Re: starship-design: FTL travel

[Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca>]

KellySt@aol.com wrote:

> Oh givern the curent $10,000 a pound launch costs its pretty trivial to get
> 90% cost reductions even with only the current launch rates.  99% reductins
> with reasonable rate increase is pretty doable.  Assuming you can get the
> customers and reasonably intrest rates.
>

 I still think $150 per kg to LEO is a goal we need to set for the best
price of orbital costs.

> 
> It takes 4,000 technicians about 3 months of heavy work to prep a shuttle for
> launch.  Labor and support costs about $200 million per flight.  Drop tank
> costs about $60 million.  A bit more to integrate the cargo.  And assuming
> you don't need to much replacement parts - your up to $300 million before you
> do the launch and pay the mission and launch control peoples payrolls.
> 

 Well that explains why nobody wants to improve the space program,
3,500+ people would be out of work and the drop tank people out of a
job.



> Hate to tell you but in space you can lift and move tons by hand, and its
> very expensive and dangerous to break down large thinks into many small parts
> for on site assembly.
> 

Nope ... inertia is the same.  Because F=MA you can in theory move any 
object if that object moves very very slowly.

A guy working in a space suit does face some risk of injury, but not as
much as the movies and tv makes out. With pure O2 at 3 lbs pressure in
a space suit a complete loss of air is not fatal providing the person
can reach shelter with in two minutes ,from a rip or tear in the suit.

I do admit many things taken for granted - turning a wrench, boiling
water , having sex ; do change in space and that is the challenge of
the environment.

Things are more expensive in space ( ignoring the cost of getting there)
because things have to be done by hand, something that the industrial
revolution has caused people to forget. Guy S may take 8 hours to
assemble
a prefrabicated wall in space, guy E 10 minutes using power tools and
assembly line fabrication. Why do I get the feeling that space access
will be run by big companies who's goal is profit, like the Company
towns
for Coal mining?


> Kelly
Ben.

-- 
"We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents...
 We borrow it from our children."
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