evolving demand for space launches

On Thursday, April 10, 2003, at 10:06 AM, Ryan Zelnio wrote:

> All,
>
> I thought some of you might find this interesting
> so I am bringing it to your attention:
>
> http://www.futron.com/pdf/ASCENTWhitePaper.pdf
>
> Some of the interesting "findings" here is the
> inelastic relation between launcher demand and price.
> Contrary to what people have discussed previously on
> this list server and others,futron claims that lowered
> cost will not significantly increase demand for
> existing markets.

In the article they talk about a 20-30% reduction in price. This won't
change much because it doesn't enable any new applications. A factor
of 10 or 100 decrease in price probably enables profitable
low-earth-orbit telecommunications and perhaps even space tourism.
That would increase flight rate substantially.

>
> However, in line with what many here have advocated
> in the past, there is fuel for supporting arguements
> for evolving space commercialization and launch costs.
>
> Anyhow, its a good read.
>
> Ryan
>
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>

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.