This is, in fact, the essential idea of a company called Orbital Sciences, Corp.
They launch small to medium size payloads off the back of a converted passenger jet. It turns out not to be as effective for large payloads as pure rockets.
Jet propulsion does not possess the same amount of thrust to weight as rocket propulsion. Therefore, clustering many jet engines together is not a good idea, since the vehicle will become heavier and heavier.
Last year, I put together a model upon a more focused question which is "What is the impact that mature open-source products on an existing commercial market"?
This is a more technical question of market dynamics (where I think that I can contribute something) rather than an explanation of the motivating factors associated with the open-source development process.
Although this particular question sidesteps many of the interesting issues (of why folks would want to do this), it makes a mathematical model of the dynamics plausible.
Since the model is framed in the context of autonomous agents, I presented it at an AI conference workshop (GECCO-99). However, I wouldn't mind getting some thoughtful feedback from folks who are more interested in the open-source economics side of things, rather than in the autonomous agents.
A web-page on the paper is located here, and the paper itself can be found here (PDF format).
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They launch small to medium size payloads off the back of a converted passenger jet. It turns out not to be as effective for large payloads as pure rockets.
Jet propulsion does not possess the same amount of thrust to weight as rocket propulsion. Therefore, clustering many jet engines together is not a good idea, since the vehicle will become heavier and heavier.
Hope that helps.
This is a more technical question of market dynamics (where I think that I can contribute something) rather than an explanation of the motivating factors associated with the open-source development process.
Although this particular question sidesteps many of the interesting issues (of why folks would want to do this), it makes a mathematical model of the dynamics plausible.
Since the model is framed in the context of autonomous agents, I presented it at an AI conference workshop (GECCO-99). However, I wouldn't mind getting some thoughtful feedback from folks who are more interested in the open-source economics side of things, rather than in the autonomous agents.
A web-page on the paper is located here, and the paper itself can be found here (PDF format).