How would you do it? Anything goes, so long as it:-is sufficiently safe (safe enough you would put your child on it)
Why should we assume chemically powered RLV's are any more dangerous than chemically powered airliners?
Valid point about the amount of experience we now have with airliners vs RLV's, but I was thinking more in terms of there being any inherent (if that's the right term) difference in how safe they are. if we look at why airliners crash it's actually rare for it to be anything to do with the amount of energy they manipulate to propel them, it's pilot error, structural failure, hijack/sabotage and weather that bring them down.I also don't think any conclusions can reached from the short one operator shuttle experience.
Docking will take care but with feedback mechanisms should be within our tech knowledge.
Watch this and imagine what would happen to an LV if an engine failure were to occur at the same moment (just as you're leaving the ground):
Quote from: Andrew_W on 07/03/2011 09:35 pmValid point about the amount of experience we now have with airliners vs RLV's, but I was thinking more in terms of there being any inherent (if that's the right term) difference in how safe they are. if we look at why airliners crash it's actually rare for it to be anything to do with the amount of energy they manipulate to propel them, it's pilot error, structural failure, hijack/sabotage and weather that bring them down.I also don't think any conclusions can reached from the short one operator shuttle experience.Wrong, tact. The whole flight regime includes energy management. Reentry, docking, vacuum, etc. Spaceflight will never be at the level of airline flight.
I've done a search on "Picokinetic pulse propulsion" and found no more informative than what you give here, which is even less information about how you arrive at a cost than I give for my idea. How are they launched? How are they accelerated? How are the guided? are they used just once or are they re-boosted somehow?
You can also look up "Externally Pulsed-Plasma Beamed Energy Propulsion" for similar but more "showy" ideas