[AR] Re: Reaction Engines' Sabre Rocket Engine Demo Core Passes
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2019 18:22:49 -0400 (EDT)
On Fri, 15 Mar 2019, Keith Henson wrote:
Reaction Engines is the only company that projects a cost to orbit low
enough for power satellites to make sense. They think they can get the
cost down to a hundred dollars a kg to LEO...
The cynical observer would say that they are the only ones whose projected
startup costs are so colossal that they *must* project far ahead, to a
very high flight volume, to make their case close. Less-challenging
approaches should do better, not worse, given the same assumptions... but
they don't need such rosy assumptions, so they generally don't project so
far beyond the current market.
(Max Hunter used to suggest that cost plots should always show the
marginal cost of a single added flight, as a way to hint at bulk prices
without having to justify massive market expansion, but few do it.)
Henry
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