The Business Case for Reusable Launch Vehicles

An anonymous reader writes "Remember the failures of "shuttle replacements" like VentureStar? A Space Review article argues that even if VentureStar succeeded technically, it and other proposed big RLVs would never have made it financially: they cost too much to develop and wouldn't have made it up through increased launches. What's the solution? The author says that suborbital RLVs, like what Carmack, Rutan, and the other X Prize contenders are working on, will create a business cycle that will eventually lead to orbital vehicles."

Comments

Re:Space Elevator

[ErikZ]

So, first problem, it costs a lot of money. Interestingly enough, your projected cost is at the high end of projected costs.

So it costs a lot of money, so what? This is an infrastructure investment. Historically, port cities became rich and prosperous do to all the goods and materials flowing though it. A space elevator would make a country the port from the entire universe to the whole damn planet!

But there's radition, meteors, very bad things, whine whine whine. Yes, and those things will always be there no matter what we use to get into, and travel through space. Point?

We don't have the abilty to make one? Well no shit sherlock. I'm glad you pointed this out. Here's an idea, lets work on the problem and see if it's possible to do this. We're in the infancy of working with carbon nanotubes, and I have confidence that we're nowhere near our potential in manipulating it.

Go take your defeatism somewhere else.