On 09/21/2016 08:02 PM, Henry Spencer wrote:
However, it's abundantly clear that we're a long way from that operating
regime. Launch costs are overwhelmingly dominated by overheads and ops
manpower (and replacement of expendable hardware); fuel costs are down
in the noise for any launcher except maybe a few oddballs. (Twenty
years ago, Jeff Greason's analysis said that Titan IV was the only US
rocket whose fuel cost was actually noticeable. Today, hmm, perhaps
Delta IV, because of all that LH2, although that's nowhere near as
costly as solids and toxic hypergolics.)