% reusable spaceplane wether two stage or ideally single stage. And a decent sized space infrastructure to facilitate it as well like an LEO spacestation and a lunar/LEO transport system.

But this is not needed though for a return to the Moon. We can use a heavylifter to through direct cargoes or too combine in orbit more than one launch to go there. Eventually we will send a tug up there to increase transport to the Moon and eventually we will need more humans up there so an improved people carrier will be developed (read spaceplane). But what must be done is to do one stage at a time and then simply keep adding to it so that it all leads to improved infrastructure allowing more to be done. The so called spiral design.

But what we must not do is an appollo Moon shot which cost Billions and simply cancelled any further advancement on the Moon or attempt to use materials found there to increase the length and reduce cost of the missions or to create permanent facilities.

deagleninja · 2005-02-19 13:13:48

I started this thread when the news of Rutan and Brannons agreement to create private sub-orbital hops was first announced. Some recent news includes:

AERA recently annouced that they intend to beat Rutan & Co to the sub-orbital market as early as 2006 and promise greater safety and cheaper flights that Virgin Galactic.

http://www.space-travel.com/news/touris … m-05g.html

Volvo recently teamed up with Virgin Galactic to promote their new V-8 is a superbowl spot along with a contest to win a seat on the maiden voyage of VG's new ship.

Virgin Galactics website has received over 18,500 requests for making reservations on VG's new ship. Do the math people...($200,000 X 18,500 =3.6 billion dollars) If only 10 percent were to follow through with the commitment thats still 360 million dollars for an endeavor that will cost roughly 200 million for everything....ie profit enough to roll into a real orbital RLV.

GCNRevenger · 2005-02-19 13:23:51

A real orbital RLV? Ohhh no, you would need an order of magnetude more money, since the vehicle would have an order of magnetude more performance and complexity.

And how many of those people signing up for Virgin Galactic will ever take a second trip? I think that after the initial glut of rich flyers, you will go out of business since those that can and want to pay will have already done so.

deagleninja · 2005-02-19 14:09:32

LOL, hello GCNRevenger, glad to see you are still the optimist

A real orbital RLV? Ohhh no, you would need an order of magnetude more money, since the vehicle would have an order of magnetude more performance and complexity.
And how many of those people signing up for Virgin Galactic will ever take a second trip? I think that after the initial glut of rich flyers, you will go out of business since those that can and want to pay will have already done so.

Brannon is a much better buisness man than Trump so when he makes estimates I tend to agree. In his own words costs for creating a series of launch vehicles, air/spaceport, staff, computers and everything else you need shouldnt exceed $200 million. So you are correct in the sense that orbital flights are an order of magnitude more expensive, but 3.6 billion is an order greater than 200 million.
Yes, again you are correct to say that there is a limit to how many people will pay $200,000, but lets not forget that with each passing year there are more rich people, and also with each passing year $200,000 isnt as much money due to inflation. This is of coarse if he doesnt drop the price to say $100,000 in a few years and captures an even larger market share. $200, isnt that much money GCN, most people will borrow this much money in their lifetimes for just a house. Your dedicated middle class american will be able to fly. Hardly what I call rich....

GCNRevenger · 2005-02-19 15:18:45

You don't hear so much about the vast legions of failed optimists, because people don't want to hear about them.

This is one of those things... could you build a few copies of a stretched SpaceShipOne and buy a larger carrier plane for $200M? Sure you could. But building a real ORBITAL ship is a whole different ballgame. It is a terrible lie that "orbital flight is just a little skip from suborbital flights" predicated by gullible dreaming idiots and coniving con ("business") men. It will cost in the low billions to develop a truely, really reuseable manned space ship no matter who builds it.

You will not be making any $3.6Bn, since there aren't that many people that will pay it. And then the ones that do, you will spending most of THAT as overhead, not pouring every penny of it into R&D.

And you say that inflation will increase the number of people that can afford it? Nonsense, because inflation will increase the price you can afford to fly your rocket for too. Also, a middle class intelligent person would definatly NOT be able to spend as much money as purchasing a house on an amusement, that is a horrible assumption, $200,000 is even too much for low single-digit millionaires most likly.

clark · 2005-02-19 16:35:07

But building a real ORBITAL ship is a whole different ballgame. It is a terrible lie that "orbital flight is just a little skip from suborbital flights" predicated by gullible dreaming idiots and coniving con ("business") men. It will cost in the low billions to develop a truely, really reuseable manned space ship no matter who builds it.

Bah. Cause you say so?

You can complicate the scenerio all you want by maintaining a narrow view of possibilities, or you can allow for alternative schemes that will allow for lower cost access without breaking the bank.

You keep screaming the same thing over and over because you refuse to look outside of the traditional models, or break down this agreeably complex problem into it's smaller problems.

What is the simple problem? Getting from point A to point B.

What's needed to do it? A rocket. Fine. You need a rocket that can launch as much mass as possible for as cheap as possible. How do you reduce cost? Make the rocket as reusable as possible. plane fares are cheap because we don't throw the plane away after ONE flight. Cost is directly related to fuel costs. This will allow you to amoritize development costs.

Using exsisting technology and exsisting systems, with innovation here and there, the cost to develop the rocket is millions, not billions.

Next you need something to carry people in. Use the friggin Apollo/gemini/soyuz designs as a baseline. build from there. You need basic life support and an ability for semi-controlled landing. Millions worth in research and development, not billions.

GCNRevenger · 2005-02-19 17:04:22

Why yes it is a big deal actually, because its NOT as simple as "point A to B"...

-Suborbital rockets like SS1 only need about 1/100th of the impulse as an orbital rocket to launch a vehicle of similar mass. If you add generous mass estimates for the extra stuff you would need to make SS1 orbital-capable, you then need about 250-300X the total push. An orbital version of the SS1 wouldn't fit on a 747. And thats for air launch to save fuel.

The problem is not a business management but rather is a fundimental physical problem. The best rocket fuel in the world that is practical to use, Liquid Hydrogen, can only push about 1/10th of wet spacecraft mass to orbit. That figure must include the engines, the fuel tanks, and escape/control systems... then whatever you have left is space ship. You might get another percent or two from staging or other tricks, but this nessesarrily will increase complexity, risk, and cost.

So, no matter what you do. No matter what you do. Your rocket must be by nessesity very large, very efficent, and very carefully engineerd. None of these attributes come cheaply, and they are doubly compounded if you demand reuseability. The upper stage imparticular, which must be fairly large and withstand the stresses of reentry is particularly difficult.

It all, all, comes back to the mass fraction. The mass fraction is controlled by the gravity of the Earth and the energy released from the chemical reaction of the fuel per pound. The former is an inviolable constant, and the latter has reached as high as it is going to go without a dangerous exotic metastable/toxic fuel or hyperexpensive air-breathing engine.

Next problem, there are no intermediate steps between suborbit and orbital flight. You either get up that high or you don't, there is no reason to go anywhere inbetween. Hence, no one is going to pay to build a vehicle that can go inbetween, and so will be short one stepping stone across the performance gulf to orbit.

"Using exsisting technology and exsisting systems, with innovation here and there, the cost to develop the rocket is millions, not billions."

And what "exsisting systems" would those be? There are no exsisting reuseable spacecraft today. Resusitating the old MAKS program, the closest thing to a pure crew taxi with reuseable traits, would easily top a billion too.
---
I am willing to entertain the idea that you could develop an expendable Delta-II class rocket for below a billion dollars. However, the notion of a reuseable launch vehicle for under a billion is clearly a pipe-dream. The Kistler KH-1 will easily top a billion if it were to ever fly, and it doesn't look like it ever will at this rate. And thats just for the cargo version.

As for a manned maneuverable capsule like the kind Bigelow wants, it might be a good idea to compare it to Russia's Klipper. Klipper will use many parts from Soyuz, like the orbital module, probobly the engines, electronics, and use an exsisting launch vehicle. Price tag: one billion united states dollars.

So, you want to build a fully reuseable manned ship, which brings back the booster in nearly fuel & fly condition and the crew vehicle softly enough to reuse without more then weeks of reconditioning... For under this amount? I don't think so.

Martian Republic · 2005-02-19 17:24:41

If there was to be any building of a space Hotel on the Moon take it that low wages will not be a problem the workers that build it have. Actually at first anyone willing to pay the Millions to go there will simply have to take the rather antartic type accomodation that will be present.
But for space tourism to "fly" then we will need a reasonable cost 100% reusable spaceplane wether two stage or ideally single stage. And a decent sized space infrastructure to facilitate it as well like an LEO spacestation and a lunar/LEO transport system.
But this is not needed though for a return to the Moon. We can use a heavylifter to through direct cargoes or too combine in orbit more than one launch to go there. Eventually we will send a tug up there to increase transport to the Moon and eventually we will need more humans up there so an improved people carrier will be developed (read spaceplane). But what must be done is to do one stage at a time and then simply keep adding to it so that it all leads to improved infrastructure allowing more to be done. The so called spiral design.
But what we must not do is an appollo Moon shot which cost Billions and simply cancelled any further advancement on the Moon or attempt to use materials found there to increase the length and reduce cost of the missions or to create permanent facilities.

Grypd,

You can't show me a any country that relies on the tourist industry alone and show me a country that has a healthy economy. That county is backward and broken down. Beside Hotels don't build roads, grow food, build infrastructure projects like water and sewer system, build air ports or the planes that fly off those air ports. Beside building those second generation shuttles, they will also have to build those billion dollars space station and billions more for a Earth to Moon space ship and billions more for a lunar shuttle and billions more for there Moon Hotel. It not going to happen.

Larry,

Martian Republic · 2005-02-19 17:38:18

If there was to be any building of a space Hotel on the Moon take it that low wages will not be a problem the workers that build it have. Actually at first anyone willing to pay the Millions to go there will simply have to take the rather antartic type accomodation that will be present.
But for space tourism to "fly" then we will need a reasonable cost 100% reusable spaceplane wether two stage or ideally single stage. And a decent sized space infrastructure to facilitate it as well like an LEO spacestation and a lunar/LEO transport system.
But this is not needed though for a return to the Moon. We can use a heavylifter to through direct cargoes or too combine in orbit more than one launch to go there. Eventually we will send a tug up there to increase transport to the Moon and eventually we will need more humans up there so an improved people carrier will be developed (read spaceplane). But what must be done is to do one stage at a time and then simply keep adding to it so that it all leads to improved infrastructure allowing more to be done. The so called spiral design.
But what we must not do is an appollo Moon shot which cost Billions and simply cancelled any further advancement on the Moon or attempt to use materials found there to increase the length and reduce cost of the missions or to create permanent facilities.

Grypd,

You can't show me a any country that relies on the tourist industry alone and show me a country that has a healthy economy. That county is backward and broken down. Beside Hotels don't build roads, grow food, build infrastructure projects like water and sewer system, build air ports or the planes that fly off those air ports. Beside building those second generation shuttles, they will also have to build those billion dollars space station and billions more for a Earth to Moon space ship and billions more for a lunar shuttle and billions more for there Moon Hotel. It not going to happen.

Larry,

deagleninja · 2005-02-19 17:50:34

GCNR, Im confused. We all know how challenging building a RLV capable of reaching orbit is otherwise it woulda already been done by now. But are you saying it can never be done? Do you really think that 20 years from now we won't have reliable trasport to orbit in the form of a RLV? How long do you think its going to take?

GCNRevenger · 2005-02-19 21:33:07

An RLV is certainly possible deagle, what I am trying to get through to you is that there are unchanging physical limtations (gravity, fuel energy density, reentry dynamics) which make spaceflight difficult.

No amount of innovation or cleverness or efficent business practices will change these, so the entire concept that AltSpace is centerd around... that someone will conjur up some trick without any revolutionary technology that will suddenly change everything... is simply not grounded in reality.

It really is against the laws of physics to make a cheap spaceship

And if it is difficult, then it is not going to be cheap to develop a vehicle that does difficult things well. Right now, a billion dollars is simply not that much money compared to what it would cost to make a true reliable RLV of any size. Could we make a real RLV in 20 years? Sure we could. But it would not come cheap... $8-10Bn for a small crew/comsat vehicle, $15-20Bn for a larger bus/medium-lift, are not unrealistic estimates. Below $5Bn, to say nothing of $1Bn, is simply not going to happen.

deagleninja · 2005-02-19 22:39:16

An RLV is certainly possible deagle, what I am trying to get through to you is that there are unchanging physical limtations (gravity, fuel energy density, reentry dynamics) which make spaceflight difficult.
No amount of innovation or cleverness or efficent business practices will change these, so the entire concept that AltSpace is centerd around... that someone will conjur up some trick without any revolutionary technology that will suddenly change everything... is simply not grounded in reality.
It really is against the laws of physics to make a cheap spaceship
And if it is difficult, then it is not going to be cheap to develop a vehicle that does difficult things well. Right now, a billion dollars is simply not that much money compared to what it would cost to make a true reliable RLV of any size. Could we make a real RLV in 20 years? Sure we could. But it would not come cheap... $8-10Bn for a small crew/comsat vehicle, $15-20Bn for a larger bus/medium-lift, are not unrealistic estimates. Below $5Bn, to say nothing of $1Bn, is simply not going to happen.

I don't think you give me or most people on here enough credit GCNR. I never said it was easy or that it could be done for 1B. What i was pointing out is that with the intial interest in Virgin Galactic they are poised to make 3B in profit even if they go over budget 200%. That's 3B to start developing an orbital spacecraft or at least a larger suborbital craft.

I wouldn't be suprised if the final fully orbital version includes a high altitude balloon capable of reaching 60 miles altitude or some other lifting body to go even higher. This would relieve a LOT of the problems you forsee since it is much easier to attain orbital velocity with little or no atmospheric drag.

Also dont forget that 3B goes a LOT further in the private sector than it does wasted on juicy government contracts.

Mad Grad Student · 2005-02-19 23:29:48

It really is against the laws of physics to make a cheap spaceship

Not really. Granted, it is against the laws of physics to make an easy spaceship, but cost and difficulty are not necessarily so closely related. According to http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/91/honda.html]this source it has so far cost Spacex "more than 50 million dollars" to develop the Falcon I. Assuming that it would cost 20% more to develop a larger-sized launch vehicle (most of those costs would be non-recurrent start-up costs), and the cost were doubled for good measure to include the cost of the crew vehicle, integrated into the second stage to ensure complete reusability, if Spacex has set a precedent it should only cost about $130-140 million to develop a manned fully-reusable launch and orbital vehicle. That's not pocket change, but it's not several billion dollars either.

A Falcon-type vehicle would be a pretty crummy RLV, but with all the start-up costs out of the way and a bad RLV in place to provide funding, it should be possible to make a true-blue SSTO RLV for $300-400 million. That's within the realm of possibility for private industry provided an initial product to supply the development money. I really think that you're overstating the cost of the problem here. The engineers would have a heck of a time developing such a launch vehicles for sure, but funding would not be too bad of an issue.

GCNRevenger · 2005-02-20 11:34:35

Nonsense, the Falcon-I is a puny toy barely capable of orbital flight at all. Its first stage is no more reuseable then a Shuttle SRB, which isn't reuseable, its refurbishable. "Reuseable" doesn't mean "try to fish it out of the ocean without breaking it and hope the salt water didn't kill the turbopumps." Which you would have to dismantle, check, and test... gee, now what does that sound like? (*coughShuttlecough*) ...Five of them on Falcon-V too. And how many times as any of Elon's rockets flown?

It is going to cost a billion dollars to design a passenger-carrying crew vehicle which uses off-the-shelf docking adapter/airlock, avionics, engines, LSS, and so on which won't have to somehow carry the big flimsy upper stage back down too... Oh, thats for the RUSSIANS to build something like that, a vehicle that would win the "Americas Space Prize."

20% more to develop a launch vehicle that is ~5 times as powerful? Rediculous. The new launch pad will cost that much alone.

"it should be possible to make a true-blue SSTO RLV for $300-400 million."

Perhaps you recall the DC-I RLV concept that Burt at Scaled Composits had a hand in? $6Bn. Small lift-body space planes (baby HL-20) will likly cost around half that at least, and thats just for the crew vehicle with no launch vehicle development.

"$300M-400M" is clearly wishful thinking.

dicktice · 2005-02-20 14:10:57

Re. GCNR: An RLV is certainly possible ... what I am trying to get through to you is that there are unchanging physical limtations (gravity, fuel energy density, reentry dynamics) which make spaceflight difficult ... No amount of innovation or cleverness or efficent business practices will change these, so the entire concept that AltSpace is centered around [that someone will conjur up some trick without any revolutionary technology that will suddenly change everything] is simply not grounded in reality ... It really is against the laws of physics to make a cheap spaceship.

Re. Deagle: ... I'm confused. We all know how challenging building a RLV capable of reaching orbit is otherwise it woulda already been done by now. But are you saying it can never be done? Do you really think that 20 years from now we won't have reliable trasport to orbit in the form of a RLV? How long do you think its going to take?

Reply begins: I assume "RLV" stands for something like, "Return to Live again Vehicle." I don't even know what GCNR stands for, nor AltSpace, for that matter. Acronyms bug me, when undefined at least once, so away with 'em in my rejoinder.

GCNR, you seem to be combining (you name it) launch complex infrastructure with (you name it) spacecraft design and operation. The laws of physics apply to both, of course, but if enough of us space addicts seriously want it [the escape and ability to live away from Earth for indefinite lengths of time] the innovation and cleverness [meaning, I assume, invention and engineering] which you give short-shrift will be able to overcome the above objections. Brute-force and wastefulness naturally hasn't a chance against said objections which unfairly represent straw-men, you set up to mow down. But, how about discussing innovation and cleverness for a change?
Deagle, I do believe you are being unnecessarily pessimistic with you're 20 years--I'd say 10 years (i.e. the time JFK gave NASA) is all the time it would take to get the system up and running, from scratch, in a perfect World. Nothing about unchanging physical limitations or efficient business practices or even practical reasons for doing so, you'll notice. Only how to get around the challange of GCNR's objections, eh?

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#26 2005-02-14 05:31:07

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#27 2005-02-14 17:06:56

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#28 2005-02-14 17:55:59

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#29 2005-02-14 18:17:35

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#30 2005-02-14 19:10:30

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#31 2005-02-14 19:54:21

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#32 2005-02-14 20:02:59

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#33 2005-02-14 20:36:10

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#34 2005-02-15 05:39:07

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#35 2005-02-15 10:24:58

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#36 2005-02-15 11:01:00

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#37 2005-02-19 13:13:48

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#38 2005-02-19 13:23:51

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#39 2005-02-19 14:09:32

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#40 2005-02-19 15:18:45

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#41 2005-02-19 16:35:07

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#42 2005-02-19 17:04:22

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#43 2005-02-19 17:24:41

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#44 2005-02-19 17:38:18

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#45 2005-02-19 17:50:34

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#46 2005-02-19 21:33:07

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#47 2005-02-19 22:39:16

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#48 2005-02-19 23:29:48

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#49 2005-02-20 11:34:35

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

#50 2005-02-20 14:10:57

Re: Richard Branson / Rutan Team Up For Orbital Flight - Five year plan to put tourists in space?

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