launch

I am not so sure I agree with your analysis. General
speaking, Moore's law applies to doubling of the POWER
of a chip not the doubling of volume.

As for launch costs, they only go down so long as the
yearly volume increases, not the volume over 16+
years. If, for instance, you launch 10 rockets a year
for 3 years in a row, launch prices will stay flat or
go up in fact. The reason for this is mainly because
rockets are constantly evolving. This is especially
true in the medium-heavy lifters.

Just glancing at Jonathan's space page
(http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/space.html)
I am seeing a decline in yearly launches worldwide,
ranging from 88 launches a year in 1991 to 82 in 2000.
Since then the market has further tanked due in large
part to the downturn in the telecommunication sector
(the largest user of commercial launchers).

Now Jonathan's space report does not differentiate
between government and non-gov but you can get the
picture, both of these affect launch costs. If you
want something with more economical teeth, the
Department of Commerce releases an annual report call
Trends in Space Commerce. This is an excellent look
only at the commercial sector. Looking there you can
see revenue declining in the space transportation
sector in 2000, and its gotten even worse since then.
Don't mistake the jump in 1998 in launches to repeat
any time soon, this was caused mostly by the launch of
low earth constellations like globalstar and iridium,
which since then are all in bankruptcy. You can view
this report at http://www.ta.doc.gov/Reports.htm

Finally, there is also a problem with correlating
experience within the launch market. Launchers are
not like TVs and broiling chicken, each rocket is
generally unique and they are constantly evolving.
Except for some russian rockets and small launchers
for the military, there are no mass manufacturing
processes for rockets.

For example of the uniqueness of the rockets you can
look at the arianne. It had 6 different
configurations for it!!! Not to mention no two
launches had the same configuration of strap-ons and
third stages. Just go look at another excellent web
resource, Gunter's space page
(http://www.skyrocket.de/space/).

All in all, this is a problem with this sector in
general, launch costs have not gone down and continue
to be a deterent. The EELV is suppose to address this
but I will reserve my judgement on these programs
until they got a year or two underneath them.

- Ryan

--- Lynn Olson wrote: