“And NASA apparently does not have anyone left who knows enough about the cost of spacecraft operations to realize that we shouldn’t use them once and throw them away.”

NASA never had anyone to begin with, and cost was never a prime concern of the Shuttle program.

If it was a major concern then they would have had a serious discussion in the 80’s and 90’s about the Shuttle not meeting it’s cost of operation and flight frequency goals. They didn’t because cost wasn’t an issue.

The techniques and management knowledge needed for operating a transportation system as efficiently as possible have a lot of commonality between transportation types, so shutting down the Shuttle program is not going to create any knowledge gaps.

Twenty five years late.

the only real RLV projects right now are DOD, the X-37 (in orbit) and the LOX/RP-1 flyback booster (design study).

Don’t forget the suborbital people. They’re not in it for suborbit, that’s just a stepping stone to what they want to do eventually, which is an orbital RLV, first unmanned, then manned.

A large and fiercely competitive propellant launch market in support of an exploration program (any exploration program, manned or unmanned) would lead to a whole host of commercial RLV projects.

If we start now, this could be operational within three years. Within ten to fifteen years after that we’d have commercial RLVs capable of safely and affordably lifting people to orbit. Then we’ll have become a truly spacefaring civilisation.

All this could happen within our lifetime. All this could have happened a generation ago if the Shuttle hadn’t happened or a couple of years ago if Shuttle had been cancelled after the loss of Challenger.

We just had one, and we trashed it. We had four technology demonstrator programs (not prototypes for SSTO or operational shutles) and all were canceled under Bush. Most of the CCDev conttractors are at least talking reusability, but the only real RLV projects right now are DOD, the X-37 (in orbit) and the LOX/RP-1 flyback booster (design study). Nevertheless it is certainly possible to build a practical RLV, particularly if e don’t fire all the Shuttle workers before we at least ask what they have learned.

In fairness, he did say that in an earlier thread too. It’s one of his wacky arguments for needing an HLV. As I said the other thread, he either believes you need an HLV to go to the moon at all (in which case he is ignorant), or he is trying to trick people into believing it is (in which case he is being dishonest).

But yeah, I totally agree with you. Launching from Earth surface is nuts.

Gary in his latest comment says he mean’s to launch from the moon, which given current economic realities is about as nutty.

Sadly, that doesn’t differentiate it in any useful way from most of Gary’s proposals.

But nuclear bombs also produce EMP as a side effect. A big problem for the world’s technological infrastructure if a ship starts nuclear propulsion within several thousand miles of Earth.

I don’t think that’s entirely correct, I seem to remember reading up on the mechanics of it a while ago where it said that most of the devastating effects of EMP on the ground are amplified by interactions within a dense atmosphere and the Earth’s magnetic field and it’s only really effective up to a hundred km or so. In space the inverse square law leads to a quick drop off unless you detonate the weapon in the immediate vicinity of a target or use a stupidly large bomb.

In any case, Gary seems to be advocating the launch of a nuclear-powered spacecraft from the ground, which is, you know, insane.

Moon.