A New Space Architecture

摘要

Space, as practiced today, is expensive. It need not be so. There are good reasons to believe that space operating costs can be reduced by orders of magnitude and activity increased by orders of magnitude. This paper analyzes the major cost drivers for transportation and for spacecraft payloads and shows how these costs may be very substantially reduced. A new space architecture is proposed which has four novel elements: A new design criterion for transportation to orbit; a new type of orbital facility; a new way to fabricate spacecraft and a fundamentally new role for people working in space. Great benefits may be realized this way.