From the wiki, "...the costs for accessing space with a launch loop could be as low as $3/kg..."
Holy. Shit.
Cost to start? 10B. So let's triple it and say $30B. Reducing cost-to-orbit-per-kg to a few bucks? Priceless. It would change space travel as we know it.
For the first time, I've seen something that doesn't require magic dust or pixies -- at least in the overview stage. Don't know about the details.
If this is something along the lines of what he is thinking, and if the engineering works out, and if the funding can be secured for either the ground-based or space-based version, Musk will easily leap-frog Howard Hughes in the history books.
Of course, that's a lot of "if"s. But here's hoping.
Comments
From the wiki, "...the costs for accessing space with a launch loop could be as low as $3/kg..."
Holy. Shit.
Cost to start? 10B. So let's triple it and say $30B. Reducing cost-to-orbit-per-kg to a few bucks? Priceless. It would change space travel as we know it.
For the first time, I've seen something that doesn't require magic dust or pixies -- at least in the overview stage. Don't know about the details.
If this is something along the lines of what he is thinking, and if the engineering works out, and if the funding can be secured for either the ground-based or space-based version, Musk will easily leap-frog Howard Hughes in the history books.
Of course, that's a lot of "if"s. But here's hoping.