In the short term my guess in that the horizontal take off and landing form of space travel might be the best bet to reduce the cost of space travel.
Why? The shuttle didn't exactly carry out its promise to make space flight cheap. Yeah, I know it was a horrible mess compared to what it should have been, but the fact is reusable spaceplanes are expensive and disposable rockets aren't (anywhere near as much). The fact that cost-per-launch is higher on the shuttle than Arianne is pretty damning IMHO.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-01-21 06:13 am (UTC)Why? The shuttle didn't exactly carry out its promise to make space flight cheap. Yeah, I know it was a horrible mess compared to what it should have been, but the fact is reusable spaceplanes are expensive and disposable rockets aren't (anywhere near as much). The fact that cost-per-launch is higher on the shuttle than Arianne is pretty damning IMHO.