Buying an incomplete project

"Marc J. Zeitlin" wrote

Not everyone agrees with that perspective (although it's clearly the
big moneymaker, at least to start). Personally, I'm on the fence about
it.

OK, I'm interested.

What do you think possible applications would be, besides the obvious
tourism aspect?
--
Jim in NC

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:28:20 -0800, "Marc J. Zeitlin"
wrote:

Morgans wrote:

What do you think possible applications would be, besides the
obvious tourism aspect?

1) Sub-orbital experimentation. $1.2M/flight (or less), with the
ability to carry people, is not substantially different in price from
sounding rockets to carry sub-orbital experiments without people.

Then again, by NOT carrying an astronaut, the experimenters can carry 200+ more
pounds of payload. If I were funding the R&D for a company or university, I
would scrutinize very carefully any request for funds that claimed that it would
be necessary for the researcher to go into space with the hardware...it's too
obviously a junket. And can you imagine lawsuits if a university pays for trip
where the researcher gets fried?

2) Orbital astronaut training

Just another term for "Space Tourism," I'm afraid, unless NASA or the Russian
and Chinese Space Agencies start hiring off the street. Any private company
that develops an orbital capability will probably find it more effective to
train their people in orbit on their own equipment.

Ron Wanttaja

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:23:18 -0800, "Marc J. Zeitlin"
wrote:

Just another term for "Space Tourism," I'm afraid, unless NASA or
the Russian and Chinese Space Agencies start hiring off the street.

Certainly a reasonable viewpoint. Like I said, I'm on the fence about
these other uses - some folks think they're viable, some think they're
nonsense, and who knows what someone will think up in the future...
Remember, no one was ever going to want to go more than 25 mph :-).

After all, the hot air balloon has been around over 300 years, and look how far
they've advanced.... ahh, well, maybe there's a better example....

The big money, as ever, is in boosting stuff to orbit. Hopefully Rutan will be
able to work something out. And you'll be right there to see it, you lucky
devil! :-)

Ron Wanttaja