From: Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Revised FAQ on Launchers
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Oct  1 1992
Date: 05 Oct 92  20:51:24

  
Josh 'K' Hopkins writes:
>I've been working on a revisions of the FAQ on launch services.
>I'm including it here to get some feedback on the format - you're
>welcome to point out anything that looks like a typo too.  ...
> ...
>The following data comes from _International Reference Guide to
>Space Launch Systems_  by Steven J. Isakowitz, 1991 edition.
  
Josh, two comments:
   First, don't use the cost data from IRGSLS.  It is typically
wrong.  Most of the data Steve used was from several years prior to
compiling the book, and was usually out of date.  Furthermore, the
cost data was quoted on different cost bases - differing year
dollars, differing launch services, differing customers (gov't or
commercial), and on different cost basis (single unit or block buy,
with/without upper stage, with/without necessary but payload
services etc.).  If you are going to quote a cost number, I would
recommend using the single flight, commercial customer price for a
payload to 150 (or 100) nmi.  Just be consistent and current.
   Secondly, same comments apply to reliability.  If you do quote a
reliability number, quote the time period, number of launches and
vehicle type the reliability is shown for.
   Thirdly, I would recommend modifying your format to a max of 72
characters in width.  This is the way it showed up on my display...
[Note: 72 characters is not a hardware limitation, but I've found it
seems to be about the best width for upload and download of tabular
information through this type of media.]
  
>Vehicle        |     Payload  kg  (lbs)   | Reliability | Price |
>Launch Site (nation)       |  LEO      Polar    GTO   |
>|       | (Lat. & Long.) ------------------------------------------
>--------------------------------------
> Ariane                                      35/40  87.5%
>Kourou (ESA)
>(5.2 N 52.8 W)
>  AR40          4,900     3,900    1,900    1/1           $65m
>             (10,800)  (8,580)  (4,190)
>  AR42P         6,100     4,800    2,600    1/1           $67m
  
   Decipherable, but rather hard to read ...
  
   As for launch vehicles listed, I would also recommend you not
list launch vehicles which have not yet flown or are not in current
inventory.  This would eliminate having to list data for Taurus,
Conestoga, and Orbital Express (International Microspace Inc) --
even though each of those firms have firm contracts for launch, and
are very real. Ditto for NLS, Saturn, some of the older ELV models
and some of the foreign launchers (H-2, MS-J, PSLV, GSLV, etc.)
You might make an exception for some near term launchers, but that
data should be shown as "projected".  I'd recommend this to avoid
showing comparative data between real operating systems and "paper"
future systems without having some real demonstratable data for
comparison (like demonstrated costs and performance).  At the
minimum, such data should be flagged as "speculative", or
"projected".  It would help reduce some of the flame wars here.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 Wales Larrison                         Space Technology Investor
  

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