It’s interesting how much you can figure out about a classified satellite from ground observations. And these are amateurs. Governments can do a lot better (though with some of the new telescopes available to amateurs, the distinction is getting blurred).

It’s interesting how much you can figure out about a classified satellite from ground observations. And these are amateurs. Governments can do a lot better (though with some of the new telescopes available to amateurs, the distinction is getting blurred).

It’s interesting how much you can figure out about a classified satellite from ground observations. And these are amateurs. Governments can do a lot better (though with some of the new telescopes available to amateurs, the distinction is getting blurred).

I’m going to be on The Space Show this evening, along with my webmaster, Bill Simon, talking about the July 20th ceremony, and other space-related topics. It starts at 7 PM Pacific, 10 Eastern, for an hour on the radio, and some additional time streaming, until 8:30 Pacific.

Ferris Valyn has the latest edition of his space diary up, with a lot of links, and discussion of the conference. Also, yesterday, I failed to mention the latest edition of the Carnival of Space over at Music of the Spheres.

I look at using chemical vapor deposition (and welding) to build a mono-crystalline, mono-molecular carbon space elevator over at The Space Review. Surprisingly, it will cost about what Brad Edwards budgeted for single-walled carbon nanutube (CNT) manufacturing.

If space elevators cost $25,000/kg and space delivery after the elevator’s up cost $10-$800/kg, then the second space elevator probably should be built out of less expensive, less exotic materials. If Kevlar is only 2% as strong as carbon nanotubes, you can still afford 50 kg of Kevlar for the price of 1 kg of diamonds at delivery costs and purchase prices less than $500 if elevator-quality CNT cost at least as much as bulk purchases of pure synthetic diamonds wholesale. One wouldn’t use Kevlar further down the elevator because then there would be a multiplier because we would need more Kevlar to hold the Kevlar and it would go up by a factor of e⁵⁰ or so. But that doesn’t apply right at the base–it’s pretty much linear there.

Another issue I may explore is that if a Mars elevator can be 6 tons or less, it might weigh less than the fuel needed to take off from Mars or even the fuel and aerobrake to get from Mars geosynchronous orbit to the surface. Mars exploration economics change a lot if return oxygen can be carted up from the surface by elevator. Note that one would not necessarily need laser or microwave power to power a climber on Mars. Solar power for a climber would have it climb slower, but it would still climb.

A great place to work the kinks out of space elevator technology is the Moon. A Lunar space elevator going from a little ways Earthward of Earth-Moon L-1, would not need materials as strong as a space elevator for the Earth’s surface. If successful, it would allow much more mass to go down to the surface and much more return mass than the 46 metric tons of LSAM ascender and descender. A 7-ton Lunar elevator and some climbers powered from Earth would provide as much cargo capacity as Edwards’s starter elevator on Earth. Since Lunar exploration doesn’t really begin in earnest until late next decade according to the current (perhaps overly optimistic) vision, it might be worth doing some thought experiments about saving mass on the very first sortie to the Moon by using a Lunar space elevator. Pearson advocated this using M5 fiber to make a 7,000 kg Lunar elevator with 200 kg capacity a few years back. Forget thought experiments, launch the @$%#! elevator.

At the NewSpace 2007 luncheon on Thursday, the speaker was Ed Morris, the head of the Office of Commercial Space at the Department of Commerce. In response to a question from Dave Huntsman, he indicated that there might be a possibility of alleviating the situation. Jeff Foust reported on it at the time, and Dave has an interesting comment there, with which I agree. I also agree that while new legislation would help, it’s not necessary to fix some of the things, despite what Morris said.

As I noted on a panel at the Space Access Conference in March, I would like to see the burden of proof shifted for whether or not an item should be on the munitions list. The current standard is guilty until proven innocent. I think that it should be the other way around. And it is encouraging to see some recognition at the Pentagon that the cure is worse than the disease. It has alway been a much more realistic position to “mend it, not end it,” than to simply demand that there be no export controls, and the argument that, in its current implementation, it’s actually damaging our security will be a useful one with its most staunch defenders, such as Duncan Hunter.

I was going to post some thoughts on the acquisition (which was really just an increase in equity from a minority to a hundred percent), but before I had an opportunity to do so, Jon Goff must have channeled me. A “skunkworks for NG” was exactly what I thought when I heard the news.

There will probably be more tomorrow. Dennis Poulos was the only NG person at the conference, and he was only there on Thursday (and he’s probably not a spokesman for the company on the issue). Alex Tai had little to say about it (with regard to implications for SpaceShipTwo) yesterday, other than that he thought it was a good (even great) thing, and that it was “Northrop’s story, not his,” to tell.

But I think that this points out that the nature of this business is much more complex than many would like to make it, and it’s not simply the “Big Bad, Small Good” template that many like to think, and that the line between New Space and Old Space has never been as sharp as many thought, and it’s becoming progressively blurrier. As Jon says, the Boeings and Northrop Grummans, and Lockheed Martins are recognizing that the new century brings new business realities, and it’s particularly worth considering, in light of the Apollo anniversary last week, that the old space age is over, and the new effectively begun, despite Mike Griffin’s attempt to resurrect Apollo, which seems likely to fail.

I have always swum in both seas, and have often had former colleagues at Boeing (now fairly high in management) tell me that they’re interested in this new business, but it’s not obvious how to break in, other than watch, and observe, and when something succeeds, to acquire it. And of course, they didn’t need to tell me that, because it’s obvious, from a business sense. They’re simply too risk averse, by the nature of their being large publicly-held corporations, and their existing business relationships, to do things like this from scratch on their own, and that’s not a criticism, just a statement of fact. They have to be so, because they have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders, many of whom are pensioners, to not take big gambles with the company’s money, on new but uncertain markets and business lines.

The fact that such acquisitions are now occurring is to me a sign of the transition of the old age to the new. When we really know that it’s real will be when one of them buys one of the new companies, born in this age, such as XCOR.

[Update a while later]

I should make one other point. This acquisition really has very little to do with space. SpaceShipTwo may be one of Scaled’s most well-known current projects, but they’re first and foremost an aircraft company, and that’s the bulk of their activities. I think that NG saw this as an aviation, or aerospace acquisition. To the degree that it helped them on the space side at all, that would just be gravy.

Wireless is still problematic, but I want to at least mention that at lunch today, Jim Muncy gave (a very surprised) Clark Lindsey a well-deserved award for his years of devotion to Hobbyspace web site, and his seemingly tireless efforts to broadening the appeal of space to many people on a number of fronts.

I’ll be leaving for the airport in a couple hours, and socializing before then, so probably no more posting until tomorrow.

Neil Woodward of ESMD is chairing a panel on how commercial activities can fit into the Vision.

Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing gave a short presentation on the value of having propellant depots in cis-lunar space (he calls them “gasteroids” to the collective groan of the audience). They have the capability of increasing landed mass on the moon from 18 to 51 tons of cargo. They provide a market for commercial providers (300 tons of propellant per year). They also provide a means for international participation that doesn’t put them on the critical path (international partners could provide both the propellant and the extra lunar cargo). And it’s not in NASA’s current plans.

Ken Davidian talked about the need to reduce or remove barriers of entry for commercial space companies.
— Investor funding
— Production of commercial space goods and services
— Demand for commercial space goods and services
– Example of Multi-Phase procurements
— prize competitors
— funded space act
— FAR 12 Contracts
– X PRIZE essentially led to COTS

[Note, above Davidian comments, which I was distracted during, gratefully stolen from Clark Lindsey]

Jim Dunstan: Describing relative difficulties between working with NASA and the Russians. Thinks NASA’s biggest problem is hubris. “Get over yourselves.”

NASA does not own space.
There is on inalienable right to explore space.
The public doesn’t care that much about space.
Neither NASA or the current private space companies know much about business.

Wants to get rid of Space Act Agreements. No enforceability clauses, so any money spent is wasted. Doesn’t like FARs and government contracting, but at least they’re available. Have to kill “cancel for convenience.” Without stiff penalties, hard to get investment. NASA needs to hire business people, not engineers or ex-military people. Same thing for engineers. Need good business help and good legal help.

Remember Dreamtime. A disaster between Hollywood media types and engineers at NASA who had no clue how to put a business together.

Jeff Greason: What does government do well? Railroads were big hit, but government running railroads less than successful. Government did a good job of creating aircraft industry in the US, after the disaster of attempting to have the government own/operate vehicles. No economic activity in Antarctica.

By government’s nature, it’s an unreliable customer and unreliable supplier, due to being a creature of politics. Private sector much more predictable. Whether or not greed is good, it’s predictable. No government infrastructure to guarantee continuing supply of tennis shoes, but they’re always available.

If the government has a mission to create a lunar infrastructure, it has to be with heavy commercial involvement to be affordable, but it seems to be the other way around. If the government is the only customer, hard to raise private money. Would have made sense to utilize transportation that other satellite customers also wanted to use.

Points out fragility of having a single government-developed vehicle, so if a commercial customer of a lunar base, you’ll be out of luck if the system goes down. Agrees with Dallas that propellant depots make sense as a market. Also critical on lunar end regardless of location. Will eventually need to produce propellant on the moon, and will need places to store it. Architecture in mind doesn’t look like one NASA is building. Unclear whether it’s opportunity lost or deferred, because unclear whether or not this architecture will be completed.

The notion that you’ll build something, then operate it for a while, then hope you can pawn it off on someone else is not a good plan. If a lunar base isn’t pre-leased, there’s something wrong with it, either in transportation infrastructure or base design or something else, but NASA won’t feel the pain, unlike a private company.

NASA has a disease of no pain receptors.

NASA can’t successfully run the railroad, or be a property developer, or be a landlord without even talking to the customers, but that’s what’s happening.

Wants the government to spend its money in such a way as to at least potentially be useful, but understands that this isn’t a guarantee.