Over at the RocketMan blog, there is a nice article on the different costs of Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV) vs. Expendible Launch Vehicles (ELV). For those of you interested in why these things cost so much (and it isn't obvious), take a look:
It seems like such a waste to build an entire launch vehicle that will be used only once before it is dumped in the ocean. However, every successful launch vehicle in the history of spaceflight with the exception of the Shuttle has been expendable (and calling the Shuttle successful is a stretch). In recent years there have been many attempts at building a fully reusable vehicles (RLVs) but, for a wide variety of reasons, all of them have failed.
Very nice insight. Check out the rest of his site for some nice information on the X-prize and others.
Posted by elkaim at November 24, 2003 02:35 PM