Possibly true, but not all that relevant, as the SpaceX team already
*has* a billionaire employer with a (non-SSTO) mission for them.
On 2/12/2018 4:56 PM, Rand Simberg wrote:
I'd say that, right now, there is no team on the planet that understands reusable orbital space transports better than SpaceX. Maybe Blue does, but we haven't seen any demonstration of that. As I said in the book, organizations don't have experience -- people do, but SpaceX has an existing organization with recent experience.
On 2018-02-12 15:46, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
On 2/11/2018 2:40 PM, William Claybaugh wrote:
We may be making somewhat different assumptions about funding: I’m
thinking about a risk tolerant billionaire rather than a USG funded
technology effort.
Coming back to this after thinking it over for a couple days... I'd
outline a very different SSTO program approach for a risk-tolerant
billionaire than for USG.
A USG-funded technology effort implies a massively parallel approach
to resolving the remaining technology questions, with development of
an actual vehicle then TBD by the usual protracted political process.
A single private sponsor strongly implies building up one cohesive
dedicated experienced development team capable of designing a useful
SSTO. Emphasis on "experienced team". You don't get an experienced
team just by hiring experienced individuals - though that helps - you
have to incrementally build up the team's experience as a team.
This in turn implies a serial process that resolves a
pared-to-the-essential-minimum list of SSTO technology/operations
unknowns, one or more at a time, while building up the development
team's experience with building and operating systems and vehicles.
Both SpaceX and Blue did this to get where they are, from different
points on the tech-risk versus program steps spectrum. SpaceX went
for lower initial tech-risk, fewer steps to first useful flying
system, Blue for a higher-risk more advanced initial system, involving
more incremental steps.
Both however would very likely have failed, protractedly and
expensively, if they'd just recruited teams then gone straight for,
say, recoverable Falcon Heavy or full-up New Glenn.
As for what SSTO technical approach to take, I'd need to know more
details about exactly what this hypothetical billionaire wants to
accomplish before presuming to advise on that. There is a spectrum
here too from the low-risk few-unknowns end to higher-risk
many-unknowns (with the complicating factor that too low a technical
risk may mean too little useful payload, if a practical commercial
result is wanted.)
Henry V