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| Thursday / 2 March 2006 | ||
Air Launching
Could Lead Way to Moon, Stars Predicts Private Industry CTO.
Logic Design Corporation CTO Eric Hedman
gives a brief private launch industry overview in his 'The Judgment
of History' article on The Space Review, concluding that
air launching shows the most promise. Given the low rate of success
and hard challenges,
Hedman says he has trouble swallowing many of the claims
floating around in the NewSpace launch industry. He says firms like
SpaceX and SpaceDev will have to show him what they can do, although
he acknowledges his own limitations in judging companies' plans.
"The approach to launches that I think will eventually take over
-- and I would like to see take over -- is air launches," says Hedman.
"I think it has inherent advantages that could steadily evolve capabilities
in safety,
reliability, flexibility, cost, and cargo capacity." He
doesn't mention Orbital Sciences
Corporation's air launching business as one of the few successes
in the space launch
industry, but says SpaceShipOne's
success points him toward this conclusion. He says air launches can
be used for more than just space, and their architecture allows for
easier evolution of individual components. Hedman believes the method
"could start the true economy of scale" in the industry. "I would
like to see a viable air launch solution because in my judgment it
has a better long-term upside," he says. Source www.spacereview.com.
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