From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Why not give $1 billion to first year-long moon residents?
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Lines: 34

In article <C5sJDp.F23@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>>This prize isn't big enough to warrent developing a SSTO, but it is
>>enough to do it if the vehicle exists.

>Actually, there are people who will tell you that it *would* be enough
>to do SSTO development, if done privately as a cut-rate operation.  Of
>course, they may be over-optimistic.

In spite of my great respect for the people you speak of, I think their
cost estimates are a bit over-optimistic. If nothing else, a working SSTO
is at least as complex as a large airliner and has a smaller experience
base. It therefore seems that SSTO development should cost at least as
much as a typical airliner development. That puts it in the $3G to $5G
range.

>You can also assume that a working SSTO would have other applications
>that would help pay for its development costs.

True it and the contest would result in a much larger market. But I
don't think it would be enough to attract the investors given the
risks involved.

If you could gurantee the SSTO costs and gurantee that it captures
100% of the available launch market, then I think you could
do it.

  Allen

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