Launch costs

> What is your opinion of price elasticity of demand? How much
> additional demand for launch services would you expect if launch
> costs were 1/10 or 1/100 of what they are today?

I doubt that the such drops would have much impact on commercial
space because - as i keep stressing - for commercial purposes,
launching isn't expensive. What cost cutting would do is open up new
opportunities - commercial; but also not-for-profit - at the low cost
end of the market... which is where i originally came in on this
discussion: the viability of things like bump & run sample returns
from nearEarth asteroids & comets in particular would increase
mightily if we could get designated launches in the 2000kg to LEO
class down even to US$1-2m; but that's still blue sky & very
difficult to confidently model.

There's an old Hollywood expression that claims that it's easier to
make a $US100m picture than a US$10m picture; & this assessment may
also end up applying at least in the early years of a reduced cost
launch environment. Certainly, intelligent financiers would consider
the very real possibility that the market - over the debt servicing
period - is moderately cost inelastic; & won't jump mightily if
launch costs fall even by large amounts. It doesn't help that a large
development budget project - we'll call it the Next Generation
Reuseable or NGR - is already competing with exSoviet missiles which
have already cut the cost to launch by a half to LEO & by more to GTO.