Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caen!ox.com!hela!aws
From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Access to Space
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.002957.5119@iti.org>
Date: 18 Jun 91 00:29:57 GMT
References: <1991Jun17.152849.11430@sequent.com> <1991Jun17.165036.6816@iti.org> <1991Jun17.220510.15128@sequent.com>
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Lines: 86

In article <1991Jun17.220510.15128@sequent.com> szabo@sequent.com writes:

>>In the short run, yes. In the long run we are far better off building the
>>infrastructure.

>We need self-sufficient infrastructure, which is what I have been 
>advocating.  

We have never had a self-sustaining infrastructure. Where it not for the
cold war we would have no launchers today. If the government assumes the
role it always had and makes the investment (which they have yet to do)
then we will have the infrastructure we need.

It would have been interesting to hear your agruements through history. You
would have complained about the nasty 'central planners' who where
subsidizing the trans-continental railroad. When the Kelly Act began
using govenrment money to build airports and encouraging with subsidies
large multi-engine aircraft no doubt you would have complained about
those 'pilot groupies' diverting diverting needed funds away from
baloon technology into their heavier-than-air 'tin cans'.

>You have been promoting 1960's tin cans, which have
>nothing to do with infrastructure or the economical habitation of space.

I have posted a lot on what I would do. It has little to do with tin
cans and everything to do with cheap access to space. The methods I
advocated will reduce cost to orbit by a factor of three. You claim it
will take 50 years to do (and under your ideas, it would) yet it
can be done in three.

What's wrong with 60's technology if it reduces costs?

>>Doing so wold reduce costs to LEO and permit a lot more
>>to be done. 

>Sorry, we have been following your strategy for 20 years and the cost
>to LEO for astronauts has _increased_, not decreased.

Do you actually think we have been following the approach I advocate
for the last 20 years? I thought you understood it better.

>Furthermore, over 90% of the self-sufficient industry is in GEO and SSO,
>not LEO.   

Nick, we have no self-sufficient industry anywhere in space. Nothing
ever launched in the commercial area has come close to paying the full
cost of their launches.


>>>The Europeans have quite substantial access to space via Ariane and Giotto,
>>>et. al., with astronauts nowhere  in sight.

>>And yet they still feel the need to build Hermes so they can have a manned
>>program.

>Only as a sad mimicry of the U.S.   

I see. If you like it it is 'forward thinking efforts we would do well to
emulate'. When you don't like it it is 'sad mimicry of the US'. You can't
have it both ways, either they know what they are doing or they don't.

>Even as we speak, Ariane 5 is being
>redesigned from a large satellite carrier into an HLV whose only purpose
>in life will be to lift two astronauts into LEO.  

Huh? Several problems here:

1. The main reason for Ariane 5 IS Hermes. Without Hermes there would be no
   need for Airane 5.
2. No design changes are being considered which will preclude using
   Ariane 5 for satellites.
3. Ariand 5 is NOT a HLV; it will lift about as much as a Titan IV.

>Every nation in
>Europe except France has been trying to stop this nonsense.  

Hermes is overrunning but I suspect is will survive the meeting in
November.  As to it being nonsense, they did decide to build it and
they do think it is a good idea.

  Allen
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|Allen W. Sherzer |   DETROIT: Where the weak are killed and eaten.         |
|   aws@iti.org   |                                                         |
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