[AR] Re: Ozone layer was Re: Removing Coking Deposits
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:44:23 -0400 (EDT)
On Tue, 27 Sep 2016, Rand Simberg wrote:
A big disadvantage for SSTO, which will never go away, is that its
off-nominal performance intrinsically sucks. It makes sense for high
traffic to a low equatorial orbit, but not higher inclinations or
altitudes.
A big disadvantage of your car, which will never go away, is that when its
gas tank is empty, you can't go any further. It can nevertheless be used
to get things or people to distances beyond that, either by refueling it
or by handing off the later part of the job to a different system. Doing
the equivalent of either of those in orbit is vastly superior to doing it
halfway up; that big first step is the hardest part.
Any rocket has finite performance; if it's good enough in other ways,
you're better off using it and finding ways to work around its
limitations. If and when SSTO achieves the operational advantages (= cost
reductions) that it's capable of in principle, there will be ways to boost
its performance, or augment it with other systems, to deal with missions
that are beyond its unaided capabilities.
Henry
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