From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Subject: I want that Billion
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park
Lines: 37
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: queen.eng.umd.edu

In article <C5x86o.8p4@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1r6rn3INNn96@mojo.eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:
>>You'd need to launch HLVs to send up large amounts of stuff.  Do you know 
>>of a private Titan pad? 
>
>You'd need to launch HLVs to send up large amounts of stuff *if* you assume
>no new launcher development.  If you assume new launcher development, with
>lower costs as a specific objective, then you probably don't want to
>build something HLV-sized anyway.
>
>Nobody who is interested in launching things cheaply will buy Titans.  It
>doesn't take many Titan pricetags to pay for a laser launcher or a large
>gas gun or a development program for a Big Dumb Booster, all of which
>would have far better cost-effectiveness.

Henry, I made the assumption that he who gets there firstest with the mostest
wins. 

Ohhh, you want to put in FINE PRINT which says "Thou shall do wonderous R&D
rather than use off-the-shelf hardware"? Sorry, didn't see that in my copy.
Most of the Pournellesque proposals run along the lines of <some dollar
amount> reward for <some simple goal>.  

You go ahead and do your development, I'll buy off the shelf at higher cost (or
even Russian; but I also assume that there'd be some "Buy US" provos in there)
and be camped out in the Moon while you are launching and assembling little
itty-bitty payloads in LEO with your laser or gas gun.  And working out the
bugs of assembly & integration in LEO. 

Oh, hey, could I get a couple of CanadARMs tuned for the lunar environment?  I
wanna do some teleoperated prospecting while I'm up there...




    Software engineering? That's like military intelligence, isn't it?
  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
