According to Ashlee Vance's "When The Heavens Went On Sale" this was the inspiration for Astra (the book links to this same article in the relevant chapter). The company hoped to produce and launch >300 rockets a year <i>without</i> re-use. The goal was to get economy of scale in manufacturing.<p>Part of the business plan assumed that people would be using the rocket to launch replacement satellites for constellations, and so it wouldn't be such a big deal if a rocket failed every now and then. This would let them use automotive grade parts in some areas as opposed to aerospace grade and reduce costs.<p>However, it turned out that customers were actually using their rocket to launch prototype satellites and other one-off satellites where failure was actually a big deal. Long story short Astra did manage to make it to orbit, but is unlikely to survive into the future.
Remarkably prescient. Any public knowledge whether Musk has cited this as an inspiration? This arstechnica article feels like a direct descendent:
<a href="https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/elon-musk-spacex-needs-to-build-starships-as-often-as-boeing-builds-737s/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/elon-musk-spacex-needs...</a>
John Walker is also an author of The Hacker's Diet: <a href="https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/" rel="nofollow">https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/</a><p>While perhaps a bit outdated by modern standards, general principles are sound and it's still a very fun read in itself since he includes some general reflections in the text.
“then the frontier would open as the
great railway to orbit supplanted the first generation wagon trains“<p>Except the frontier had fertile lands and vast potential. It was not a cold barren emptiness. You could also make access to Antarctica cheap and affordable at scale. It wouldn't suddenly make it economically sensible to go there<p>I'm skeptical there is a huge amount of pent up demand that is just itching for lower launch costs. It's just a bunch of telescopes looking up and look down at every possible wavelength and then a bunch of telecommunications equipment.. There are some serious diminishing returns at play here<p>Tourism.. more telecommunications (ex: starlink).. what else is there to do up there? I don't see it being a huge market. Definitely not enough to fund a colony on Mars or anything like that
The risks of space flight are just so much actuarial work until real humans become involved. At that point three nine's is no longer acceptable and everything takes way longer and is way more expensive.
Unfortunately this was published a few revisions too early IMHO. And a couple of peer reviews but the exploration itself is a nice try.<p>Due to nonlinearity of the rocket equation some assumptions are really really really off [a] [b]. V2 only has 2500m/s deltaV [5] and the launch vehicle's delta-v needed to achieve low Earth orbit starts around 9.4 km/s [6]
(the actual delta-v is typically 1.5–2.0 km/s more for atmospheric drag and gravity drag). [7] Therefore V2 only deliveres (2500/9400)^2 (7% or 1/14 of the needed kinetic energy)<p>Trouble is we only get to convert 1-4% of the launch mass into payload in LEO with chemical engines. And that's for large rockets with economies of scale.<p>Sputnik (rocket) Mass: 267,000 kg Payload to LEO 500kg [3]<p>The smallest orbital rocket is the Japanese SS-520 with the following characteristics: It can launch 3 kg to orbit in 4.4 minutes. It's a modified sounding rocket with three solid-propellant steps. It's only 9.54 m long, 0.52 m dia., and has a mass of 2.6T @ liftoff [google]. The SS-520 rocket cost less than $5 million [google]<p>Bolting a 2nd stage on top of V2 was tried in [2] programme and with both stages at ~0.7 reliability things only work half the time. Not commercially viable.<p>Is there a market for small & cheap rockets? [8] What about dual purpose ?
W54 "Davy Crockett" Atomic Projectile was the smallest nuke designed to maintain fission and could be carried around in a backpack! The final weapon was 10.862 inches (275.9 mm) in diameter, 15.716 inches (399.2 mm) in length and 50.9 pounds (23.1 kg). I guess this could be worked with. With the current risk of global war everyone should be mass producing a small launcher. However this way we still only get 1cubesat into orbit per $1m, not what the autor aimed at.<p>To get below $1000/kg into orbit we will need a bigger boat. And that's what SpaceX is doing.<p>(sorry to not have these in the nice order)<p>[8] <a href="https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/36261/why-isnt-there-a-rocket-to-launch-a-single-cubesat" rel="nofollow">https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/36261/why-isnt-the...</a><p>[a] assume that our bigger, more complicated (two-stage), and
higher tech (LH2/LOX instead of Ethanol/LOX), launcher costs ten times
as much as the V2<p>[b] If our mass produced LH2/LOX launcher equals the
performance of the Delta 6925 by placing 3900 kg in LEO, the cost to
LEO is US$333/kg; if we achieve better throw-weight, this figure goes
down accordingly. If we build the thing so cheap, dumb, and heavy
that its payload is only 1000 kg--one metric ton--the cost rises to
US$1300/kg, which is still a factor of ten lower than the comparable
cost to LEO for Ariane, Atlas, Delta, and Titan.<p>[1] So yes, a stripped-down stretch-tank engine-augmented two-stage V2-derived rocket, massing 351 tons as opposed to the 12.5 tons in the original, would be able to reach orbit*. :)<p>[2] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTV-G-4_Bumper" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTV-G-4_Bumper</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_(rocket)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_(rocket)</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.quora.com/If-boosters-were-strapped-on-the-V2-rocket-will-it-get-into-orbit" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/If-boosters-were-strapped-on-the-V2-ro...</a><p>[5] <a href="https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/59879/how-much-delta-v-did-the-v2-have" rel="nofollow">https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/59879/how-much-del...</a>
[6] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit</a>
[7] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_orbital_energy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_orbital_energy</a>