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From: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer)
Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Space Station Strangles NASP
Message-ID: <45e95c54.71d0@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Sep 89 17:33:00 GMT
References: <4983@omepd.UUCP>
Reply-To: rehrauer@apollo.COM (Steve Rehrauer)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 80

In article <4983@omepd.UUCP> larry@omews10.intel.com (Larry Smith) writes:
 >This is absurd. Just like the Ford Model-T enabled people for the
 >first time to AFFORDABLY travel hundreds of miles from their homes,
 >and the DC-3 to AFFORDABLY travel thousands of miles, the national 
 >aerospace plane derived vehicle (NASPDV) holds the promise of AFFORDABLE
 >transportation to low earth orbit. If you really want the federal and
 >commercial space development business to bloom, provide an AFFORDABLE 
 >way to get people and light cargoes to LEO (NASPDV), and reduce by 10X
 >the cost of heavy payloads (ALS or Jarvis).  Don't provide a great facility
 >(space station) with a very expensive, and therefore ultimately unaffordable,
 >way to get there (Shuttle). Put another way, if you had to travel from LA
 >to NY to help a client with a technical problem, or to investigate new
 >techniques/markets, would you want to go through the overhead and delay
 >of getting yourself on a system like the space shuttle, or would you like
 >to buy a ticket with a credit card, and go to your local large airport and 
 >catch a ride ?

What are we talking about here, a Chevy for getting to space or a whizzier
Concorde for trans-oceanic flights?  My understanding is that the Concorde
is middling profitable on its small number of routes.  Why do you expect
a "space-plane", used in the same manner as the Concorde, to be a better
/ more_lucrative venture?  If there isn't a Concorde route to  today, why not?  Wouldn't the answers apply to the same
questions asked re: the NASP?

 >True, NASP/X-30 has technical hurdles, but these hurdles are not impossible
 >ones. The past several years of technology development have proven that.
 >Also, for the people on the net that say that U.S. aerospace companies
 >never contribute their own funds to development any more, the NASP/X-30 
 >technology development effort to date, has been funded at the 50% level
 >by the 5  U.S. aerospace firms that are taking part, and a vehicle is not
 >even being built! .

Research is great; spend the money to solve these hurdles.  Who knows what
spin-offs we'll reap.  Perhaps 5-10 years downwind the research will make
NASP a snap.  But (IMHO) we'll wind up with another shuttle-like, delicate,
flakey beast if the goal is to push this "leading edge" technology into a
commercial endeavor by the next decade, and that's asking for trouble.

 > Surely, they wouldn't do this if they didn't see the
 >potential, as mentioned above. Quoting them, in 1 year they will be at the
 >point where they will be ready to develop hardware! They have said that any
 >further delay is excessive! X-30 is NOT a 21st century concept. It IS a mid
 >1990's concept !! Look at it yet another way ... X-30 would cost the same
 >as about 4 B-2s. Which gives a better return ?

If they "see the potential" and it's so sure-fire golden, why then they'll
either a) build it, or b) keep their near-sighted eyes on next month's
bottom line and let the [ Japanese | French | Russians | other ambitious
nation ] build it.  I'm not convinced the role of Washington should be to
chivvy said aerospace companies into taking a long-term view by lavishing
taxpayer money on them.  At least, not for this program.

 >The orbital X-15 program was killed by Apollo. Is NASP/X-30 about to be killed
 >by the space station?

Why don't we kill the station as well, while we're in a fiscally homocidal
mood?  The station is a justification for the shuttle, which is a justification
for the station.  We can probably afford one or the other; we've got one;
ergo, we can't afford the other.  Let's spend half of the proposed station
budget on more Galileos and Voyagers and Vikings and Magellans, and the other
half on pushing ("paying for") excellent ("better" isn't good enough with
things in their current state) science & mathematics programs in our schools.

In an age when a measurable fraction, not to mention a large minority, of
our citizens believe the sun orbits the earth, I can only dimly comprehend
what motivates people who kick up a fuss over the slim possibility of Pu
release from a Galileo accident, or contamination of Jupiter by earth-life
carried by Galileo.  Risks, yes.  Things to prevent if possible, yes.  But
gee whiz!  The house is afire, folks; never mind that the pot on the stove
is bubbling.

    "Qualified they ain't, but these opinions they be mine anyway"
        -- me

-- 
>>> "Aaiiyeeeee!  Death from above!" <<<  | Steve Rehrauer
    Fone: (508)256-6600 x6168             | Apollo Computer, a
    ARPA: rehrauer@apollo.hp.com          | division of Hewlett-Packard
"Look, Max: 'Pressurized cheese in a can'.  Even _WE_ wouldn't eat that!"