🚀 go-pugleaf

A good point was made about accounting costs in the Shuttle
vs. SSTO cost thread: what we are trying to find from the 
data determines what accountingg method we should use.  
To replace the Shuttle the amortization+operation cost of the 
new system should be less than STS's mean operational costs +
the amortization costs of any new orbiters, facilities, and
improvements beyond the current.  To get a historical 
perspective on  what SSTO's costs might be, _if done like 
STS_, we need to compute the total cost of STS, including 
amortization of the c. $30 billion STS development costs.  
When pondered in this light, SSTO doesn't look too good does
it!  Keep in mind that STS promised cost/lb. breakthroughs
every bit as dramatic as currently promised for SSTO; when
proposed STS was compelling for the same reason SSTO is
compelling today.

Cleary, we do not want to do SSTO like we did STS.  I suggest
SSTO strategy should be very different, almost the opposite
of the strategy used for STS.  STS combined astronaut and 
satellite launching; there should be two very different SSTO 
vehicles for these very different markets.  Shuttle
was designed and built by a commitee from NASA and the DoD
for the vague, sweeping purpose of lowering launch costs; SSTO 
should be designed not to lower launch costs for everybody, but 
to provide large service improvements to specific markets, for example
reducing the cost and increasing the reliability of delivering
satellites to orbit.  Shuttle was a single design centrally
planned; SSTO should come in several competing varieties.
STS was an entire "system" that needed new launch pads and was
part of a centrally planned strategy that included a a uniquely 
sized, dependent set of payloads (Spacelab, Galileo, Magellan, Hubble, 
etc.); SSTO should stand on its own as a launcher in the current
infrastructure, launching current payloads better.  For example,
a satellite-launching SSTO should be designed around current
comsat/upper stage pairs; an astronaut-launching SSTO might
be designed around Apollo, Soyuz, or the Shuttle cabin.

Alas, currently the program is headed in direction of the
swamp which bogged down the Shuttle, with strong lobbying 
for NASA to take over the project as a new Clinton start-up.  
This is great politically -- I came up with this idea well 
before the election, when it first looked like the Democrats 
had a fighting chance -- but it could be a disaster functionally, 
as it puts SSTO down the same bureacrat-hobbled path that made 
Shuttle amortization+operational costs over an order of magnitude 
higher than promised, after inflation.  Furthermore, most 
SSTO designs show astronauts going up and deploying satellites
like the Shuttle, with serious loss of mass for the payload on
the one hand, and limited complement or lab space for astronauts
on the other.  Automated satellite deployment has been used
since 1957, fer cryin' out loud!  Astronauts either have better 
things to do, or nothing at all, in which case ferget 'em.

Which market should SSTO go for?  Clearly if there are several
SSTOs for several different purposes, there is no one answer.
So far, the replacement of STS has been a major goal.  However,
the astronaut market has a serious drawback.  It is a market 
of civilian space agencies and ephemeral political winds.  
These agencies up until now have insisted on having a central role 
in designing and "man-rating" astronaut spacecraft.  

Perhaps we can change this habit, both through politically efforts and
by the marketing of astronaut-SSTO to multiple space agencies.
For example, two competing astronaut SSTOs could provide commercial
astronaut services to a wide variety of government space agencies,
including many countries that currently have no access to spaceflight
other than via government agencies of Russia or the U.S.

The market for satellite launch, civilian and military, is much
larger and more reliable than the astronaut market, and probably 
should be the focus of the first commercial SSTO.  If SSTO can deliver 
cost reduction as promised, the subsisized and glutted launch markets 
won't hurt it nearly as much as they have small rocket companies 
promising small improvements.  Dramatic launch costs reductions, 
even a factor of two to four, make economically viable large new 
markets, including cellular phone and direct broadcast satellites, 
economical private-sector earth imaging, etc.  An ELV launch operation 
subsidized by 50% would soon be spilling red ink in the $billions, 
while the SSTO folks rake in the profits!

Given the vast market potential of large cost/lb. reductions,
we should concentrate far more on making SSTO launch
cost reduction a technical reality, and far less on add-ons
such as satellite repair, astronaut capsules, etc.  The goal is to 
_reduce_ costs, not to drive up costs by adding on side paraphanalia.
We want to bring big improvements to the current market, not pretend
like STS that we can design an all-encompassing, expensive "system"
that is supposed to change everything for everyone.  Once SSTO is 
built and reduces costs for the large markets, then we can add on 
the other nifty stuff as economics and politics permit.  I think
we will find that the best add-ons will be radically different 
than the Shuttle-style paraphenalia we envision today.  

SSTO's improvements for the current space market should stand on their own.  
SSTO should not depend on any other new project for its rationale or 
its success.


-- 
Nick Szabo					 szabo@techboook.com