Do you have any insight into SRB costs as a percentage of total costs for Ariane?

For the sake of argument let’s assume cryogenic propellant transfer is impractical. That still leaves us with the possibility of using noncryogenic propellant. Before you jump in and say that’s inefficient let me point out that we could do one of two things to deal with that:

1) launch a fully fueled Centaur on top of an EELV Heavy (i.e. quasi 3 stage), use L1/L2 as a staging point and use storable propellant transfer from there on (and back)
2) Use noncryogenic propellant from LEO but resupply them with RLVs

Either way you could do whatever it is you wanted to do with an HLV without the HLV. And in neither circumstance would your earlier statement about dying if you cannot reach your depot. Those are the facts. Regrettably for you that they do not argue in favour of an HLV.

“When you complain about my spelling, could you spell my name correctly?”

You obviously missed the irony…

>>“Stanl[e]y Kubrick’s Pan Am Shuttle used nuclear thermal propulsion.
>> It drove a superheated fluid out the back end at high velocity.” Hmmm. Didn’t catch that ‘explained’ in the all of four minutes of screen
> time Kubrick’s Pan Am ‘Orion’ shuttle waltzed through the film– however
> there was a briefly seen but fairly straight forward set of directions for operating a zero-G toilet.

I think there was some comment about the shuttle being nuclear –but I only remember it in the Aurora model — course they didn’t even get the size of the door on the outer hull correct, so they might not be the most dependable data source.

Though really, its surprising how close it matches the actual orbiter in size and shape of the craft, and the cargo capacity.

> Kelly Stark – still tpyes wtih a nut losoe no hsi kybeord.

When you complain about my spelling, could you spell my name correctly?

“That is incontrovertibly false.”
Church, you don’t have the knowledge or experience to make such a statement much less make a correct one.

Propellant, depots can reduce the size of launch vehicles, thereby reducing cost. No matter what retort you respond with, it will be wrong.

That might be nice, but I doubt there will be money for it.

And I think that if Ariane 5 get manrated will keep flying for many years..

The trouble with Ariane is that it is too big and too expensive for commercial markets and they don’t want to have to subsidise it so much. They are trying to make it smaller and cheaper, not bigger or man-rated.

I agree completely..together ofcourse with Arv capsule on Ariane and manrate the rocket..

And I think that if Ariane 5 get manrated will keep flying for many years..
Esa thinks that the next manned spaceship will last some decades ,like Soyuz..

Esa cannot even finish and have economical problems with Vinci engine..
not a new first stage engine..

That’s the big problem with Ariane 6, it would cost a lot of money even though is probably the best solution technically. It’s what ESA calls a NG (Next Generation) configuration. There are other, more incremental upgrades using existing Ariane and Vega hardware and those are called the BB (Building Block) configurations, which would be available sooner and cost less money. The most promising one has a solid first stage (Ariane 5 SRB with upgrades developed for Vega) and Vinci-powered ESC-B upper stage. An advantage is that it would have substantial commonality with Vega, which saves costs. The drawback is that it’s a solid and that it gets rid of Vulcain and the 5m core. It would also give a much more prominent role to Italy, at the expense of France, which France won’t like.

I think ESC-B + Vinci, perhaps with SRBs upgraded from Vega is the only thing that’s likely to happen. A slightly bigger version of Vega (Lyra) with a LOX/CH4 upper stage may happen too. I can see Italy funding a LOX/CH4 second stage too. The rest will probably have to wait.

For RLVs and larger expendables I do not believe they are cost-effective

The for the record an individual SRB is the least expensive component on the space shuttle stack. The first stage of the Ares I is also the cheapest component of that stack. The whole cost argument is completely unsubstantiated.