RE: Near-Term Scenarios

Jones, Spike (spike.jones@lmco.com)
Sun, 10 May 1998 17:19:00 -0700


cool thread, gburch! as one whose work is in astronautics, i would submit
that the biggest change of many years is coming: access to orbit will
become
much more affordable. this is coming not because of any new ideas in
propulsion, but because so many countries are now weighing in with launch
vehicles. i suspect that light payloads (1000 kg or less) will see a
truely
dramatic reduction in cost, probably to go as low as a couple thousand bucks
per kilo in low earth orbit. that changes everything... i expect we
will see
those kinds of numbers by 2005..... spike

> ----------
> From: GBurch1
> Reply To: extropians@extropy.com
> Sent: Friday, May 8, 1998 6:17 PM
> To: extropians@extropy.com
> Subject: Near-Term Scenarios
>
> Its been a while since we've discussed concrete scenarios of
> technological,
>