Quote:
Originally Posted by Ithekro
Ground to orbital travel without extra rockets would be a boom for any space industry, and especially tourism.
Bigelow Aerospace would benefit from that since they seem to be suggesting they will have two small orbital complexes in service by 2017.
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They said its good for reaching lower earth orbit. Depending on how low that actually is (somewhere in between 160km and 2000km height), the one stage approach may or may not be useful for certain applications.
The costs to bring a satelite into lower earth orbit today are not that high. You do not need the most powerful rockets to get there. Hence, the one stage approach is still going to face tough competition.
And before someone thinks I don't like the idea of that one stage approach. Let me tell you, that is not the case. But I rather look at the prospect of Bigelow Aerospace realistically.
This system will certainly have to compete with scramjets sooner or later. So, there are many ifs for that particular one stage approach.