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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 style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/4036325757001/watch-how-darpa-plans-to-launch-satellites-into-space/?#sp=show-clips" target="_blank">http://video.foxnews.com/v/4036325757001/watch-how-darpa-plans-to-launch-satellites-into-space/?#sp=show-clips</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></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'><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 [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Kelly Anderson<br><b>Sent:</b> Sunday, February 08, 2015 11:57 PM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] darpa's notion of using a retrofitted fighter jet to launch payloads<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>Looks like a rip off of Virgin Galactic's basic concept. My question is why would this cost a million dollars??<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>-Kelly<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I can think that a lot of the cost of this would be in the inertial reference gear in the guidance system.  For typical satellite work, that stuff doesn’t come cheap.  But given some kind of standard bus, there would be mass production, thousands of units perhaps.  I can imagine a standardized thousand unit production run of guidance and control systems including thrust vector control getting down below a million clams, and everything else combined below 100k.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>