From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Fri Feb 01 2002 - 16:05:00 MST
Simon McClenahan wrote:
>
> From: "Emlyn O'regan" <oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au>
> > Doug is making new rockets to fly us all into space. If he's happy with
> his
> > old calculator, I've got no beef with that.
>
> Far be it from me to give a bona fide rocket scientist some technical advice
> on his calculator, but I'll continue playing the devil's advocate ...
>
> Why do we need new rockets? The space shuttles do the job well enough,
> surely?
>
> Rockets ... we don't need no stinking rockets ...
Uh, no, we need many newer, better, and much cheaper rockets. We've
spent billions on the ones we have and they still have a projected
failure rate of 1/100 or 1/200 or so, at best, and still cost a fortune
just to carry monkey turds. What Doug is working on is airline service
quality rockets: one's you can fly several times a day, refuel with a
high school education, pilot with not much more than a standard
commercial pilots license, and buy a ticket on for only a few times more
than the cost of a Concorde ticket. Until this happens, space will not
be for everyone, it will be the domain of big governments and kooky
multimillionaires flying at a cost of $10k per lb.
XCOR's approach is one I've been advocating for years, and I think if
anyone gets there, it will be them.
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