[AR] Re: relativity abandons small launch vehicle
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2023 22:50:17 -0400 (EDT)
On Sun, 16 Apr 2023, David Summers wrote:
That may be, but I note that the successful companies all went for a
small vehicle first, regardless of the business availability, and then
went large. Don't learn on a mega project!
A corollary: if you think of the first vehicle as a pathfinder rather
than as the main operational moneymaker, it should be sized for easy
manufacturing and operation, to minimize the cost and difficulty of the
pathfinder phase... NOT to carry as many kilograms of payload as possible.
There'll probably be some minimum size to establish credibility and to
make a pretense of paying its own way, but it'll be smaller than a lot of
the first vehicles we're seeing.
Henry
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