SpaceDev is in the market for a deep space launch, and we are not going to pay $50 million for it. There is an ongoing debate about the elasticity of demand related to launch costs. On the one hand there are the “big iron” NASA and DoD contractors who say that there is no market for small or inexpensive launchers, that lowering launch costs will not result in significantly more launches, and that the current uncompetitive pricing scheme is appropriate. On the other hand are commercial companies which compete in the real world, and who say that there would be innumerable new launches if prices were to drop dramatically. I participated directly in the microcomputer revolution, and saw first hand what happened to the big iron computer companies who failed to see or heed the handwriting on the wall. We are at the same stage in the space access revolution that personal computers were in the late ’70s and early ’80s. The global economy is about to be changed in ways that are just as unpredictable as those changes wrought after the introduction of the personal computer. Companies which fail to innovate and keep producing only big iron will suffer the same fate as IBM and all the now-extinct mainframe and minicomputer companies. A few will remain, but with a small share of the market, never again to be in a position to dominate.


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    Titel :

    Commercial space development needs cheap launchers


    Beteiligte:
    Benson, James William (Autor:in) / El-Genk, Mohamed S. (Herausgeber:in) / Bragg, Mary J. (Herausgeber:in)

    Kongress:

    Space technology and applications international forum - 1998 ; 1998 ; Albuquerque,New Mexico (USA)


    Erschienen in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 420 , 1 ; 995-998


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    15.01.1998


    Format / Umfang :

    4 pages





    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Konferenz)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Englisch



    Commercial Space Development Needs Cheap Launchers

    Benson, J. W. / University of New Mexico; School of Engineering; Institute for Space and Nuclear Power Studies | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1998




    SPACE LAUNCHERS - Kinetic Space Towers and Launchers

    Bolonkin, Alexander | Online Contents | 2004