Here's how to get CATS for 20% of current price.

>
> --- victoriatangoman
> > The Proton 8K82K can lift 6,000 kg to a 1,500 km
> > orbit at 63
> > degrees. If it could be launched from Kourou or
> > Alcantara it could
> > get a boost in payload capacity. The cost of launch
> > is $70 million.
> > It's probably lower than even that. Anyone have some
> > good figures
> > for this?
> >
> Futron produces an annual report with all launch
> costs. The proton was going between 60-85 mill per
> launch. For a listing off all futron reports, goto
> http://www.futron.com/spaceandtelecom/papers/default.htm

I went and read the Futron report after you first posted notice of
it to this list. The figure I quoted for Proton was $70 Million,
which falls into the range you quote above.

Because of the extreme number of launches required, this should
allow the Russians to automate the Proton manufacturing process in
order to pump out the 800+ Protons needed. When they do this it
should lower their costs significantly, so a further byproduct could
be selling additional Protons to others who could now benefit from
their more efficient manufacturing base.

The reason I chose Proton was due to the Russian pay differential.
It could be any manufacturer that could offer cost savings based on
volume purchase. The Proton is a long standing design, the factory
is all tooled, the kinks have been worked out. It shouldn't be that
expensive to expand production when compared to a new design for a
Delta or Atlas. Cheap Russian labor may offset sophisticated
American manufacturing processes.

>
> for the one i sited, its in the other reports section:
> http://www.futron.com/pdf/2002%20Commercial%20Space%
20Transportation%20Year%20in%20Review%20Final.pdf
>
> To add to my last post, I was looking at the total
> amount of government and non-government launches
> peformed over the past 5 years and it was at 369!

Good figure to know. I knew that the scale of what I proposed would
be off the map. Once you up your productive capacity, pay for it,
and lower your subsequent cost structure, then your market should be
different after the endeavor.

I
> was also able to read up on the processing time for
> launch payloads and the major purpose of the EELV
> program was to lower. Of the two products of this
> program, the delta 4 supposedly can integrate and
> launch in just one week!

With one crew. You can have multiple crews.

The other product, the atlas
> 5, uses a vertical integration allowing it to be
> rolled out to the pad and launched within hours, no
> data though on how long it takes to integrate the
> payload.
>
> Not sure on what the costs will end up being. The
> only launch prices I have were sharply reduced as they
> were maiden flights and they both only charged 65-80
> mill a piece. I would suspect though they would be on
> par with the arianne 5 at around 125 mill.

Well if you have to end up paying 125 mill for the same payload, the
project cost is going to be 5x higher. That makes the tourist
package much more expensive, reduces the number of tourists that can
afford it, and increases the risk for the project.

>
> But if you are looking to meet your schedule and use a
> heavier launcher, I think that you need to look at
> these two rockets.
>
> Ryan

I wonder how much off "list price" you could go with the Delta or
Atlas? :) Can it approach the Russian price per kg?

TangoMan