Audacious Tactics

--- In ssi_list@... "Arthur P. Smith"
>
> > I'd say that this is true as far as it goes. What's been left
unsaid
> >
> >is that even with a reduction in launch cost, there still aren't
any
> >killer apps for orbital development.
> >
> Space-based solar power needs only a 10-fold reduction in launch
costs
> (and a 2-fold reduction in solar cell costs, but that's generally
> expected to happen with the necessary demand level) to become a
very
> profitable, trillion-dollar scale business, launching 10's of
thousands
> of tons or more per year. The US Commerce department also
published
> some numbers on space tourism that sound pretty promising, if
launch
> costs were lower.

Anyone who's read my post knows I strongly advocate SPS.

Some ideas are so fundamentally correct that they don't need
revision. I think Glaser/O'Neill got it right with SPS 30 years ago.
Nothing's changed. It's still brilliant but uneconomical.

I think that SPS is truly the linchpin to orbital development but
this sure isn't a small endeavor. It's a societal project. How many
things haven't we thought of, like reassigning EM frequencies that
you raised in your article. Do you think that there'll be resistance
to that from the established players?

In terms of this discussion I wasn't thinking of SPS because of its
monumental scope. Rather I was thinking of smaller operations that
wouldn't require as much infrstructure and from that perspective I
don't see many viable options.

>
> > I'm still waiting for that solid business plan to be made
> >public.
> >
> What's a solid business plan?

One in which investors are willing to place capital. One in which
consumers are willing to purchase the product or service.

The space elevator folks (liftport) have
> one -

I looked at their website a few months back and the impression I got
was that it was a dream/hobby type of plan. I could be completely
offbase here and am willing to stand corrected if someone has facts
about their operation.

It looked to me like they had an idea, worked out some of the
technical aspects, put up a website and started looking for capital
and that's as far as they'll get.

which includes space solar power as one of their primary markets
> by the way. But it's rather hard to know how solid a plan is in
the
> absence of precedents. That's the nature of a frontier :-)
>
> Arthur

Yes, that is the nature of a frontier. At sometime, someone will
invest in an enterprise and get it going in the new frontier. They
will have thought enough about the prospects of the business plan to
risk their capital, reputation, and possibly their lives to get the
enterprise up and running. That's really the test, isn't it?

TangoMan