The goal of 0.5 to 1.5 MY/Mg means a 5 GW SPS launch cost of 2 to 6 billion dollars (1980). This is about one third of the power satellite cost, thus a major factor for the SPS economy. EFFICIENT LAUNCH VEHICLE DESIGN GROUND RULES In the past the prime and often only criteria of launch vehicle design was performance. In this respect a lot of work and intelligence has been invested in performance improvement, i.e., more payload or lower launch mass. Advanced propellants, mixed mode propulsion, air augmentation, turbo rocket, even oxygen liquification in flight have been investigated. However, all of those means for performance improvement are inevitably combined with higher complexity and cost increases. In most cases the lack of cost efficiency was not realized.
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