Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

A couple of points about Lindsey's response:

"Instead, comsat services like DTH TV (>25M subscribers in the US) and satellite radio (>9M in US by end of 2005) continue to grow robustly."

This somewhat depends upon your definition of "robust growth." The Satellite Industries Association itself acknowledges growth, but does not call it robust. Fiber did not kill comsats, but it certainly wounded the market.

"A significant part of the cost of a satellite is the added redundancy and extensive testing in response to the high price and infrequent opportunity of accessing space. Lower cost, more frequent access to space will encourage lower priced satellites."

Er, maybe. The problem is that disruption of service could be a major problem for the operators. They cannot really afford to have less reliable satellites, even if they are cheaper. Now maybe that's because the overall margins are so thin (due in part to high launch and purchase costs). But the people who study the comsat industry and have surveyed the operators have found that reliability is their number one criteria for launch vehicles, outranking price.

Posted by William Berger at November 14, 2005 12:03 PM

We need more demand for launches.

Tourism has terrific potential but having all eggs in that one basket is a wee bit unsettling, at least to me.

Launches to provide logistical support to a permanent settlement whether Moon or Mars - - now that will create very substantial demand for the numerous great low cost to LEO ideas that just can't get funded, today.

Going to stay, not just visit.

Posted by Bill White at November 14, 2005 12:05 PM

I sounds like Bill White is proposing the creation of an artificial demand in order to spark competition by vendors. At the same time, he is denouncing a real demand that is sparking competition as placing "all eggs in that one basket". Am I missing something?

Posted by Leland at November 14, 2005 02:03 PM

Spacefaring should be defined as the ability to safely bear children at multiple celestial locations. Whether human beings can successfully be "spacefaring" using this definition is an unanswered question. Perhaps we (as a species) will establish one or more Roanoke colonies only to watch in horror as everyone dies.

Me? I am more optimistic than that.

=IF= humanity does permanently settle space, which branch of humanity gets there first, and most successfully, will be in a dominant position to shape the future history of the solar system.

What language will pre-dominate 500 years from now? Which religion? Which political philosophy.

Whichever subgroup of human beings gets out there "fust-est with the most-est" will have disproportionate influence on those questions.

= = =

This type of space race would create real, sustainable demand for just about every sort of low cost launch system one could imagine.

In the long run, permanent settlement is the only "why" that matters - - just like Mike Griffin has so often stated.

Posted by Bill White at November 14, 2005 02:24 PM

PS - - To be clear, competition between vendors for space tourism is a terrific development which I fully support. Tourism needs a destination, however and I do not believe space tourism (all by itself) will generate sufficient demand to significantly lower launch costs.

Tourists absolutely will help close the business case for lunar miners and other space businesses (visit the PGM mines; the Apollo sites and that cool new liquid telescope at the lunar pole) but only as part of a larger industry.

Real colonies? A colony race between sub-groups of humanity?

That will create staggering amounts of demand for Earth-to-LEO launch technology.

Posted by Bill White at November 14, 2005 02:30 PM

I'm more interested in the fact that Musk seems to think the America's Space Prize is too hard to win.

"build a spacecraft capable of taking a crew of no fewer than five people to an altitude of 400 kilometers and complete two orbits of the Earth at that altitude. Then they have to repeat that accomplishment within 60 days. [..] They have to do it by Jan. 10, 2010."

Note that the Soyuz can do this today, but with 3 passengers. t/Space's CXV would be able to do it, but with 4 passengers. It's clearly not a hard challenge, but maybe the deadline should be extended by 5 years.

Posted by Trent Waddington at November 14, 2005 03:16 PM

"It's clearly not a hard challenge"

You say this in the same sentence that you say that the timeframe should be doubled.

Everything is easy to someone who doesn't have to do it himself.

Posted by William Berger at November 14, 2005 03:23 PM

Rather than extend the time limit, find a way to increase America's Space prize. $50 million may not be enough for t/Space to play. "Too hard to win" appears to mean "not enough money"

Perhaps someone in Congress should sponsor a stand alone prize for $X million independent of the NASA budget to supplement Bigelow's prize, provided the winner also commits to selling the U.S. 24 seats to LEO at $10 million each.

Posted by Bill White at November 14, 2005 03:35 PM

You can sell 5 seats for at least $5.4 million each. That will cover your launch costs for a Falcon 9. So now you have $50 million to make the spacecraft.

Posted by Trent Waddington at November 14, 2005 03:50 PM

Until Musk orbits soemthing, we have hot air.
It's clear he has hired some of the best and the brightest availible to work on the Falcons,
but They have not launched anything as a group.
If you read the history of first launch results,
an entirely new vehicle with an entirely new team
has the odds stacked against it.

I hope that Falcon I beats the odds and is a success, I also hope that the "business SpaceX" is
a success as the last thing Alt-Space needs is another hidiously expensive business failure.

I wish Musk had taken the Armadillo approach of fly often and open up with little steps,
alas Musk has taken the all or nothing gamble,
lets all keep our fingers crossed.
We should know within a month.

Posted by Paul Breed at November 14, 2005 04:22 PM

The reason people found the America's Space Prize interesting was the $850 million in preferred contracts. The $50 million was for the party.

And yes, just about everyone says its doable _IF_ the deadline is moved forward a couple of years.

Posted by Michael Mealling at November 14, 2005 04:34 PM

"...Bill White is proposing the creation of an artificial demand... he is denouncing a real demand... Am I missing something?"

Not meaning to flame ya Leland, but yes I think you are. A permanent settlement would generate a demand that was in no way artificial even if the timeframe is a bit more than a decade. Also, how is it denouncing to suggest that tourism, regardless of it's worth, is just one of many potential baskets?

Tourism depends on disposable income. Settlements are much more fundamental (a smoother curve) to an economy than that. ...and I'm a big fan of disposable income.

Although tourism has already begun and settlements are pending, I think the economic timeframe is pretty close to the same. I don't expect tourism (in large numbers) to take off in the next few years. I do think that supply to a settlement will be symbiotic to tourism. This is all SWAG of course.

Posted by Ken Anthony at November 14, 2005 07:24 PM

Here is the interesting comment from one of the articles that Rand cited.

*********
In consumer electronics there is a price point where a market takes off. If a device gets below $500 it has a much better, but not guaranteed, chance to succeed and grow explosively. In the space launch business there are two main parts to the high cost. One is the launch vehicle. The other is the payload. If the launch vehicle cost is reduced from fifty to ten million dollars and the payload stays at one hundred million the overall mission cost has only dropped from one hundred fifty million to one hundred ten million. The payload cost needs to drop significantly before mission costs get below the price point where the market takes off. I doubt if most people agree where that price point is.
************

This is exactly the point that I have been making. We need revolutions in both launch and payloads. I also don't buy that cheaper launches lead to cheaper payloads, the comsat guys want reliability.

With that said I am pulling for Elon but kinda wish that they would focus on what is in front of them and make that work.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Wingo at November 14, 2005 08:29 PM

You can tackle one problem at a time if you can offer blanket, open, reasonably paying contracts for consumables delivered to orbit. ISS is as good a spot as any.

Then it is _just_ reducing cost on the lift. The water (or whatever) will cost less than the fuel... which is already less than 3% of the cost.

Posted by Al at November 14, 2005 09:28 PM

Bigelow will probably post a new prize if no one wins the first one.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at November 15, 2005 06:59 AM

Dennis,

Greater reliability can be traded for decreased performance. Performance can be replaced by greater numbers. If you have a satellite that has half the transponders but cost a tenth as much as a conventional comsat, I would think you have made a breakthru. With cheap launch of sufficiently high lift, you could simply over engineer everything for relibilities sake.

With expensive launch, the incentive is to get everyting up you can on that one super expensive booster, stuff that satellite to the gills!

Radically cheaper boosters remove that pressure and make a more distributed approach possibly more desirable.

So I believe that radically cheaper launch will allow differing engineering solutions to come to the fore.

Posted by Mike Puckett at November 15, 2005 07:00 AM

Bigelow will probably post a new prize if no one wins the first one.

Since Bigelow needs low cost tourist access to LEO to sell lots and lots of hotel modules, extending and/or increasing the prize sooner rather than later would appear to be a prudent move.

If a hypothetical Company X doubts they can make the original deadline, uncertainty about an extension is a disincentive for investing millions in R&D.

Posted by Bill White at November 15, 2005 09:31 AM

*****************

Orbital Sciences already sells a comsat with half the number of transponders at 30% of the price. It is still designed to last 15 years. The problem is that operators demand reliability to that 15 year level which means that components have to be designed to last 22 years.

There currently is a bimodal drive in comsat development. One is for the small sats from Orbital from small and a few for large operators and then the really big ones that are used for direct broadcast and internet over satellite.

The issue for comsats is cost and aperture. I repeat, the Russians sell the Yamal 100 bus which is exactly what you are talking about along with cheap launch but there is no big move to the Yamal bus just as there was no big move to the Yugo.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Wingo at November 15, 2005 12:31 PM

The five person requirement for the Bigelow prize does seem excessive.

I have started thinking that such a prize should require a large number of flights, say fifty with at least a proportion being manned. This necessitates a high flight rate approach with low marginal costs - genuine CATS, no stunts. A real fifty lap race might result with a lot of emphasis on the pit stops.

It also provides an assured low cost launch capacity that justifies the concurrent development of low cost payloads. Selling payloads where possible could subsidize the race and develop the market. A further advantage is that fifty flights should provide a statistically significant estimate for reliability.

The economic case for a Falcon one derived vehicle would probably close at around the $100 million prize mark. To create an open competitive industry, four plus teams would want to complete the race, this probably means prize money for more than just first place. It was sad with the X-prize that no one took out second place.

Pete.

Posted by Pete Lynn at November 15, 2005 07:42 PM

Dennis,

I don't think anyone can argue that the Yugo was over-engineered for reliability.

The Yugo failed because it was pure crap. I am not proposing the manufacture of pure crap.

Posted by Mike Puckett at November 16, 2005 06:25 AM

Mike

I agree. However, in the mix concerning commercial space, launch is only one of the variables of concern.

What we need is more private capital and more ways of doing business. Depending on governments is a sure way to turn alt.space into justanother.contractor.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Wingo at November 16, 2005 08:47 PM

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