[Phsstpok]

Pournelle went after a concept for a few years (back during SDI) which he called "BDB," or Big Dumb Booster. His argument was that if we built boosters the way we built liberty ships, big, clunky and not elegant, we could put up payloads for cheap. If you assume you're not going for the lightest, most efficient, but instead are going for cheapest (and don't care how ungainly it looks) you ought to be able to crank the suckers out for next to nothing, at least compared to the Rolls Royce's NASA flys. I assume that he decided that wouldn't work because he dropped it eventually. When you think, however, that NASA spends upwards of $500,000,000 on each shuttle launch I gotta think that we could put up alot of BDBs for that money.

[Paul Ross]

I don't know that he gave up on BDB, but that since it promises low profits, there is a dearth of interest among those most likely to be asked to bid on the production contracts. Jerry probably got tired of preaching his dream to the guys who have diminishing desire to hire him as a consultant...and may have informed of that...