Stephen Metschan emails, per my recent piece in The New Atlantis:
I agreed with much of what you wrote especially with the lead up to how we got to where we are today. In fact even key elements of what you wrote as solutions to going further are actually part of the DIRECT plan which goes far far beyond the Jupiter Launch System which is just a one component of that plan. One day I wish you would at least publicly acknowledge this. In fact the CE&R were very informative in help us come up with a good compromise between the two extremes of Ares or an exclusive existing EELV approach. Also for the record we are no longer anonymous to the Commission as I promised them. In fact Leroy’s question of who are we was a call to arms. To suffice to say what they found will result in some significant changes shortly to NASA middle management.
You continue to have three key blind spots in three very different areas of physics, politics and experience.
Starting with physics. Whether we like it or not the rocket equation governs our current reality. In addition, RLV will always have higher mass fraction than ELV. As Carl Sagan once said “The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition”. Changing who the government writes the checks to won’t change physics or the golden rule. Further the dynamics of how young, efficient yet inexperienced organizations turn into old, inefficient yet experienced organizations, given enough time and money, won’t change either. While the last one is not strictly physics its durability across human organizational history is almost an axiom of the human condition which in turn mirrors the life cycle of individuals only on longer time scale.
Politics, you almost got it with the statement of the Iron Triangle but you failed to weave that into a broader understanding of solution that works. Politics is the art of the possible. As long as the space services customer base is dominate by government, elected representatives of the taxpayers who ultimately foot the bill will have a dominate influence. Until something ‘like’ Lunar He3 comes along (ie this particular idea may never be possible) the space industry will be dominated by government, the market niche of joy rides for millionaires not withstanding. For now telling the likes of Senator Shelby that your plan is to shut down MSFC is like taking grocery bag to a tank fight. In addition, the Jupiter launch system is not just slightly better than Ares but is less than half the cost (development, operational and fixed). The fact that our plan saves so much money has actually been the problem with the Senator from Alabama. Any guess on how well a plan that destroys NASA as we know it would be received? In addition our fixed cost (ie no launches) is less than 20% of the Human Space Flight budget, well below Ares and an improvement over STS. At launch rates that far exceed our mission budget that percentage number barely moves while the cost per kg to orbit drops below $4,000. The biggest problem we have is that the incremental cost per launch is even lower than this already extremely competitive full amortized cost thereby make any conceivable ELV or RLV approach based on existing physics by any nation or organizational paradigm ‘more’ expensive not less. So your cost argument is completely backwards. In a Jupiter world the government will need to subsidize the ‘commerical’ market not the other way around by paying much more to launch the same payload via multiple smaller launchers than the incrementally cost of what one more Jupiter launch would entail.. Besides their is no absolutely no reason why the Jupiter couldn’t be designed, built and operated by a ‘commercial’ industry consortium or FFRDC for the matter. Again I see little difference between the commercial companies of USA, ULA, SpaceX, Rent-A-RLV, etc. They all are ‘commercial’ companies of one size or another yet the golden rule will still hold sway. Bottomline: lets not throw out the high volume heavy launch infrastructure and workforce out with the NASA management bath water.
Concerning Experience. You also continue to neglect for some reason the fact that launch cost is only 20% of the overall mission cost. As such even if a time machine delivered a device, that for some mysterious reason would only work on Earth, which could place any mass you wanted into Earth Orbit using Duracell battery you would only lower the cost of space exploration and development by 20%. On the other hand we have lots and lots of cost date from real programs that prove that attempting to pack 10kg of spacecraft into a 5kg box increases costs many times that of the actually launch cost think JSWT and MSL. Further even in an EELV paradigm the ISS would still cost more, have less capability and weigh more than Skylab which the Jupiter could put up in one launch. I for one much prefer Skylab over the ISS rabbit warren for trips Beyond LEO.
So in summary I agree with a lot of what you wrote by the ‘close’ on some of your key recommendations only make sense if you ignore physics, politics and experience.
I don’t have time to respond at length, but briefly, there is no correlation between mass fraction and launch costs of which I’m aware. If there is one, it’s certainly second order, relative to flight rate and whether or not you throw hardware away. So I (as always, as I did in a previous piece in The New Atlantis) summarily reject the flawed and false argumentum ab physics.
As for the politics, while closing down MSFC might or might not be a good idea, I do in fact recognize that it is politically unrealistic. I don’t, however, think it politically unrealistic to apply that resource to something useful, that actually advances us beyond LEO, rather than building Yet Another Launch System. For instance, propellant depot development should in theory be in their wheelhouse. Having them do it wouldn’t necessarily be the most effective way to get it done, but it may be the kind of political compromise necessary to at least get the agency to start doing the right thing, if not doing the thing right.
I also recognize that cost of launch is (currently) a small fraction of total mission cost. What I don’t recognize is that this is an iron law of aerospace, rather than an artifact of the way we’ve been doing space for the past five decades. And in fact, for a propellant delivery, the cost of launch dominates, and the vast majority of mass that has to be delivered to LEO (at least until we start to utilize extraterrestrial resources) for extraterrestrial missions is propellant. Also, I share the enthusiasm for Skylab over ISS, in terms of volume, but one can get volume without a heavy-lift vehicle. Just ask Bob Bigelow.
So I plead innocent to all three charges.
[Thursday morning update]
Clark Lindsey has a response to Stephen’s thesis.
[Bumped]
Also, I share the enthusiasm for Skylab over ISS, in terms of volume, but one can get volume without a heavy-lift vehicle. Just ask Bob Bigelow.
The current Delta IVH can barely loft a BA-330, if it isn’t well furnished prior to launch. (both at ~23,000 kg)
Anything larger than a BA-330 needs a larger rocket, especially if you wish to furnish the interior BEFORE launch.
Anything larger than a BA-330 needs a larger rocket, especially if you wish to furnish the interior BEFORE launch.
I see no need to furnish the interior prior to launch.
You say,”and in fact, for a propellant delivery, the cost of launch dominates.”
I assume you mean a tank full of fuel delivered to LEO presumably so some other spacecraft could dock to it and fill up. I’m curious what you think it would cost if you ordered 1 today, or decided to build one yourself? What do you think subsequent units would cost? Ahh it’s hopeless, you’ll probably say that if you built a million units it’d be relatively cheap, then I’ll say space is called space because there’s nothing there, etc. etc.
The fact that launch costs are only a small part of total costs actually doesn’t work in DIRECT’s advantage but to its disadvantage. High fixed costs could be used to offset potentially higher launch costs (although I’d expect commercial launch to be cheaper) and the high cost of spacecraft means reuse can be cost effective even when it is not mass effective. And higher launch volumes for similar cost are good for stimulating commercial development of space.
ATV resupply to ISS.
Progress resupply flight to ISS.
These are space “missions”.
Does Stephen claim that for each of those, launch costs are 20% ? That is, pardon my french, utter bilge.
Bill,
The Delta-IVH upgrade that is currently being paid for by DoD puts its LEO payload in the 26-27mT range. Plenty for a Bigelow module.
~Jon
> Besides their is no absolutely no reason why the Jupiter couldn’t be designed, built and operated by a ‘commercial’ industry consortium or FFRDC for the matter.
I actually kind of like the idea of an industry consortium attempting to enter Jupiter in as a COTS/CCDev competitor.
I actually kind of like the idea of an industry consortium attempting to enter Jupiter in as a COTS/CCDev competitor.
It seems unlikely that it would be competitive.
I don’t have time to respond at length, but briefly, there is no correlation between mass fraction and launch costs of which I’m aware. If there is one, it’s certainly second order, relative to flight rate and whether or not you throw hardware away. So I (as always, as I did in a previous piece in The New Atlantis) summarily reject the flawed and false argumentum ab physics
Why is it doubtful that you will ever “find the time” to show your work on this?
Stephen Metschan and the DIRECT team have shown theirs in hundreds of pages and with actual cost data and math. You have so far (and I would say persistently on this particular issue) shown beautiful arguments backed by nothing more solid than sophistry. And in this particular case, not even very good sophistry.
It’s plain common sense that a more complex piece of hardware like an RLV is going to be heavier than a simpler ELV. And the qualifier “whether or not you throw the hardware away” is as empty as “whether or not you use antigravity.”
There is actually in the real world a clear, first-order correlation between payload fraction and price/kg. (No, I’m not going to show my work. But you don’t ever either. And it’s all available with an hour of googling and spreadsheeting.)
And until they invent either a magical TPS with a negative mass, or a rocket engine/power supply sufficient to allow an SSTO to contain 19-20 m/s of delta v and with sufficient thrust in the hull at liftoff, that correlation won’t change by much.
Summary rejections of physical arguments are known as “ignoring inconvenient facts.”
Why is it doubtful that you will ever “find the time” to show your work on this?
Is this a rhetorical question? If not, what is your point?
It’s plain common sense that a more complex piece of hardware like an RLV is going to be heavier than a simpler ELV.
I’m aware of no one who disputes this.
And the qualifier “whether or not you throw the hardware away” is as empty as “whether or not you use antigravity.”
Now, this is a completely nonsensical analogy.
And the qualifier “whether or not you throw the hardware away” is as empty as “whether or not you use antigravity.”
Ah, the nonsense continues.
Get back to us when you have a sensible argument.
> It seems unlikely that it would be competitive.
Oh, I also rather doubt it would be competitive, but anything’s possible. Maybe if it had to actually be competitive they could come up with a way to trim enough cruft to have a moderately cost-effective shuttle-derived system. Or maybe not.
Are ELV (Expendable Launch Vehicle) or RLV (Reusable Launch Vehicle) the cheaper way to access Space?
To compare we take the same rocket first as an ELV system, and than as an RLV system. So the ELV version does not neet a TPS etc, hence has a better massfraction and its building costs are cheaper. (Me, Mr, Be, Br). Its building cost are although cheaper because you build more ELVs than RLVs.
Take SpaceX F9 as an examble. Today its an ELV, and as they say, with further development they try to make it a RLV.
RLV could be reused, so that after the first launch, not building cost but refursbishing costs a important. (Rr)
Development cost are also cheaper for ELVs then for RLVs.(De,Dr)
And as nothing lives forever, RLV have a maximum number of launches before you need a whole new rocket, we call N
So we have Launchcosts for N launches:
ELV: (De+N*Be)
RLV: (Dr+Br+(N-1)*Rr)
Because the RLV has to carry its TPS etc with it we have to weight these numbers with their massfraction.
So we have to compare (De +N *Be)*Me to (Dr+Br+(N-1)*Rr)*Mr.
where De < Dr, Be Mr and Rr = (Dr*Mr – De * Me + (Br – Rr) * Mr)/ (Be*Me-Rr*Mr)
Launches that a RLV Rocket is the cheaper Solution.
I dont know any real numbers, i dont even know if there are real numbers yet for all variables. But as you see, simply saying because of the massfraction ELVs are “better” than RLVs does not work.
And with the increased number of Launches a fuel depot(FD) like system would create, we could reach such a N faster….
But even if it turns out that ELVs are almost always the cheaper excess to space, that is no counter argument against FD.
FD will reduce the buidling cost, because you build more. it will make rockets more rubust, and you get a test system for rockets where you will put humans on. So FD will result in a cheaper access to space!
Oh i see there are some lines missing above.
So we have to compare (De +N *Be)*Me to (Dr+Br+(N-1)*Rr)*Mr.
where De is smaller Dr, Be is smaller Br, Me is bigger Mr and Rr is hopefully smaller Br.
So you need N greater than
(Dr*Mr – De * Me + (Br – Rr) * Mr)/ (Be*Me-Rr*Mr)
Launches that a RLV Rocket is the cheaper Solution.
Tom, Metschan says : “You also continue to neglect for some reason the fact that launch cost is only 20% of the overall mission cost”
You say : “DIRECT team have shown theirs in hundreds of pages and with actual cost data and math.”
I say, someone is blowing smoke. I havent done this math, but again, ISS resupply flights by ATV and Progress cannot be nowhere near 20% figure judging just by yearly budget allocations and published launch figures.
( Wild guess, not backed up by hundreds of pages: more like 90%. )
I read the other day that Ariane 5 + ATV costs $300M, $200M for ATV and $100M for the Ariane 5. And that’s an argument for reusable tugs, not HLV.
The Delta-IVH upgrade that is currently being paid for by DoD puts its LEO payload in the 26-27mT range. Plenty for a Bigelow module.
And imagine what you could do with the 6.5mx25.9m fairing that is believed to be possible on current EELVs.
Starting with physics. Whether we like it or not the rocket equation governs our current reality
This is his first mistake. FUNDING governs our current reality. This is also the mistake that Dr. Griffin made when trying to build an architecture that was known from the beginning to be too expensive. DIRECT is merely a slightly scaled down version of this lack of reality.
I did not push Shuttle C/Sidemount as the best technical solution to launch, I push it as the only one that is financially and politically supportable.
This is the lesson that Internet rocketeers and Mars Society members NEVER learn.
Building something to fit a particular volume and mass restraint for shipping inherently makes an item more expensive than not having to do so. At least it has on every mechanical engineering project I’ve ever been involved in – aerospace, marine or physical plant.
And when I say volume, for example, I’m not referring to the blown up size of a Bigelow type module. If a $GENERIC_WIDGET you want to use is a half metre too wide to fit into the launch vehicle of your launch vehicle, you need to have $BESPOKE_WIDGET or a larger vehicle. There’s not a huge amount you can do with it.
You also, for assembly projects have a logistics problem from hell going on that soon becomes a nightmare in terms of marshaling and handling. I’ve worked on $100M plant installations where we lost $200K transformers the size of minivans. I’ve worked on others where we ended up spending a small fortune fixing a problem on site because we tried to _save_ money by pre-assembling some of the modules rather than have to pay for experts to be on-site to do it.
All of these things happen regularly, even single day in engineering projects across the planet. I don’t really understand why you think that space development, especially if it really starts to open up, will be magically somehow saved from the real world engineering SNAFUs that dog all real world projects.
I don’t really understand why you think that space development, especially if it really starts to open up, will be magically somehow saved from the real world engineering SNAFUs that dog all real world projects.
I don’t really understand where you come up with the fantasy that I think that.
Two of my fav space community urban myths
> Starting with physics. Whether we like it or not the rocket equation governs our current reality.===
A slightly more complicated version of this equation dominates air travel — it does not demand $10,000 a pound for similar energy distances.
>== In addition, RLV will always have higher mass fraction than ELV. ==
And Pick ups have higher mass fractions then Posche 911’s, but I don’t think the 911’s are cheaper per passenger or ton mile?
Given dry mass and fuel/LOx costs relative to cargo weight, has virtually no impact on launch costs, the amount of focus LV developers and space advocates give to it is depressing.
I don’t really understand where you come up with the fantasy that I think that.
Because that’s how you come across all-the-flaming-time Rand!
You say things like: What I don’t recognize is that this is an iron law of aerospace, rather than an artifact of the way we’ve been doing space for the past five decades
If you say things like that, what other logical conclusion can a sensible person draw other than that you have an incomplete grasp of the challenges of complex engineering problems (in or out of the aerospace field, because it’s seriously not limited to there.)
This “poor me, all these idiot’s misunderstand me” routine is stale. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that the problem might not be all those people who “fantasize” about what you say, but rather in the way that you say things and reply to people?
If you say things like that, what other logical conclusion can a sensible person draw other than that you have an incomplete grasp of the challenges of complex engineering problems (in or out of the aerospace field, because it’s seriously not limited to there.)
Only an unsensible person would come to such a conclusion.
Only an unsensible person would come to such a conclusion.
It still amazes me how many “unsensible” people like me there are out here who keep drawing the same conclusions from your stuff.
I don’t even comprehend the cognitive process that happens in your head that means you don’t understand why people have these problems.
You can whine about “iron laws” and how such problems are “artifacts” when ALL the empirical evidence from across the spectrum of engineering projects shows that this is a feature of the problem that has to be managed on an ongoing basis.
An management process which has, itself, spawned vast new engineering management disciplines all by itself.
Yes, I get you want to get people off planet and that you, yourself, want to go into space. Kudos. I approve.
But ignoring hard learned lessons of engineering history isn’t the way to earn mainstream support or acceptance.
It still amazes me how many “unsensible” people like me there are out here who keep drawing the same conclusions from your stuff.
I’m not sure what’s so amazing, considering how small the number is. You keep drawing nutty conclusions from what I write, but I don’t see many others doing so, other than Mark Whittington.
It’s plain common sense that a more complex piece of hardware like an RLV is going to be heavier than a simpler ELV. (Tom quote)
I’m aware of no one who disputes this. (Rand quote)
Perhaps one,:-)
When you are looking to get hundreds of flights per year, per vehicle, it will become worthwhile to use more expensive materials and better engineering practice to get more for your money. It probably will be true that most RLVs are heavier than equivilent payload ELVs, but it is not yet cast in stone.
Daveon,
I’ll agree with Rand. You are projecting ideas into his head and his writing which are not in either place. Sometimes you have to start with a simple idea and then do a very large amount of hard engineering work to make it happen. That does not mean that someone who is advocating for a particular simple idea does not know that there is hard engineering work later.
I will admit that there ARE many people who advocate for a particular simple idea who do not know that there is hard engineering work later. But Rand does not appear to be one of them. Given his propensity to link to and discuss Jon Goff’s long detailed discussions to the hard engineering behind some simple ideas, and his many discussions of historical and present day ‘real world engineering SNAFUs’, plus actually stating many of the ‘hard learned lessons of engineering history’ on a frequent basis, I am rather perplexed that you can draw the conclusions that you do.
Anyone who wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions of dollars developing his simple ideas is not operating under the false notion that there isn’t hard engineering involved.
Yours,
Tom DeGisi
I don’t have time to respond at length, but briefly, there is no correlation between mass fraction and launch costs of which I’m aware.
Yeah. Bob Truax, i.e. Big Dumb Booster guy, said the exact same thing. I would say he has designed more rockets than the DIRECT guys ever did.
I agree with Bob that rocket cost is proportional with complexity (e.g. number of parts) and inversely proportional to the number of launches. To see the first case in point, compare the cost of SSME with RS-68.
For those people who think Truax was against reusability, please note he did plan to make Sea Dragon stages reusable. He was against using wings as a recovery method, which is a different thing.
Tom: part of the problem with dealing with Rand is he’ll cherry pick excerpts from arguments and reply to them and then pretend to have dealt with the core problem. It’s, amusingly, a tactic he often claims other people use.
Sometimes you have to start with a simple idea and then do a very large amount of hard engineering work to make it happen.
No disagreement and if you go up-thread I didn’t made any claim that this would be the case. Nor would I claim that Rand is saying that.
My issues stem from Rand’s ability to make statements such as:
I also recognize that cost of launch is (currently) a small fraction of total mission cost. What I don’t recognize is that this is an iron law of aerospace, rather than an artifact of the way we’ve been doing space for the past five decades. And in fact, for a propellant delivery, the cost of launch dominates, and the vast majority of mass that has to be delivered to LEO (at least until we start to utilize extraterrestrial resources) for extraterrestrial missions is propellant. Also, I share the enthusiasm for Skylab over ISS, in terms of volume, but one can get volume without a heavy-lift vehicle. Just ask Bob Bigelow.
And whine like hell when called on them.
Reducing costs to LEO doesn’t just make these go away and while I’ll accept that Rand probably doesn’t think they do, I do think he tends to gloss this point over quite nicely and hide behind aggressive and frankly, unpleasant ad hominem when called to account.
He’s being doing for the 15 years or so I’ve been reading his stuff on line and he’s got worse not better over that time.
Anyway, I pressed send too soon.
Rand claims there isn’t an “Iron Rule” about costs being higher in general.
And there probably isn’t. However, it still doesn’t alter the fact that if your cheap off-the-shelf module for something is 2 metres (to make up some numbers) across, and your launcher can only handle something 1.5 metres across – something has to give. Either you need a bigger vehicle, or a tailor made component.
It’s hardly a problem in the aerospace field. I’ve seen it in Marine and Chemical Plant projects where you have to get components to hostile and remote locations using standard shipping systems.
It’s disingenuous to keep arguing that this is some artifact of other clever people doing things wrong for decades when it’s merely a real world problem we have to live with.
BTW – it’s not even engineering related. I’ve seen the same problem as a cost multiplier in airfreight logistics where you’re stuck using a single fleet of aircraft.
If the item you want to ship for $X doesn’t fit in the hold of the BA146, it doesn’t go in the BA146. End of story.
And whine like hell when called on them.
What are you fantasizing that you “called me on”?
What are you fantasizing that you “called me on”?
On this occasion, your statement: What I don’t recognize is that this is an iron law of aerospace, rather than an artifact of the way we’ve been doing space for the past five decades.
Even if it’s not an Iron Rule – I wouldn’t necessarily call it one myself – it’s an observable fact of engineering projects where there are logistical and transport constraints which can’t be overcome without spending a lot more money.
I’ll not even comment on something like: I see no need to furnish the interior prior to launch
You litter your blog with throw away lines like these with precious little comment nor apparent thought on them and then behave like a spoiled kid when people have the rank audacity to disagree with your pronouncements.
Frankly, shame on you.
t’s an observable fact of engineering projects where there are logistical and transport constraints which can’t be overcome without spending a lot more money.
I’ve never disputed that. I’d like to see the version of my blog that you seem to be commenting on, because it doesn’t seem to resemble the one on this planet.
You litter your blog with throw away lines like these with precious little comment nor apparent thought on them and then behave like a spoiled kid when people have the rank audacity to disagree with your pronouncements.
I have no problem with people “disagreeing with my pronouncements.” I only object to people fantasizing and accusing me of writing and believing things that I don’t write or believe.
Frankly, shame on you.
Physician, heal thyself.
I’ve never disputed that.
…
I also recognize that cost of launch is (currently) a small fraction of total mission cost. What I don’t recognize is that this is an iron law of aerospace, rather than an artifact of the way we’ve been doing space for the past five decades.
…
Physician, heal thyself.
Whatever.
Thank you for yet another demonstration of your sterling ability to miscomprehend English.
Enlighten me, please.
1) You agree that cost of launch is (currently) a small fraction of the total mission cost
2) You state that you see this as an artifact of the way we’ve been doing space for the last 5 decades
3) I point out that this problem of shipping v. cost is a pretty common problem in lots of fields where there are bottlenecks in the shipping process – I cite some examples
4) You state that you have never disputed (3)
What I’m not comprehending (if you will), is how you can never dispute 3, and still make claim 2 that this is actually an artifact, and not a feature of a logistical chain with a significant bottleneck that probably isn’t going away.
What I’m not comprehending (if you will), is how you can never dispute 3, and still make claim 2 that this is actually an artifact, and not a feature of a logistical chain with a significant bottleneck that probably isn’t going away.
It is possible to both believe that it is a common problem in transportation in general, and that it is extremely exaggerated in the case of space transportation (particularly because of the low reliability and high cost of the transportation), and can be significantly improved. In particular (as I already pointed out) it is not an issue for propellant delivery, which is the vast bulk of mass that must be delivered to orbit for human exploration.
Daveon,
Well, those are entirely different complaints from what you said above.
Cherry picking arguments? You do it. I do it. We all do it. Why? Who has the time NOT to do it? I have a job. I have a family. If I can’t cherry pick, I can’t write blog comments. When I cherry pick an argument I have three main things I do. When I’m really on my game I pick what I think is the best, most stunning argument against what I am arguing. When I use that method you are darn right I think I’ve dealt with the core issue. When I’m not on my game I pick whatever really peeves me about that core issue. And when I use method I also think I’ve dealt with the core issue, because as long as you don’t deal with my deal breaker (which is what most peeves are) you aren’t selling an idea I want to buy. The third thing I do is pick an argument I think is interesting but not conclusive. When I do that, I just want to throw it out there. I know it isn’t conclusive. If you don’t say anything interesting in response, I won’t reply. Who has the time?
Nor would I claim that Rand is saying that.
Sure you did. What do you think this means:
I don’t really understand why you think that space development, especially if it really starts to open up, will be magically somehow saved from the real world engineering SNAFUs that dog all real world projects.
And what do you think this means:
But ignoring hard learned lessons of engineering history isn’t the way to earn mainstream support or acceptance.
Next you complain Rand whined when called out about this comment:
I also recognize that cost of launch is (currently) a small fraction of total mission cost. What I don’t recognize is that this is an iron law of aerospace, rather than an artifact of the way we’ve been doing space for the past five decades. And in fact, for a propellant delivery, the cost of launch dominates, and the vast majority of mass that has to be delivered to LEO (at least until we start to utilize extraterrestrial resources) for extraterrestrial missions is propellant. Also, I share the enthusiasm for Skylab over ISS, in terms of volume, but one can get volume without a heavy-lift vehicle. Just ask Bob Bigelow.
That was B.S. on your part. First of all, he was not ‘called out’. Or even close to it. His point was perfectly valid. People made some important points about it. But they in no way contradicted his point. They did illuminate it. They were interesting. But even your interesting points didn’t contradict it. Second, he did not whine about it. He did complain that you were putting thoughts in his head.
Which you were doing as I’ve pointed out more directly in this sentence. Blatantly and nastily.
And then you say this:
Reducing costs to LEO doesn’t just make these go away and while I’ll accept that Rand probably doesn’t think they do, I do think he tends to gloss this point over quite nicely and hide behind aggressive and frankly, unpleasant ad hominem when called to account.
Yes, he’s aggressive and unpleasant. So are you in this thread. Why do you think you hit one of my pet peeves enough to call you on it?
Yours,
Tom
I type and think too slowly for you two. I was responding to Daveon’s comment from ‘August 13th, 2009 at 2:46 pm’.
And at August 13th, 2009 at 4:03 pm, Rand shows why your interesting point about logistics does not even begin to be the showstopper you seemed to think it was, in a way that was completely obvious from his original post.
Rand: Thank you for the reasoned and clear reply. When you respond like that it’s a pleasure to read.
I still have issues with the point:
a) I suspect the ration of the reduction will be significant but not necessarily significant enough to bring the cost savings needed
b) For exploration purposes I agree with you. For development purposes I think the cost ration will remain prohibative without a paradigm shift – for all the reasons I’ve already outline
Why is it doubtful that you will ever “find the time” to show your work on this?
Is this a rhetorical question? If not, what is your point?
My point that I skirted around is that you have a persistent habit in this blog and the New Atlantic articles of dismissing analyses or even estimates of launch and operations costs that come to conclusions you disagree with *out of hand*, as in without serious engagement.
It’s a cheap rhetorical trick to pretend to not have the time or interest to engage an argument but then continue as if you have already won the argument or as if the argument never mattered anyway. I don’t think you will find the time to show the work on this argument for possibly 3 reasons:
1. You have not actually done any real cost analysis of different launch methods
2. You’re not certain the result of such analysis would validate your claim [that it is possible to accomplish the same tasks DIRECT types claim take government owned HLVs for orders of magnitude cheaper with commercial MLVs or hypothetical RLVs]
3. You cannot figure out a way to compare real launch vehicles with real prices and costs to imaginary launch vehicles such as RLVs with high launch rates.
If it’s #3, don’t worry, I don’t think there’s a valid way to do it anyway.
Actually engaging the argument without showing your work would be as simple as linking to a study or even an article that specifically refutes the argument he was making.
1. You have not actually done any real cost analysis of different launch methods
Well, that’s obviously not it, because I used to get paid to do just that.
2. You’re not certain the result of such analysis would validate your claim [that it is possible to accomplish the same tasks DIRECT types claim take government owned HLVs for orders of magnitude cheaper with commercial MLVs or hypothetical RLVs]
Nope, not that either.
tom cuddihy,
If you have afford Rand’s salary I bet he would do that analysis for you. It’s like Daveon’s complaint about cherry picking. It’s always easy to ask someone you disagree with to do a huge amount of salary-free work to defend his position. When someone is being paid for their opinon, cherry picking is a valid criticism. Free ice-cream? Expect cherries!
Yours,
Tom
(I like bing cherries.)
Thank you for the reasoned and clear reply. When you respond like that it’s a pleasure to read.
You’re welcome, but my reply was no more or less “reasoned and clear” than my original post.
If you have afford Rand’s salary I bet he would do that analysis for you. It’s like Daveon’s complaint about cherry picking.
Yes, though I’m (happily) a little oversubscribed at the moment, so he might have to pay a premium.
“A slightly more complicated version of this equation dominates air travel — it does not demand $10,000 a pound for similar energy distances.”
How do we know this? Air travel currently doesn’t operate over similar energy distances or anything close. A quarter to a third for the longest ranged airliners.