A first‐order economic analysis is performed for a revolutionary transport technology intended for hypersonic world travel — powered by laser energy beamed from satellite solar power stations, with relay mirrors in low Earth orbit. A fleet of 1‐person to 5‐person, ‘tractor‐beam’ lightcraft will enable direct port‐to‐port (no refueling) trips, half‐way around the globe in under an hour — riding suborbital boost‐glide trajectories through space. Estimates are presented of vehicle size, ridership, revenues, fleet size, capital, operating and maintenance costs, and expected profitability for a lightcraft‐based global transportation system called G‐SATS. On a net present value basis, over a 20‐year time span, G‐SATS should have a profit margin of over 20% — implying not only the ability to be profitable, but also a potential market penetrability that goes well beyond the conservative assumptions made in this analysis.
Economic Analysis of a Laser‐Powered, Global Small Aerospacecraft Transportation System (G‐SATS)
BEAMED ENERGY PROPULSION: Third International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion ; 2004 ; Troy, New York (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 766 , 1 ; 103-116
2005-04-27
14 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) Demand Model
NTIS | 2001
|Online Contents | 2015
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