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“For this program, we’re going to be pulling heavily off of our human space experience and our commercial aircraft experience to develop a safe, reliable and affordable system,” Chuck Hardison, Boeing’s production and ground systems manager for the CST-100Comment: That's a four year lag with no US based manned launches. Was this necessary?
By the way, I wanted to speculate further on the Quicklaunch system. An idea came to me to launch carbon into LEO by this method. It won't melt or present a problem if it gets thermalized. A rigid tungsten alloy can encapsulate it. Subsequent missions could be determine if a fuel can be made in space from this carbon and additional fuels sent up by other methods, or by Quicklaunch. The idea is to practice in situ resourcing. By using a rather sturdy material, such as carbon, and combining it with hydrogen, one might gain the benefits of cheaper access to space for the bulk of the material. Hydrogen, being lighter, should not be as costly to lift in great quantities, should it not be feasible to send it up by Quicklaunch.
Note: Carbon and Tungsten have the highest melting points of all the elements. It could survive a hot ride up.
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