Jonathan Coopersmith says that both Romney and Gingrich get it wrong on space policy. But he’s a little confused himself:
Rockets cost so much because most of their weight is fuel. Usually 1 percent or less of launch weight is the actual payload. Nor are rockets fully reliable. To launch a communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit demands an insurance premium of 10 percent or more for a single one-way trip! Contrast that to the premium for your car insurance.
Yet rockets have launched every satellite and space probe since Sputnik in 1957. The entire space infrastructure, governmental and private, has grown around building and launching rockets. What rockets have not and cannot do is make the cost of reaching orbit low enough that Gingrich’s lunar base could pass Romney’s financial test.
To truly encourage private enterprise in space a radical reduction of the cost to reach orbit must become a national priority. Several promising technologies, such as beamed energy propulsion and space elevators, could reduce the cost of entering space from $10,000 to as low as $100 a pound, radically changing the economics of spaceflight.
Ummmm…no. Rockets don’t cost so much because most of their weight is fuel. As Elon notes, the propellant costs for a Falcon 9 are less than half a percent of the total flight costs, and he expects to be able to get to a hundred dollars a pound of payload with the Falcon Heavy if he can get the flight rate up.
Coopersmith is right that we need to get launch costs down, and it’s probably worth spending some R&D on advanced technologies, but we don’t need them to get to a hundred dollars a pound. All we need are reusable vehicles operating at high flight rates.
If there were enough launches to spread the risk across, insurance costs would change, too…
Ummmm…no. Rockets don’t cost so much because most of their weight is fuel. As Elon notes, the propellant costs for a Falcon 9 are less than half a percent of the total flight costs, and he expects to be able to get to a hundred dollars a pound of payload with the Falcon Heavy if he can get the flight rate up.
I think you’ve misread Coopersmith. I don’t think he’s claiming the cost of the propellant is the problem but the sacrifices (staging, expendability, etc) which have to be made to accommodate it. That’s how I read him.
As for the Falcon Heavy, I thought Musk was hoping to get to a $1000/lb to orbit, not $100/lb. Are you sure about the latter figure?
I think you’ve misread Coopersmith. I don’t think he’s claiming the cost of the propellant is the problem but the sacrifices (staging, expendability, etc) which have to be made to accommodate it. That’s how I read him.
It’s hard to know since he doesn’t elaborate.
As for the Falcon Heavy, I thought Musk was hoping to get to a $1000/lb to orbit, not $100/lb. Are you sure about the latter figure?
$1000/lb is the initial price. Did you follow the link?
We need to be very specific here. The cost of space flight is almost completely dominated by the cost of moving fuel around (that dang rocket equation!) not the cost of fuel itself which could be free and not change much of anything. The cost of equipment is almost (not quite but almost) lost in the noise BEO. For a single mission, equipment cost would be less than 10% the cost of moving fuel around. Reuse that equipment ten times and it’s now less than 1% (which is the direction we must head toward.)
The other major costs are the fixed costs so… Higher flight rates are the key to getting those costs down. Flight rates are the horse and everything else is the cart.
More satellites will not significantly raise flight rates. Space mining will not significantly raise rates (with exception to follow:)
Migration is the key to higher flight rates and finance is the key to migration. If it cost $50m per person to migrate, $51m ticket against a mortgage pays for the next hundred years of migration and we could start today will almost no new technology. With more people going the ticket costs go down making it easier to finance even more people. These don’t need to all be scientists (or jet pilots)… they shouldn’t be.
The most economically valuable item that will be mined on the moon is not anything exotic. It’s not water. It’s oxygen from any of it’s rocks. That’s the major component of travel cost that will be profitable taken from the moon. The metals left over would be useful to a school of engineering where student and researchers could get some hands on manufacturing experience in low g. Rail guns take tanks of oxygen from the moon to a waiting fuel depot.
“More satellites will not significantly raise flight rates. Space mining will not significantly raise rates (with exception to follow:)
Migration is the key to higher flight rates and finance is the key to migration. If it cost $50m per person to migrate, $51m ticket against a mortgage pays for the next hundred years of migration and we could start today will almost no new technology. With more people going the ticket costs go down making it easier to finance even more people. These don’t need to all be scientists (or jet pilots)… they shouldn’t be.
The most economically valuable item that will be mined on the moon is not anything exotic. It’s not water. It’s oxygen from any of it’s rocks. That’s the major component of travel cost that will be profitable taken from the moon. The metals left over would be useful to a school of engineering where student and researchers could get some hands on manufacturing experience in low g. Rail guns take tanks of oxygen from the moon to a waiting fuel depot.”
I think a market for rocket fuel in fuel in space, increases flight rate.
In addition mining water on the the Moon will increases flight rate.
two separate but related issues.
And more satellite will not significantly raise flight rates, but it’s reason we have any flight rate.
No market for satellites- no NASA and no rockets being flown.
A market for rocket fuel in space is another market- more markets more flight rate. If you had market of rocket fuel in space, one could could a smaller rocket to do whatever you wanted to do. Which means buyer of rockets has more choice of what rocket to use.
The rocket or other means of delivery rocket fuel can get more dependable launch rates [lowers cost] and can specialize. Could launch more places- ITAR should not affect payloads of rocket fuel.
The cost of rocket fuel in orbit, not as important a capability of have rocket fuel available.
The price of rocket fuel at lunar surface is critical in terms exporting materials from the Moon to Earth. But other than that the price is not critical as capability of having availability of rocket fuel.
Having an existing rocket fuel market in space, make it easier to then mine water on the Moon.
If one mines lunar water, you start a market for water in space. A market of electrical power in space. And market rocket fuel. A market transport of lunar rocket to lunar orbit. And markets which could support these activities, mining metals for use on the Moon or Cislunar.
In addition if the there is potential of 1 billion tonnes of lunar water which minable on the Moon- which is lowest reasonable price the water would sell for on the Moon. If you assume $10-100 per kg or 10,000 to 100,000 per tons, that is resource with gross worth of 10 to 100 trillion dollars.
And if someone find oil deposit worth 1 trillion in oil- they going invest billions to make a trillion. Or water deposts on the moon are same as real estate that people are going want to own. And finding better lunar deposits, could be another market.
I believe fuel is one of the keys for increased flight rates but I have trouble with the word migration in the near term. If people goto LEO for less time than is required for their need of a cargo flight you do not see much of a jump in flight rates. It is people actually ‘migrating’ to LEO for 5-7 months is the key so that cargo flights increase. I do not know if SpaceX will crack the reusable key on their first attempt but pushing cargo to LEO and downcargo to earth will be the competitive process that will lead to reusablitity. The true nut in cracking lower costs. If you start running the cargo numbers with 50 – 100 people in LEO for 6 months (47-62 pounds per day, NASA numbers) you can see that cargo flight rates will really be taking a jump.
So for me, all we need now is destinations in LEO (bigelow) and access to LEO (Boeing, SpaceX) and the competition for hauling cargo will take care of the reusablity issue on it’s own. Access and Destinations to LEO will provide all the tipping points we need.
Bigelow has bigger plans (BA2100) but for a baseline let’s say he puts half a dozen BA330 in orbit. That costs $1.2b for 36 tourist/researchers/whatever.
Transporters to and from LEO break even at around $5m to $10m per tourist. Bigelow needs something less than $33m per tourist for break even. So let’s say $40m gives you a couple of weeks LEO stay. That doesn’t seem like a market with long term potential although I do hope to see it develop.
BEO is the only thing that does two things. It creates a huge market for lunar oxygen (that LEO does not) and it creates a growing market in migration. Given a choice for paying $40m to spend a couple of weeks in orbit OR $50m for a secured loan for a new life with frontier prospects I know what the majority will opt for.
Colonization has long term potential and is the only known dependable path for growth.
if he can get the flight rate up.
Good luck with that.