THE REUSABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE CHALLENGE

Since the development of the impressive expendable Saturn-V rocket under the Apollo program until just recently, NASA committed itself to the development of new reusable launch vehicles (RLV), including the Space Shuttle, the National AeroSpace Plane (NASP), the X-33, X-34, X-37 and X-38 vehicles. Of these efforts, the Space Shuttle is the most successful example to date. Currently NASA’s launch vehicle efforts have been redirected to development of new expendable launch systems ‐ the Ares-I and Ares-V launch vehicles ‐ in order to pursue exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond, as stipulated by President Bush in the Vision for Space Exploration, that was rolled out in 2004. This paper looks at the history of RLV developments since the time of Shuttle, both here in the US and abroad, in an attempt to understand the major impediments to successful RLV development. A simple economic analysis is also derived to establish the primary drivers for economic viability. After reviewing the worldwide experience, in light of the simple economic analysis, a primary hurdle to economically viable RLV’s is identified: A high enough launch rate market for the vehicles to service. Historically, most attention has focused on retiring technical impediments while the economic challenge has often been neglected or not well understood. Reviews of worldwide RLV experiences confirm that addressing the economic challenge of establishing a launch market requiring frequent and regular space access, is at least as important as pursuing technical advances. Finally, a combined market development and technology development approach is proposed and briefly discussed which could provide a more effective strategy for future RLV development.