> How well would disposable heat shields and parachutes work? Aim them at > a shallow body of water for soft landings and pick them up with a ship. > Or drop them onto hard ground if the contents are padded enough or not > fragile.
No way a disposable system can compete with this shuttle. The shuttle costs $8 per pound of payload. $8 per pound for a new shuttle, not per flight. The parachute would be $0.1 per pound. Say the parachute is a quarter of the total cost, and the shuttle would have to last a mere 20 flights to pay for itself ... > In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein had the Moon delivering cargo > to Earth this way. A lower TL, and the massdriver was required as a plot device. Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
