Flight Rates

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I say 'amen', and 'hallelujah' to everything you said up to this point.

However...

>2. In addition to concerns about enriching nations which support
>terrorism, we're also increasingly concerned about greenhouse gas
>emissions. SPS is the only potential replacement for fossil fuels which
>doesn't have an attendant waste disposal problem.

Be careful. I think that these kinds of non-market considerations are
exactly the kind of top-down calculated-instead-of-discovered-price
thinking that has sidelined what might have been the space development
business for the last few decades. Sell people more of what they want to
buy *now*, not what you *think* they'll buy in the future, or, worse, what
you think they "should" buy, especially if the proposed hair-shirt in
question is supposed to be "good" for them.

Mrs. Smith didn't raise her son Adam to be no fool, and all that. Count on
enlightened self-interest -- hell, pure self-interest -- to guide you at
all times, and let time wound any invisible "externality" heels as they
manifest themselves.

For instance, what always drives technological innovation in aviation is
not slipping the surly bounds of earth, but cheaper coach fare to Cleveland
- -- and mo' better bombs in the laps of the bad guys.

We already have airliners that can do 'teen-hour-plus death-marches to most
of the globe (747/777, various Airbussen), and soon we'll have commercial
airliners that will do non-stop geodesic, but still-death-march transport
from any point on the globe to any another (787s to start). Anybody who can
do the same faster for roughly the same money is always going to do better
than anyone who doesn't. And, to malaprop a famous space-activist, you're
only half-an-orbit to anywhere...

So, creep, crawl, walk, run.

Remember that commercial aviation, all the way back to the Wright Flyer,
started as a quasi-circus attraction, with barnstormers buzzing small
towns, wowing the "rubes" with a loop and a roll or three, and taking
various "worthies" up for a ride in exchange for cold, hard, cash.

It's ugly, but it does have precedence, and, apparently, it works. :-).

Cheers,
RAH
Who remembers also that government regulations, at the beginning of World
War I, required that all military aeroplanes must fly as straight and
level, with as few banks, climbs and dives as possible at all times, and
certainly no loops, rolls, or other such frivolous nonsense. That worked
just fine until people started shooting...

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R. A. Hettinga rah@...
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'