Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Nuclear Age Space Exploration [Space/Spaceships]

AlexanderHowl · 06-14-2019, 08:21 AM

Which is just copying the prototype, which is covered in Basic (p. 474). It costs the retail cost of the object to create and half the time as the original prototype. In the case of a Saturn V, it would take 3d/2 to create each copy, assuming enough people working on the project, but you could always have multiple groups working on multiple copies. Remember, the Apollo Program employed 400,000 people, so they could have easily transformed everything into production lines had they had the need.

In any case, you could have easily designed a SM+10 reusable variant that would have been capable of delivering 300 tons to LEO for a launch cost of ~$30M, or $100,000 per ton. With 400 such vehicles, each launching once a month, you would have been able to move 1,440,000 tons into LEO every year at a cost of $144B per year, which is ~1% of GDP for the USA (GURPS constant $). If we assume a lifetime of 5 years per vehicle, you would need 10 production lines to sustain the fleet (producing 80 vehicles a year), and a ramp up time of five years, giving five years for creating the production lines, maintenance facilities, etc. It would have been quite possible for late-TL7/early-TL8, it was just that our leaders lacked courage and vision.

06-14-2019, 08:21 AM	#14
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Nuclear Age Space Exploration [Space/Spaceships] Which is just copying the prototype, which is covered in Basic (p. 474). It costs the retail cost of the object to create and half the time as the original prototype. In the case of a Saturn V, it would take 3d/2 to create each copy, assuming enough people working on the project, but you could always have multiple groups working on multiple copies. Remember, the Apollo Program employed 400,000 people, so they could have easily transformed everything into production lines had they had the need. In any case, you could have easily designed a SM+10 reusable variant that would have been capable of delivering 300 tons to LEO for a launch cost of ~$30M, or $100,000 per ton. With 400 such vehicles, each launching once a month, you would have been able to move 1,440,000 tons into LEO every year at a cost of $144B per year, which is ~1% of GDP for the USA (GURPS constant $). If we assume a lifetime of 5 years per vehicle, you would need 10 production lines to sustain the fleet (producing 80 vehicles a year), and a ramp up time of five years, giving five years for creating the production lines, maintenance facilities, etc. It would have been quite possible for late-TL7/early-TL8, it was just that our leaders lacked courage and vision.