🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ewright.725820847@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

> Oh?  Well, let me try again.  The main cost component for reuseable 
> launch vehicles is not fuel, or even fabrication costs, but maintenance.  
> This is even more true for space launchers than for aircraft.  Bruce
> offered a careful and thoughtful analysis that would reduce fabrication 
> and fuel costs (*if* you accept his handwaving assertion that the lower
> stage would cost less per pound to manufacture) while enormously increasing
> the already-greater maintenance costs.


No, he showed that for the cost of maintaining twice the number of
stages, you get about 5 times the payload (the same scheme with
airliners would not give a 5x increase in payload, which shows the
problem with the analogy).

You are apparently tossing in the assumption that stacking will be
very expensive.  This assumption may very well be true, but you have
not justified it.

You have also not brought out the best argument: that TSTO has higher
development cost.  Indeed, even Bruce does not suggest that TSTO be
pursued instead of SSTO, but be kept as a backup or as a follow-on.

	Paul