evolving demand for space launches

> Contrary to what people have discussed previously on
> this list server and others,futron claims that lowered
> cost will not significantly increase demand for
> existing markets.
>

The key word in this sentence is EXISTING markets.

I would agree with that sentence as far as it goes. For communications
satellites systems launch cost is actually a fairly small component of the
overall system cost. Most of the cost is in ground infrastructure and to a
lesser extent the satellite payload.

What needs to happen is discovery of new markets.

There are plenty of low cost ICBMs which can be used to explore new markets.

Once the new markets are understood, then we can justify investments in major
new launch systems to reduce costs to take advantage of the markets.

But reducing launch costs and just expecting markets to appear is a flawed
approach.

How big do the rockets really need to be, how big are the payloads, how many,
into which orbits ? Are we launching constellations, or one off bigs birds ?

There are too many variables, and there is no one size fits all approach.

We tried that approach already with the Shuttle and it failed completely.

We need to learn the lessons of history.

We need a market focus, not a rocket focus.

Best regards,

Charles R.