John Hare lays one out, over at Selenian Boondocks.
4 thoughts on “A Commercial Space Development Scenario”
the assumption is that no investments will be made by any entity without some expectation of a return on investment. Also, the assumption is that no major products will ever be found that can be returned to Earth for a profit
I like these as starting assumptions. I’m amazed that some would assume this makes space a non starter.
Looks good to me.
It’s sort of funny to look forward too and imagine that Heavy Lift “comes back” due to the increased need to shuttle passengers to LEO (where they can either stay or transfer to true “space ships” to GEO, L5 or beyond). With enough demand it might make sense to convert something like the Sea Dragon RLV concept to “the 747 of LEO.”
“Yes, that’s right – I’m catching the 08:28 GMT from San Juan to Bigelow Station. See you there!”
As I described over there, LEO tourism is an economic fantasy. After half a century of human spaceflight it is still over 99% funded by government space agencies who launch astronauts for the sake of launching astronauts — not even for practical governmental functions like national defense. Without the marginal costs of marginal costs of unused seats on Soyuz rockets and capsules the development of which have long since been paid for, the number of tourists flown would be zero. The $20-$40 million per year annual demand at $20 million per flight is orders of magnitude too low to justify rational investment without the massive government space agency subsidy.
Hare and I did trigger a fascinating, and all too rare in these parts, discussion of real space commerce — commerce that actually fits Hare’s assumptions of paying for itself incrementally without vast government subsidies. In particular, a good discussion of the future prospects of space communications.
Googaw,
For someone who bandies about terms like “economic fantasy”, you should a startling lack of understanding of economics.
Of course there are few tourists at current prices. That’s why tourism demand models are based on lower prices. Lower prices move up the demand curve.
Annual demand is $20-40MM/year at current prices. If prices were lowered the demand could expand considerably. There’s only a handful of people in the world who can pay $20MM, but there are many thousands who could pay $200,000. Just 1,000 such customers would blow the total market demand out to $200,000,000 – an order of magnitude larger than today’s market.
There’s nothing wrong with communications as a market, and I expect it will continue to grow and play a part in LEO any economy. But that doesn’t mean other businesses cannot work.
the assumption is that no investments will be made by any entity without some expectation of a return on investment. Also, the assumption is that no major products will ever be found that can be returned to Earth for a profit
I like these as starting assumptions. I’m amazed that some would assume this makes space a non starter.
Looks good to me.
It’s sort of funny to look forward too and imagine that Heavy Lift “comes back” due to the increased need to shuttle passengers to LEO (where they can either stay or transfer to true “space ships” to GEO, L5 or beyond). With enough demand it might make sense to convert something like the Sea Dragon RLV concept to “the 747 of LEO.”
“Yes, that’s right – I’m catching the 08:28 GMT from San Juan to Bigelow Station. See you there!”
As I described over there, LEO tourism is an economic fantasy. After half a century of human spaceflight it is still over 99% funded by government space agencies who launch astronauts for the sake of launching astronauts — not even for practical governmental functions like national defense. Without the marginal costs of marginal costs of unused seats on Soyuz rockets and capsules the development of which have long since been paid for, the number of tourists flown would be zero. The $20-$40 million per year annual demand at $20 million per flight is orders of magnitude too low to justify rational investment without the massive government space agency subsidy.
Hare and I did trigger a fascinating, and all too rare in these parts, discussion of real space commerce — commerce that actually fits Hare’s assumptions of paying for itself incrementally without vast government subsidies. In particular, a good discussion of the future prospects of space communications.
Googaw,
For someone who bandies about terms like “economic fantasy”, you should a startling lack of understanding of economics.
Of course there are few tourists at current prices. That’s why tourism demand models are based on lower prices. Lower prices move up the demand curve.
Annual demand is $20-40MM/year at current prices. If prices were lowered the demand could expand considerably. There’s only a handful of people in the world who can pay $20MM, but there are many thousands who could pay $200,000. Just 1,000 such customers would blow the total market demand out to $200,000,000 – an order of magnitude larger than today’s market.
There’s nothing wrong with communications as a market, and I expect it will continue to grow and play a part in LEO any economy. But that doesn’t mean other businesses cannot work.