On a book "Halfway to Anywhere" by G Harry Stine-Everyone heshou

This had never occurred to me. I had always assumed that reusability
was the important thing, so to me an intermediate step meant a fully
reusable *two* stage to orbit. I still think that TSTO would be a
good idea to pursue. But an expendable SSTO? that might be a
wonderful way to approach the problem from the other direction. Any
reason both can?t be done? What are the advantages of expendable SSTO
(aside from advancing technology towards the fully reusable SSTO that
we all want)?

Xenophile (who wants SOMETHING!)
I thought about a reusable two stage spaceship too. Although I would perfer a
SSTO. I imagine a spaceship sitting on the head of "lifter" VTOL rocketship.
The lifter will land back at the launching spaceport for a fast turnaround
and the spaceship will land wereever it was ment to go. Its kinda like 2 delta clipper
type vehicles with one standing on the other's head. I wonder if the FFA will want the
bottom one piloted.
The problem with expendable vehicles is that the cost of the vehicle becomes
part of the shipping cost each time. With a reusable vehicle you only need worry about the fuel costs, maintenance costs, and pilot salaries(if there is a pilot).
The costs of running reusables are much like the costs of running airplanes or ships
(boat type and not space type). You can pay for the ship over several launches
and thus your launching fees to a customer will be much smaller.
If you don't plan on ever coming back a multistage rocket is much better and cheaper
than a SSTO since an SSTO would require advanced rocket designs to make it work well.
Advanced equals expense. The multistage rocket is a mature technology and quite
dependable assuming you want to throw the rocket away when you are done. The problem is
costs. The cost of the ship is added to the launching fee. On the plus side, to be
fair, you can launch huge payloads into space with a multistage rocket and give
said payloads a high delta-v. If the stages were reusable and landed themselves after
you used them then you have lower operating costs again.
Darkstar