Please read more carefully: *in the long run* 10 year treasury bills yield
7% *on average*.
A prudent investor buys when they are above average and holds to maturity;
I fondly remember the 17% t-bills of the late 1970’s....
Bill
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 6:55 PM Paul Mueller <paul.mueller.iii@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I thought T-bills were about 4% and equities about 7% (and hardly safe).
Those banks and mortgage companies must be pretty dumb to loan for 30 years
at 4.5% (and have to deal with the occasional foreclosure) if they could
get 7% guaranteed from T-bills in only 10 years. Doesn't pass the sniff
test to me. We are both talking APRs, right?
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 5:45 PM, William Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Paul:
In the long run, ten year treasury bonds average 7%. Equities average
11-12%.
It is way past too late for the investors in VG to get there money back;
that is just math that you can do yourself: some things are knowable in
advance.
Bill
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 3:25 PM Paul Mueller <paul.mueller.iii@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I'm aware of the concept of time value of money. 7% is a pretty good
return, especially for "safe" investments (even after interest rates
finally went up recently after about a decade of being paltry). I guess we
should all buy houses and get mortgages at 4.5% interest, rent them out,
and then take the rent money and invest it at 7%. Pretty sweet deal!
It took 7 years for Amazon to generate a profit, and it's doing OK from
what I hear. I'm not saying that VG will be commercially successful, just
saying it's still too early to KNOW that it will fail.
Changing out fuel grains can be more of a hassle than loading liquid
propellants, but not necessarily. They will probably need some flight-line
infrastructure to do it, similar to what the AF uses to load 2000-lb bombs
(and bigger) onto aircraft. I don't see that as a show-stopper but it will
probably take some time to develop a mature operational process. Liquid
propellants also have hassles of their own...ground infrastructure or
tanker trucks (limited to smaller vehicles). Nitrous can be more of a
hassle than LOX, but at least it can be stored and transported without
loss. Once again, a good operational process may take some time to develop.
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 2:15 PM, Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Fri, 6 Apr 2018, Paul Mueller wrote:
I'm also not clear on what is inherently wrong with their
concept...horizontal launch, reusable first stage (WhiteKnight),
suborbital
only, hybrid propulsion, nitrous oxide oxidizer, feathering, horizontal
runway landing? Or a combination of these? Or something else entirely?
I can't speak for Rand, but I would guess it's hybrid propulsion, with
a side order of nitrous oxide oxidizer. :-) The rationale for the choice
of propulsion system was weak from the start, got weaker with a fatal
nitrous accident, got weaker still with all the fuel difficulties they've
been having, and definitely isn't going to hold up well in sustained use.
A nitrous hybrid might perhaps, arguably, have been the preferred way
to win the X-Prize. But anybody's who's got to load a new multi-ton fuel
grain into the vehicle for every flight is not planning for a serious
flight rate. To make money, you *want* a serious flight rate, and that
puts a *big* premium on a vehicle design whose only consumables are liquids
you pour into tanks.
There are some other issues with things like CG management, but the
sheer awkwardness of refueling is probably at the top of the "why big
hybrids are a bad idea for reusables" list.
Henry