1. In the late 1940s, when the urgent need arose for a rocket that could deliver an atomic bomb, there was only one successful example to copy – the Nazis’ V2.
   
   
2. The urgency, coupled with the technical success of the V2, meant that no practical alternatives were considered. The designer of the V2, Werner von Braun, was recruited to oversee America’s space launch programme.
   
   
3. But satellites, not nuclear weapons, became the payloads of the rockets that evolved.
   
   
4. As a result, for the last seventy years the most inefficient and wasteful transportation system on the planet has been the one used to get away from it. A rocket launch typically costs over $30 million and it carries its own oxygen up with it, using over two tons for every ton of fuel.
   
   
5. By now, 54,200 satellites are listed by the United States Space Command, and in addition the Command is intermittently tracking about 20,000 other objects with less predictable orbits.
   
   
6. Space debris is the first priority but no system exists for the repair, maintenance and orbit adjustment of this vast and growing satellite population.
   
   

The Swala Orbital Service Vehicle concept evolved to fill this vacuum.