Ah, retreating into myth and ledgend.

> === Considering how many reports and such I’ve found on the web one month only to have nothing around
> the next to be found I can see how frustratingly hard a hard copy might be to get ahold of!

Yes good research librarians can be helpfull - but are rare. The web was supposed to be helpfull - but its so fluid! I read one article in the morning and by that evening they had been found false and rewrote it to disavow their previous opinion. Hardly anything is held for long.

Rather then a global librarty - its a global grocery store bullitiun board.

>You wouldn’t know of anyone stil at FedEx to write to about alternate
>craft ideas??

I don’t know who ‘did’ the first report actually. All I have personally seen is some of the figures and some of the original pages of the report. And that from an ex-chapter president for L5 during a very late night discussion on Space during a fan-convention in the early 80s :o)

Lots of folks seem to know the report exists, and that FedEx did it, but getting your hands on a copy seems tough. Considering how many reports and such I’ve found on the web one month only to have nothing around the next to be found I can see how frustratingly hard a hard copy might be to get ahold of!

Randy

SpaceX projects marketing $500 a pound to LEO service in a few years.

Mainly its dependant on what market scale develops and when.

> Randy Campbell Jun 20th, 2007 at 11:25 am
>> David wrote:
>==
> Granted, at the time the treaty was being ‘revised’ there was tons of
> ‘hype’ over how Howard Hughes was going to be ‘rapeing’ the sea
> beds for manganese nodules with the Glomar Explorer, (well, you
> have to admit THAT CIA cover story worked quite well :o) ==

Howard was such a card.

For cover stories that worked to well, the CIAs “Men in Black” gag has to be the top.

>== … say what you will about the L5 Society, they were the driving force
> that kept the United States out of, and ensured Congress rejected
> ratification of that particular piece of garbage.

That alone may well have been the biggest step forward into space of the entire time the L-5 society existed!

Seer wrote:
>>Randy, point to point suborbital transport with any conceivable vehicle
>>sounds very doubtful from an economic perspective, but using the space
>>shuttle - even with the lower projected costs of the 70’s - is simply
>> insane.

> Second point first; I noted that FedEx used all the ‘figures’ which NASA
> assured them would be the operations and maintenance costs of the
> Shuttle WHEN it flew. The numbers are actually no where NEAR
> accurate to the ‘real’ costs for the Shuttle :o)

Until O’Keefe came in and forced them to clean up their accounting games, they seriously said the margin cost of a shuttle flight was $60 million. .. The damn tank cost then $50!!

> The only real ‘reason’ the FedEx study is still ‘relevent’ to the subject
> is those figures are actually somewhere around 5-10x the ACTUAL
> costs of operations and maintenance for the (at the time) brand new
> FedEx 747s, so by using those numbers, which could very well still be
> conservitivly high, and showing that profits were very possible with a
> non-optimized and very expensive to use and operate vehicle, the
> question becomes; How much can you make with a more applicable
> and cheaper to operate vehicle?

You wouldn’t know of anyone stil at FedEx to write to about alternate craft ideas??

?

As to cost numbers. Bottom line, it’s the same kind of power and roughly similar fuel costs (in some designs lower costs) as a similar capacity subsonic jet over such long ranges. He tech needed is roughly the same as other operational craft with decades of serve life.

As to FedEx, they have a market so huge and demanding of delivery times no subsonic craft can meet, they saw serious profitability in flying air frights via Concord (though its reliability and range was to low)..

> == How ‘economical’ any other vehicle might be, (such as the
> Silver Dart) depends on a lot of factors (many of which others
> and I are ‘hashing’ out in a current email discussion I’m in) ==

>== which need to be defined in order to adjust for their effect.
>
> “The” problems becomes that a lot of these factors are design
> specific, as well as flight operations and ‘regulator’ in nature
> and these can’t be answered until specific system, operations,
> or regulations are in place.
> Randy

Regulation factors are so critical it appears that it could be dramatically more economical to go all the way to a craft that can operate out of air ports, fly through normal airspace, and be fully aircraft level certified – then to try to operate a smaller, less certified far cheeper to develop, less “airspace compatible” craft forced to operate out of restricted space ports through restricted and completely cleared airspace corridors.

Real quick reply to this one David; We can’t. No one can, they are banned from doing so by the last revision of the Laws Of The Seas charter, which specifically bans underwater colonization AND most methods of making any money from exploiting the seabeds.
Granted, at the time the treaty was being ‘revised’ there was tons of ‘hype’ over how Howard Hughes was going to be ‘rapeing’ the sea beds for manganese nodules with the Glomar Explorer, (well, you have to admit THAT CIA cover story worked quite well :o) and how the technilogical ‘edge’ that the first world had would ’steal’ resources from the third world, leaving nothing for future generations. So the sea beds were declared the “Common Heritage of Mankind” so anyone who ‘exploits’ it for profit those profits must be shared with any nation that ‘borders’ the area :o)
Antarctica is covered in both the Sea Treaty and several dozen Antarctica specific treaties governing how it will be preserved and continued as a ‘common heritige’ resource.

The 1979 Moon treaty was an effort to extend those same ‘restrictions’ into outer space and all celestial bodies, say what you will about the L5 Society, they were the driving force that kept the United States out of, and ensured Congress rejected ratification of that particular piece of garbage.

Seer wrote:
>Randy, point to point suborbital transport with any conceivable vehicle
>sounds very doubtful from an economic perspective, but using the space
>shuttle - even with the lower projected costs of the 70’s - is simply
>insane.

Second point first; I noted that FedEx used all the ‘figures’ which NASA assured them would be the operations and maintenance costs of the Shuttle WHEN it flew. The numbers are actually no where NEAR accurate to the ‘real’ costs for the Shuttle :o)
The only real ‘reason’ the FedEx study is still ‘relevent’ to the subject is those figures are actually somewhere around 5-10x the ACTUAL costs of operations and maintenance for the (at the time) brand new FedEx 747s, so by using those numbers, which could very well still be conservitivly high, and showing that profits were very possible with a non-optimized and very expensive to use and operate vehicle, the question becomes; How much can you make with a more applicable and cheaper to operate vehicle?

I’m not sure how you see point to point suborbital being ‘doubtful’ as the Planet Space Silver Dart is itself a very ‘concievable’ vehicle for such applications. It’s doubtful that P2P would be ‘economical’ for any distances under 1000-500km, but over those distances the economy quickly becomes evident. HOWEVER! It must be noted that this ‘assumes’ that your vehicle is economical to operate and maintain. Reality has shown that the Shuttle would never have fit this criteria, but then again the Shuttle was and is not an ‘economical’ vehicle in any sense of the word :o)

How ‘economical’ any other vehicle might be, (such as the Silver Dart) depends on a lot of factors (many of which others and I are ‘hashing’ out in a current email discussion I’m in) which need to be defined in order to adjust for their effect.
“The” problems becomes that a lot of these factors are design specific, as well as flight operations and ‘regulator’ in nature and these can’t be answered until specific system, operations, or regulations are in place.

Randy

Yea, I saw that yesterday - in fact, it was early enough that I covered it in my Space Revolution Weekly News on my diary at dailykos - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/18/202437/518
Feel free to take a look at it

Does that answer it better for you?

I think that it depends on what you want to launch. Bulk cargo can fly cheaper than people. It also depends on how much risk you’re willing to accept, and how much you’re willing to pay up front to establish infrastructure. One could imagine using a big gun to launch bulk hydrogen to orbit for a few dollars a pound.

Of course, if you figure in the cost of developing and building the gun, then the cost would jump pretty dramatically. Assuming that you had use for a lot of hydrogen, then you could recoup that cost over time. If you didn’t have use for a lot of hydrogen, then it would make more sense to use existing expendable rockets. Those are mostly paid for, which is why they can be relatively cheap to fly.

If you don’t mind killing people, then you can launch them cheaply, too.

Could you further define the boundaries of the problem?