alternatehistory.com

Ok, I am trying to get a shaky foundation together for positing a space program with the ability to deliver heavy payloads to LEO, in order to get the folks that actually know something along these lines to have a place to tell us all the things that could be possible right now and in the very near future.

To this end, I wanted to make an (un) SWAG, and propose that at some time in the near future, someone, somewhere, makes a discovery that allows payloads starting at 1,000 tons to be delivered to LEO by a completely resuable lift platform.

To make the lift platform expensive, I went and looked up the cost of a Los Angeles class submarine ($900 million in 1990) with a submerged displacement of <7,000 tons, and then compared that the to Typhon class, with a sumerged displacement of up to 48,000 tons. So 900 million x about 7, = 6.3 billion in 1990 dollars.

So, what would $6.3 billion 1990 be in todays dollars?

I went with nuclear subs because they are airtight and cost a fortune, not because they would serve as spacecraft, but just to give me a talking point in $.

So, lets say that we have a lift vehicle that costs billions, but can lift 1,000 tons to LEO once a week, sustainably (so NOT a rocket). What kind of space program would the US, ESA, Russia, China, Japan, India, and anyone I may have missed, have with the capability to reliably deliver 1,000 ton payolads to LEO each week. Say the lift vehicle has a lifespan of 20+ years.
Top