tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (07/26/90)
(This is a sci.space topic.) In article <9718@hacgate.UUCP> yamauchi@aic.hrl.hac.com writes: >Does the U.S. have a launch capacity shortage or an oversupply? Never mind the U.S. -- the WORLD has a launch overcapacity. Read the current SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. Ariane has had a huge impact. Counting all nations we have an estimated capacity of 40 payloads/year to GEO. Comsats, which are the overwhelming majority of non-defense payloads, need 15 payloads/year to GEO to cover replacement and growth in the satellite communications market. This low number is the result of smarter, higher bandwidth birds plus the rise of fiber optics as an alternative to satellites. So there will be intense competition for those 15 birds, which means aggressive pricing and comparison of reliability. If costs to orbit were lowered, it might pay to launch other things besides comsats, so we'd fill the capacity. -- To have a horror of the bourgeois (\( Tom Neff is bourgeois. -- Jules Renard )\) tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM