Here’s some cheery news for a Thursday morning.
Category Archives: Business
The Future Of Twitter
A pessimistic view, but with opportunities.
A New Rebel Group
…has formed against the empire of the space iron triangle: The Next Step in Space:
The Next Step in Space coalition is a growing group of businesses and organizations working towards making human commercial space flight a reality.
All the members seem to be NewSpace, not old.
Health Care And Longevity
John Tierney explains why those promoting socialized medicine should stop ignorantly (if not duplicitously) claiming that it is the cause of greater longevity in countries that have it. If you want to argue that we should be more like Europe, find a better argument, or you’ll just continue to make yourselves look foolish.
Still All Sham, No Wow
Turning the presidency into an infomercial.
[Tuesday morning update]
Well, my quip has become a bumper sticker.
I should have done that. Guess it’s why I’m not rich.
[Bumped]
The Solar Power Satellite Business
Alan Boyle has a good rundown on the current state of play. I wonder, though about the assumptions underlying this comment:
To be competitive with other power sources, Maness figures that the powersat system’s launch costs would have to be around $100 per pound – which is roughly one-hundredth of the current asking price. Launch costs may be heading downward, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX’s Falcon rockets, but Maness can’t yet predict when the charts tracing cost and benefit will cross into the profitable zone.
Launch costs to where? They’re that high to GEO, but not to LEO, and it doesn’t say where the satellite constellation will live. It’s going to be a long time before it’s a hundred bucks a pound to GEO, though though a robust market for LEO propellant depots will be a help in that regard. But we’re not far from having a thousand bucks a pound to LEO. Anyway, it would be nice to see more details on these things.
The bottom line, though, and the reason that I’m not that sanguine on the business prospects for SBSP, at least for base load, is this:
In addition to potential environmental concerns, large-scale solar farms can’t generate a steady flow of electricity at night, or during cloudy weather. But if engineers ever figure out a way to store up the intermittent energy generated by solar cells or wind turbines, at levels high enough to keep utilities flush with power, Maness thinks that would deal a heavy blow to his powersat dreams.
“At that point, I take my marbles and go home,” he said.
Yup. It’s not the technical risk of the space hardware and launch costs, but the risk of terrestrial competition as technology evolves, that is the biggest risk of all.
Masten LLC Attempts
Start today. Clark Lindsey has links. Best of luck (and skill) to them.
Another reason to wish that I was already back in CA. I expect to hit the road this morning, but I have to pack the car still, which will be an interesting puzzle.
[Update a few minutes later]
Shutting down the machine now so I can load it. I may check in tonight, if I have wireless in the motel. Be good in comments, and don’t expect anything with links to be approved today.
[Late evening update]
I’m still on Eastern time, but just barely, about 10:30 PM. I’m also still in Florida, in Talahassee, but it hasn’t seemed like it since north of Tampa, when the country went from flat and swampy to rolling with woods and pastures. I drove across from Ocala to here through beautiful horse country. This is a Florida that I could like, but it’s more like southern Georgia.
From The Horse’s Mouth
John Carmack, fresh from his LLC success, has a long-awaited update on Armadillo’s next moves.
The Battle Against The Empire
…continues, with this anti-Ares video, and one promoting commercial space for crew transport.
[Via email from Ferris Valyn]
Time To Take Private Space Seriously
So sayeth The Economist:
Five years ago the idea that the private sector might have been capable of transporting cargo and people reliably into low Earth orbit was viewed as crazy. Much has happened since, and two things in particular. One was that Virgin Galactic, an upstart British firm, said it would develop a space-tourism business based around a craft that had cost only $25m to build. The other was that an equally upstart American entrepreneur called Elon Musk, flush from his sale of PayPal, created a company called SpaceX (whose Falcon rocket is pictured above, dropping its first stage on its way into orbit). He said he wanted to make it cheaper to launch people into space and wanted, ultimately, to send a mission to Mars—but that he would start by launching satellites.
It would be an understatement to say that both ventures were treated with scepticism. But they have now come far enough to be able to thumb their noses at the cynics. On September 3rd SpaceX signed a contract worth $50m with ORBCOMM, a satellite-communications firm. The deal is to launch 18 satellites for ORBCOMM’s network. Meanwhile, at the end of July, Aabar Investments, a sovereign-wealth fund based in Abu Dhabi, bought a 32% stake in Virgin Galactic for $280m. Aabar was not just interested in space tourism. It was also keen on a proposal to use Virgin’s White Knight launch system to put satellites into low Earth orbit. Will Whitehorn, Virgin Galactic’s president, said that one of the things which attracted Aabar was the fact that White Knight (an aircraft which lifts to high altitude a rocket that can then take either passengers or satellites onwards into space) could be flown from Abu Dhabi.
The “Giggle Factor” continues to dissipate.