Incrementally developing a cultural and regulatory infrastructure for reusable launch vehicles

Details Incrementally developing a cultural and regulatory infrastructure for reusable launch vehicles Incrementally developing a cultural and regulatory infrastructure for reusable launch vehicles

Jan 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aipc..420..991s&link_type=abstract

Space technology and applications international forum - 1998. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 420, pp. 991-994 (1998).

Other

Other Topics In Areas Of Applied And Interdisciplinary Physics

Scientific paper

At this point in time, technology is perhaps the least significant barrier to the development of high-flight-rate, reusable launchers, necessary for low-cost space access. Much more daunting are the issues of regulatory regimes, needed markets, and public/investor perception of their feasibility. The approach currently the focus of the government (X-33) assumes that the necessary conditions will be in place to support a new reusable launch vehicle in the Shuttle class at the end of the X-33 development. For a number of reasons (market size, lack of confidence in the technology, regulations designed for expendable vehicles, difficulties in capital formation) such an approach may prove too rapid a leap for success. More incremental steps, both experimental and operational, could be a higher-probability path to achieving the goal of cheap access through reusables. Such incrementalism, via intermediate vehicles (possibly multi-stage) exploiting suborbital and smaller-payload markets, could provide the gradual acclimatization of the public, regulatory and investment communities to reusable launchers, and build the confidence necessary to go on to subsequent steps to provide truly cheap access, while providing lower-cost access much sooner.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Incrementally developing a cultural and regulatory infrastructure for reusable launch vehicles does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Incrementally developing a cultural and regulatory infrastructure for reusable launch vehicles, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Incrementally developing a cultural and regulatory infrastructure for reusable launch vehicles will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1652288