Earth to Orbit

> >
> Tom - Marcel, the situation is pregnant for a competitor, perhaps France, to usurp the US and other antiquated rocket manufacturers with a new and innovative approach. Just because the international community of rocket manufacturers are all reluctant to kill their golden goose, does not mean that we might be surprised one of these days.
>
> Zurrin's book does a fair job of revieweing the current status. You might also find the following description of space planes of interest: http://www.spacefuture.com/vehicles/designs.shtml Perhaps you can identify the one that most closely resembles your proposal? At this point, we must focus on details if we are to identify and agree upon a credible plan for reducing the cost of achieving LEO.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Tom
>
> > Cheers,
> >

MW: The Spacebus (http://www.bristolspaceplanes.com/projects/spacebus.shtml) comes closest to what I'm talking about. This
two stage aerospace plane concept places about 5 tonnes into orbit. They claim that it could achieve a price of about $4500 per
individual passenger-- but even at $200,000 per individual it would be viable, IMO. There are millions of people, and thousands of
companies, in the world who could easily afford this expenditure in order to transport people into orbit for even cheaper
transport to the moon for tourism on the work in lunar satellite manufacturing factories.

Marcel F. Williams
12/13/00