re hlv for fred was re prefab space station in article c a gzx news cso uiuc edu jbh uxa cso uiuc edu josh hopkins writes titan iv launches ain t cheap granted but that s because titan iv s are bought by the governemnt titan iii is actually the cheapest way to put a pound in space of all us expendable launchers in that case it s rather ironic that they are doing so poorly on the commercial market is there a single titan iii on order the problem with commercial titan is that mm has made little or no attempt to market it they re basically happy with their government business and don t want to have to learn how to sell commercially a secondary problem is that it is a bit big they d need to go after multi satellite launches a la ariane and that complicates the marketing task quite significantly they also had some problems with launch facilities at just the wrong time to get them started properly if memory serves the pad used for the mars observer launch had just come out of heavy refurbishment work that had prevented launches from it for a year or so there have been a few ct launches mars observer was one of them so was that stranded intelsat and at least one of its brothers that reached orbit properly all work is one man s work henry spencer u of toronto zoology kipling henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
