Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v16_6/v16no687.txt

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Date: Sun,  6 Jun 93 05:00:09
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #687
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sun,  6 Jun 93       Volume 16 : Issue 687

Today's Topics:
           1992 NASA Authorization Budget- shuttle (4 msgs)
                  Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO
                     Hypersonic Buzz Bombs in Qld
                         Mining on the Moon?
                          Moon Base (5 msgs)
                   Moon vs. asteroids, Mars, comets
          Pres/VP go online with Internet Addresss! (2 msgs)
             Sagdeev: Will the Next Columbus be a Robot?
                        TOPS (US GPO document)
             Why are SSTO up-front costs rising? (2 msgs)

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 1993 07:33:16 -0400
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: 1992 NASA Authorization Budget- shuttle
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1up2c7$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>>I think you are confusing a possible one-off purchase of Russian gear for
>>the station with wide support for canning a large chunk of the U.S.
>>aerospace industry.  I don't have a lot of respect for Congress, but I think
>>they are smarter than this.

>    You are showing your youth.

(Hey, I am getting flamed by Pat; have I entered a new level in the Usenet
wars? :-) )

>    You forget,  Nixon and the COngress had no hesitation
>laying off over 250,000  aerospace workers in 1972, because
>Nixon didn't like Apollo,  and the congress wanted to take
>care of other constituent interests.

I'm not especially concerned about the layoffs, although that is important.
I am worried about abandoning a whole sector of the aerospace field to
another country.  Nixon and the Congress didn't do that.

>and you've never seen any of the other enormous layoffs in the
>aero-space industry.

Of course I have...how young do you think I am?

>My dad worked at Boeing when they lost the TFX fighter.
>They laid off 10,000 people in one day.

This would be a relevant point if we had awarded the contract to the Russians.

I'm not saying that I believe all people have a right to stay employed at the
public expense.  I am just saying that it is foolish to willingly abandon a
high-tech field simply to save a few dollars in the near term.  Abandoning
manned launch systems would be completely foolish.
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew
Internet: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 1993 08:47:01 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: 1992 NASA Authorization Budget- shuttle
Newsgroups: sci.space

Matt
    If you've been around,  then i don't know what your
complaint is.  When we shut down apollo, we for all practical purposes
abandoned manned space for 10 years.  And as for abandoning a jobs sector
to another country, what distinguishes  Aero-space from  Automotives
or Energy Production or Textiles.   or Memory or PC board production.

Autos  lost millions of Jobs, energy lost even more.  To somehow Claim
that aero-space is special is to deny certain political realities.



------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 1993 09:17:10 -0400
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: 1992 NASA Authorization Budget- shuttle
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1uq4k5$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:

>    If you've been around,  then i don't know what your
>complaint is.  When we shut down apollo, we for all practical purposes
>abandoned manned space for 10 years.

I think it was 7 years from the last Skylab mission to the first Shuttle
flight.  At least we knew we were going to build the Shuttle when we gave
up on the Apollo hardware...all wasn't completely lost.

And...notice how we all (well, most of us) regret losing the Apollo gear?
Why should we make the exact same mistake with the Shuttle?

>And as for abandoning a jobs sector
>to another country, what distinguishes  Aero-space from  Automotives
>or Energy Production or Textiles.   or Memory or PC board production.

Nothing at all distinguishes them.  Notice how we regret loss of leadership
in these fields?  It shows up in our annual trade deficit.  I'd like to
keep that from happening again in yet another field.

>Autos  lost millions of Jobs, energy lost even more.  To somehow Claim
>that aero-space is special is to deny certain political realities.

I am saying that we don't need to screw up yet *again*.

Pat, I don't understand you; you list several problems in our economy
related to loss of leadership in a field, then advocate (or at least defend)
doing the exact same thing with manned space.  Are you in the pay of a
foreign government?
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew
Internet: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 15:05:25 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: 1992 NASA Authorization Budget- shuttle
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:

> I am worried about abandoning a whole sector of the aerospace field to
> another country.  Nixon and the Congress didn't do that.

You mean, like civilian supersonic transports?  What a disaster
that was -- for the foolish foreigners who kept at it.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 93 13:35:37 GMT
From: "Thomas A. Baker" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Josh Hopkins) writes:
>[e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>>Buran  is 99% like
>>shuttle in capacity,  except BIG PLUS, it has Liquid Boosters,
>>and a jet engine assist on landing.
>
>Buran does not have jet engines.

The project's goal is (was?) a shuttle that would include jet assist after
reentry.  I don't doubt that you are correct in saying the existing shuttle
has no such engines.

tom

------------------------------

Date: 05 Jun 93 11:18 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Hypersonic Buzz Bombs in Qld
Newsgroups: sci.space


""Space Engine a first for Qld uni.  "The Cairns Post" Sat June 5

        A world first in space engine technology by Queensland University
 engineers this month has been likened to when the Wright brothers first
mastered flight 90 years ago.
        It has opened a new gateway to space." said Professer Ray Stalker
who has been reaching for the stars for 30 years, developing the
revolutionary scramjet space engine to its now proven stage.
        Cairns-based ship-builder and engineer NQEA Australia Pty Ltd
previously had been involved in the scramjet research.
        Prof. Stalker said the scramjet concept had been around for 40
years but, so far, scientists around the world had been unable to prove
it was an engine capable of producing orbital flight.
        Space flight is dominated by rocket propulsion which has the
drawback of requiring large amounts of oxygen fuel to escape earth's
gravitational pull.
        Sub-orbital flight such as Germany's World War 2 V-2 buzz-bombs
used ramjet engines which sucked oxygen in at such force it was compressed
into fuel.
        The only hitch there was the intake and compression slowed the
rocket down to about Mach 5, five times the speed of sound," Prof Stalker
said.
        Scramjet engines are designed to suck oxygen in at such hypersonic
speed it ignites and produces forward thrust.
        The test flight inside the university's "Stalker Tube", a 24 metre
long shock tunnel involved a 300 mm prototype scramjet engine and miniature
spacecraft which reached a speed of 2.4 kilometers a second or Mach 7.2.
        Using highly sophisticated measuring devices the little model was
detected to leap forward an infinitesimal fraction of a millimeter in just
a millisecond.
        But that was enough for Pro Stalker and his team because it proved
the scramjet was an engine capable of producing forward thrust - and
flight.
        "It's a major milestone. Never before has a scramjet vehicle
produced enough thrust to fly." he said.
______________________________________________________________________

Had to key this one in.... It is verbatim and probably syndicated from
Brisbane, Qld, Aust. Oz might have space class researchers but as far as
science journo's are concerned here is clear evidence not all our wide
open spaces are in the outback.                       Lawrie




------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 15:59:08 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Mining on the Moon?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Theodore F. Vaida ][) writes:
>Can Titanium be cast?

Yes, titanium can be cast, but it's tricky because titanium is
allotropic with the phase change at 885 C while melting at 1660 C.
Pressure casting and rapid chilling are required to avoid a porous
sponge. As a pure metal, however, it only has a yield strength of
20,000 PSI, and is not dimensionally stable. Alpha alloys containing
nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon can reach 120,000 PSI, and are
stable up to 600 C. Beta alloys containing manganese, tantalum,
and niobium can reach 170,000 PSI, but suffer age hardening and
poor thermal stability over 230 C. Certain alpha-beta alloys have
a yield strength of 150,000 PSI and are dimensionally stable up to
the allotrope temperature of 885 C.

Titanium metal is prepared in a continous chlorinator by using coke
and chlorine gas to convert TiO2 to TiCl4 and CO2. The TiCl4 is
then reacted with pure magnesium pigs to form titanium sponge and
MgCl2. Note that you need twice as much chlorine for the reaction
as there is oxygen in the ore, and twice as much magnesium as
the resulting titanium metal. You don't get free oxygen either,
it's consumed by the coke to form CO2.

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 06:39:49 GMT
From: Jim Hart <[e-mail]>
Subject: Moon Base
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:

>The reason is that we are pretty sure we can reduce
>the cost of launch mass from earth to on the order of tens of dollars
>per pound, *if the market is large enough*.

(1) Who is sure about this?  This nearly a factor of 1,000; most
rocket engineers scoff at projections of DC-1 reducing costs by
a factor of 10.  And just how large a market are we talking about here?
Can we really get to there from here by continuing to poor
$billions per year into mature technology?

(2) Why would launch costs fall faster than the costs of
ET mining & processing equipment?  The latter is a new design
area, almost completely unstudied & ripe for breakthrough, while
launcher design has a 50 years of experience going back
to the V-2; much of the learning curve has already been
climbed.  Historical data verifies this learning curve.

(3) What about environmental limits on launch volume, whether
from pollution real or perceived?

(4) Lower launch costs reduce the cost of launching the mining
equipment proportionately.  In any realistic scenario, taking
into account up-front costs etc., mining & processing equipment has
to return substantially more than its own mass per year, regardless
of launch costs.

To summarize, ET processing equipment cost will fall faster
than launch costs, and the cost of launching that equipment
will fall proportionately to launch costs.  ET processing
is unprofitable now due too *high* launch costs  -- and the
fact that no one in the field knows what the hell
they're doing, but that's another story.  The
scenario where ET processing becomes unprofitable due to
too *low* launch costs is quite unlikely.


Jim Hart
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 1993 09:23:20 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Moon Base
Newsgroups: sci.space

This may sound stupid, but couldn't there bea synergistic
combination between lunar ops  and  Comet/asteroid ops?

Mine  comets  by crashing them or parking them close to the moon.
THe volatiles are used to support a lunar base.  The lunar base
is a large stable platform for  complex operations.

Does Lunar/asteroid ops need to be an either or proposition?

Realistically,  returning volatiles to earth is a loser.
same thing with  most elements except He3.   But the
presence of these volatiles on the moon will allow
significantly cheaper operations, for supportinga  large
science base and for leveraging industry.

pat

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 14:24:53 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Moon Base
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Hart) writes:

>> The reason is that we are pretty sure we can reduce
>> the cost of launch mass from earth to on the order of tens of dollars
>> per pound, *if the market is large enough*.

> (1) Who is sure about this?  This nearly a factor of 1,000; most
> rocket engineers scoff at projections of DC-1 reducing costs by
> a factor of 10.  And just how large a market are we talking about here?
> Can we really get to there from here by continuing to poor
> $billions per year into mature technology?


We are talking about a market large enough to justify the enormous
investment in ET resources -- likely in the hundreds of billions of
dollars range, processing many thousands of tons of material per year.

As for reducing costs-- yes, it should be possible.  Rockets need not
be inherently complex devices.  Pressure-fed rockets are very simple,
especially if performance is kept mediocre.  And rockets can be made
very large, much larger than existing launchers, without a linear
scale up in launcher cost.

I point (for example) to Truax's Sea Dragon concept -- a two stage,
sea launched reusable pressure fed booster lifing on the order of 1000
tons into LEO.  It is made mostly of thick steel, put together by
ship-building technology.  The propellant itself (hydrocarbons + LOX)
is rather cheap, and at a (say) 50-1 mass ratio would contribute
perhaps $5/lb to launch cost.  Even if not reused, big dumb boosters
like Sea Dragon would drive the cost of launch way down.


 >(2) Why would launch costs fall faster than the costs of
 >ET mining & processing equipment?

Because launchers are more easily tested, and the environment
is better understood.

Moreover, launch in the west is by over-sophisticated, essentially
hand-built boosters.  Application of mass production techniques will
drive the cost down, if the market is large.

Finally, because there is *already* a market for boosters, so the
technology can develop incrementally.  Macroengineering schemes like
ET mining requiring multiple innovations before any market exists are
not likely to be developed.


 > (3) What about environmental limits on launch volume, whether
 > from pollution real or perceived?

Ultimately this would be a problem.  The real limits are far away.
Look, the US burns more than a billion tons of coal per year.  Lifting
one ton by a hydrocarbon/LOX launcher with a mass ratio of 50 would
release about 20 tons of oxidized carbon.  That 50,000 tons
payload/year figure would be about .1% of the current US carbon
emissions from coal combustion.

(Rockets also emit considerable carbon monoxide, and release water
into the stratosphere; perhaps these would give tighter limits.
Although CO has a short atmospheric lifetime, it does act as a
sink for OH radicals.)

Now, yes, if you are talking many megatons per year of payload, then
ET sources likely become essential.  But I said "near term" (meaning:
in our children's lifetimes.)


 > (4) Lower launch costs reduce the cost of launching the mining
 > equipment proportionately.  In any realistic scenario, taking
 > into account up-front costs etc., mining & processing equipment has
 > to return substantially more than its own mass per year, regardless
 > of launch costs.

Yes.  The problem is not *mass* return, the problem is *financial*
return.  Is the mass returned valuable enough to justify doing it?  In
particular, does it justify the cost and risk of developing and
debugging the mining technology?

 >To summarize, ET processing equipment cost will fall faster
 >than launch costs,

I see no justification for this assertion.  Launchers can be made and
operated on earth, where materials, labor and energy are cheap.
Launchers can be tested more easily, and involve less complicated
technology.  They are ameanable to mass production techniques at high
volume.  Most importantly, launchers already have customers.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 15:02:53 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Moon Base
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:
>To avoid this problem, ET resources are either going to have to be
>very simple to get (to minimize development cost) or something that
>is expensive on earth (PGEs, say).

That's why water from comets is so attractive. Extraction is simple,
and can scale from small to large by bootstrapping. So the investment
is never extreme at any given point in the development of the market.
Water is the Holy Grail in space. It can be used as reaction mass
in nuclear/steam, or even solar/steam, rockets. It can be electrolyzed
with solar electricity to hydrogen and oxygen for more energetic
rockets, or for breathing needs. It is the basic volatile needed for
most industrial processes. It can even be used for structural material.
Given sufficient water, space development becomes much easier, and much
cheaper.

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 16:09:28 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Moon Base
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Theodore F. Vaida ][) writes:
>To throw in my own two cents worth in support of a lunar base...
>... exactly how much delta-V would be needed to bring even the closest
>approaching asteroids into earth orbit for those "cheap teleoperated
>factories" that would be built in LEO?

You don't bring the asteroid to LEO. You refine in situ and only ship
the refined materials back to the factories. For comets, you boil off
and capture the water, methane, carbon monoxide, and other volatiles
in situ and return only the refined and separated materials, nominally
as thermally shielded frozen pigs, a "tankless" method of transport.
Simple foil sunshades are sufficient for thermal shielding against
solar energy, and glass fibre between the pigs and the guidance
thrusters.

Best identified targets require <= 5 km/s delta-v. This can be achieved
by low thrust long duration small engines, however, such as ion engines
or small solar thermal engines. Large powerful rockets are not required
since the gradient is gentle, and some of the volatiles can be used as
reaction mass if desired.

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 07:11:32 GMT
From: Jim Hart <[e-mail]>
Subject: Moon vs. asteroids, Mars, comets
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Jay Thomas) writes:


>Come on. In there is a factory in Japan that not only produces robots but
>also produces the machines to make the robots. That is a lot closer than a
>theoretical computer model of a nano-wheel.

(1) That factory weighs millions of tons, would cost you
$trillions to launch that equipment to the moon.  But what's
several orders of magnitude but a minor detail?
(2) Assembly is one of hundreds of kinds of industrial processes
needed to build robots from dirt.  Fanuc's "self-assembly", itself quite
incomplete, is many layers remove from the mining, processing,
chemical reactors, forming, annealing, extruding,  milling,
power generation & conversion, etc. that go into making robot parts.
Furthermore, most of the mass of processing materials used to make those
robots are volatiles, not found in extractable quanities on the moon.

>We know lots of possible processes such
>as SSI's HF-acid leach, pyrolosis, electrolosis.

You can name "lots of possible processes", but you don't know how
to make them work on the moon.  For example, where are you
getting the HF and the many other volatile inputs to these
processes?  Do you have fantasies of full recycling of
volatiles (include HF-acid :-)  like the last poster did?

>What is important is that we have demonstrated that this bone dry dirt can
>be used to build a wide varity of things.

No, you have demonstrated an almost infinite capacity for
self-delusion.   For example:


>With mere heating [of lunar dirt] you get
>volatiles... present day technology

OK you've convinced me!  Beam me up Scotty!  :-)

Jim Hart
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 1993 12:04 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Pres/VP go online with Internet Addresss!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>

[stuff deleted]

>Historically, being VP to a successful president is nearly a guarantee of
>being president soon.  I'm actually echoing a suggestion that Jerry
>Pournelle made about a decade ago, at a time when the notion of George
>Bush becoming president looked not merely risky but laughable.  Even an
>obscure twit has a good chance if he's got solid coattails to ride.
>Bush might be president yet -- with the possibility of President Quayle
>looking more and more real -- if he'd had his recession early and his
>war late instead of the other way around.
>

Just a  historical note. George Bush is the only VP to succeed a standing
president in over a century. Truman, Teddy R, and Andrew Johnson all were
VP's who took over due to the death of a president). So "historically"
speaking there is no basis for thinking that Gore will be able to succeed
Clinton. Also with Gore staking his political career on the dubious threat
of global warming (It is well known that he is ignoring the growing evidence
that GW is not happening or that its effects are being naturally counteracted)
then it can be shown that his judgment is awry.

Although this did not keep the Slick one from being elected, unfortunatly

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 1993 13:47:31 -0400
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pres/VP go online with Internet Addresss!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>Just a  historical note. George Bush is the only VP to succeed a standing
>president in over a century. Truman, Teddy R, and Andrew Johnson all were
>VP's who took over due to the death of a president). So "historically"
>speaking there is no basis for thinking that Gore will be able to succeed
>Clinton.

True, Bush was the first since Van Buren to go from the Vice Presidency
directly to the Presidency, but historically some 50% or so of vice presidents
have gone on to become president later on in life.  Gore is worth keeping
an eye on.
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew
Internet: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 93 13:13:32 GMT
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Sagdeev: Will the Next Columbus be a Robot?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David B. Mckissock) writes:
|Pat then asked if Sagdeev supported a SSTO vehicle, and
|Sagdeev said yes, and he completely agrees with
|Sherzer's calculations of  dollars per pound, although
|200 flights per year seems awfully high [just kidding
|:)]


Wasn't me...

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 16:46:59 GMT
From: James Salsman <[e-mail]>
Subject: TOPS (US GPO document)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.planetary,sci.space

The U.S.A. Government Printing Office, in collaboration with NASA
has published a new book of interest to readers of alt.sci.planetary.

_TOPS:_Towards_Other_Planetary_Systems_, SUPDOCS number NAS I.2:P69/8
is a really good treatment of the latest science concerning, erm...
neighboring real estate.  Salsman says check it out, but if your
local Depository Program collection development librarian somehow
overlooked this gem, then just order it at your local US GPO bookstore,
of if like me, you live in a city without a GPO bookstore, then
order it from the GPO in Washington D.C.  It is truly worth it.

There is also a title I don't remember, numbered NAS I.2:P69/7 that
has detailed information about the camera that took the now famous
picture of Beta Pictoris with the planetary ring.  I don't know if
that one is still in print.  The next time I'm in a *real* depository
library, I'm making it a point to scan the entire NAS I.2:P69/ series.

I'm a big fan on the HRMS, but I think we need to do some more solid
work on the ordering of the targeted search.

--
:James Salsman
::Bovik Research

Dear Tipper, please help start Divorce Education programs for parents of minors

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 10:53:45 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why are SSTO up-front costs rising?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Hart) writes:

>Gotta agree with Gary here.  Originally SSTO was supposed to
>have an R&D/tooling/infrastructure up-front cost <$1 billion.

As far as I know, that was only the guess of one person. Many considered
it vastly over-optimistic. The figures I posted have been the first
estimates made by SDIO.

>first Pegasus for $50 million total. But now we're starting
>to see DC-1 up-front  figures in the $5-$10 billion range, creeping

The estimates are not anywhere near $10B. They are around $5B. The
estimate I have used all along was $4 to $5 billion and are not creeping up.
Note that this is about what Boeing will spend designing the 777. In those
terms it seems reasonable.

In addition, most of this money is risk reduction. If SSTO wo't work,
we will know LONG before $5B is spent.

>back up to what the Shuttle cost up-front, and using the same
>wild Shuttle-style claims as an excuse ("we'll make it up in
>volume" or "we'll make it up in reduced operations costs").

Please! What your saying is that since Shuttle failed every project
will fail. Sounds like the Boeing 777 is doomed to fail since they are
spending about the same amount as Shuttle. If you have complaints,
be more specific with them. The above arguement shows that no project
will ever work anywhere.

>After
>Shuttle, SSF, etc.  nobody trusts NASA prime contractors like MacDac
>to deliver on cost/performance promises like this, and with good reason.

Agreed. I myself am grading MacDac on their results which, to date,
pretty good. I note that this project uses very different rules to
do buisness than is typical for government contracts. As long as those
rules are used, there is incentive to produce.

>If DC-1 is really  going to reduce costs, let's first see the
>costs reduced *up front*.

Despite Shuttle, that is in general a great way to drive up operational
costs. That's not the goal.

>I hope to hell nobody is stupid enough
>to fork over $5 billion to these people based on Shuttle-style
>promises,

Nobody is. These are not 'Shuttle-style' promises since they seem
to have learned quite well just why Shuttle failed. I hope to hell
you are smart enough to think about and understand the differences.

Maybe it will fail, even if it does it's a very worthwhile research
effort since it will tell us EXACTLY what is needed to make it work.
But at the moment, it looks good so why not go for it?

   Allen
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Lady Astor:   "Sir, if you were my husband I would poison your coffee!"   |
| W. Churchill: "Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it."             |
+----------------------11 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX-----------------------+

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Date: 5 Jun 1993 07:35:55 -0400
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why are SSTO up-front costs rising?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:

>Please! What your saying is that since Shuttle failed every project
>will fail. Sounds like the Boeing 777 is doomed to fail since they are
>spending about the same amount as Shuttle. If you have complaints,
>be more specific with them. The above arguement shows that no project
>will ever work anywhere.

This isn't my discussion, but I have to hop in here for just a second.  Just
yesterday, Allen, you were telling me that since NASA messed up on the
Shuttle they can't possibly build a cost-effective replacement; how do you
reconcile that with the statement above that there are no automatic
failures?
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew
Internet: [e-mail]

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 687
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