[Spaceships] Designers' Championship I: ground to LEO

[elustran]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Excellent! Can you use one lifter to juggle two or even three orbiters?

That's a pretty damn good idea. Assuming time for safety checks and loading isn't too much, you could probably launch, reload, and launch again.

But, that also brings up an additional expense that never seems to have gotten covered: spaceport fees. Every Alida craft will require a ground based landing and take-off area, as well as facilities to service it after every flight. The multi-stage configuration is going to require more expensive port facilities in order to safely mount the orbiter on the lifter. Space traffic control could also get to be an issue if space travel (orbital or sub-orbital) increases. Any in-space collision could get to be a big mess, causing severe debris problems for incoming traffic, possibly even leading to other accidents and more debris, so traffic control could be a major expense.

[thtraveller]

Originally Posted by elustran

But, that also brings up an additional expense that never seems to have gotten covered: spaceport fees. Every Alida craft will require a ground based landing and take-off area, as well as facilities to service it after every flight. The multi-stage configuration is going to require more expensive port facilities in order to safely mount the orbiter on the lifter. Space traffic control could also get to be an issue if space travel (orbital or sub-orbital) increases. Any in-space collision could get to be a big mess, causing severe debris problems for incoming traffic, possibly even leading to other accidents and more debris, so traffic control could be a major expense.

True, those aren't in the ground rules though I would point out that:

a) by the ground rules it spends (EDIT) $690*4800 trips = M$3.3 on maintenance a year on craft that cost M$9.9 in total. That's a lot.

b) It can build its own spaceport relatively cheaply and just use that, all it needs is a clean water supply and docking ramp or heavy crane for the Orbiter mounting as core services. Normal airports probably aren't equipped for Alida's maintenance needs anyway.