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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Stephen Van Sickle<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, November 08, 2011 10:23 AM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Launching Satellites from Airplanes DARPA<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Mon, Nov 07, 2011 at 06:20:54PM -0800, spike wrote:<br><br>>> My own experience with it is that the problem doesn't scale down very<br>well.<br>> Every design I have derived has the cost per kg to LEO increasing<br>> dramatically once the total payload goes much below 1000 kg. I am<br>> cheering wildly for anyone who can get those costs down.<o:p></o:p></p></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>Are you familiar with Jordin Kare's Mockingbird?<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span><a href="http://www.quantumg.net/mockingbird.pdf">http://www.quantumg.net/mockingbird.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>-sjv<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I am. This and several other small SSTOs were the hot topic of conversation at the Society of Allied Weight Engineers conferences back about 15 yrs ago. Actually it is a good illustration of the original concept and my own conviction from years of discussion on that: anything you can do with one stage can be done better with two.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Kare’s notion of an all-recoverable SSTO was never realized. Note that this pitch is 17 years old this month. We still don’t have anything like it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>