Space

Sam on Suborbital

1 Comment

Virgin

It occurs to me that with hundreds of millions being spent on crewing Virgin’s air fleet that spending a few tens of millions to build and operate Space Ship Two might be justified on personnel policy grounds. Giving the Virgin airlines pilots a chance to go to an elite school to learn to be White Knight pilots or Space Ship Two pilots might make them happier, more productive workers who spread good cheer and promote good labor relations. The same could be true for customer and aircraft ground personnel. So the Virgin Galactic investment might make sense for labor morale and not just for marketing and to keep the owner happy.

XCOR

I like Lynx (see The Space Review this week). At $17 million, it needs operating profit of $4.25 million to achieve a 25% return for investors. I don’t think XCOR has been seeking debt financing (contrary to the philosophy of take the smallest possible risk) so strategic investors can invest with their heart and be happy seeking a slightly lower monetary return. $4.25 million assuming 1/3 going to the space line and 1/3 going to cost would leave 1/3 to pay investors so XCOR would need to capture $12.75 million/year of the market. At $100,000/flight that’s 128 flights or about 5% of their annual capacity assuming three vehicles and 50% up-time for each vehicle and 4 flights/day.

With some predicting a 15,000 seat market ($3 billion/year at $200,000 which is closest to EADS’s estimate) and Futron at 500 seats growing to thousands of seats over a couple of decades ending at about $700 million/year in 2021, XCOR’s required fraction of the market to achieve a 25% investor return is about 25% of seats or 14% of money given their initial price point in a 500-seat/year market 2% of the money in a $700 million/year market or 1% of a 15,000 seat market (0.5% of the money).

—

If either of these teams is to begin test flights in 2010 and service in 2011 or 2012, I’d look for announcements like “fully funded”, regulatory hurdles met, various announcements about engineering hurdles, then an actual test flight program. It would be nice if they gave a public timeline of minimum time from each event to first paying participant flight. I don’t think more secrecy than is necessary for mystery and buzz is beneficial with each team taking a different approach and offering a well-differentiated product that requires extensive disclosure to meet regulatory hurdles and attract customers.

Political Commentary

America’s True Shame

I don’t often agree with Ezra Klein, but he hits this one out of the park:

Criminals aren’t sent to prison so they can learn to live outside of prison; they’re sent to prison to get what they deserve. And that paves the way for the acceptance of all manners of brutal abuses. It’s not that we condone prison rape per se, but it doesn’t exactly concern us, and occasionally, as in the comments made by Lockyer, we take a perverse satisfaction in its existence.

Morally, our tacit acceptance of violence within prisons is grotesque. But it’s also counterproductive. Research by economists Jesse Shapiro and Keith Chen suggests that violent prisons make prisoners more violent after they leave. When your choice is between the trauma of hardening yourself so no one will touch you or the trauma of prostituting yourself so you’re protected from attack, either path leads away from rehabilitation and psychological adjustment.

I think that we have a lot too many people in prison, but that aside, with the possible exception of rapists (for whom it might be an appropriate eye-for-eye punishment) no one should have to fear being raped in prison. I think that it’s shameful that our society tolerates this. If we want to be explicit and openly declare that we are sentencing drug offenders and others to be raped, then we should do that, but if not, then we should put an end to it. I accept no excuses from the penal community. If they didn’t want it to happen, they could stop it.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has pointed this out, and sadly, it won’t be the last, either. I see no groundswell of support to do anything about it.

Political Commentary

America’s True Shame

I don’t often agree with Ezra Klein, but he hits this one out of the park:

Criminals aren’t sent to prison so they can learn to live outside of prison; they’re sent to prison to get what they deserve. And that paves the way for the acceptance of all manners of brutal abuses. It’s not that we condone prison rape per se, but it doesn’t exactly concern us, and occasionally, as in the comments made by Lockyer, we take a perverse satisfaction in its existence.

Morally, our tacit acceptance of violence within prisons is grotesque. But it’s also counterproductive. Research by economists Jesse Shapiro and Keith Chen suggests that violent prisons make prisoners more violent after they leave. When your choice is between the trauma of hardening yourself so no one will touch you or the trauma of prostituting yourself so you’re protected from attack, either path leads away from rehabilitation and psychological adjustment.

I think that we have a lot too many people in prison, but that aside, with the possible exception of rapists (for whom it might be an appropriate eye-for-eye punishment) no one should have to fear being raped in prison. I think that it’s shameful that our society tolerates this. If we want to be explicit and openly declare that we are sentencing drug offenders and others to be raped, then we should do that, but if not, then we should put an end to it. I accept no excuses from the penal community. If they didn’t want it to happen, they could stop it.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has pointed this out, and sadly, it won’t be the last, either. I see no groundswell of support to do anything about it.

Political Commentary

America’s True Shame

10 Comments

I don’t often agree with Ezra Klein, but he hits this one out of the park:

Criminals aren’t sent to prison so they can learn to live outside of prison; they’re sent to prison to get what they deserve. And that paves the way for the acceptance of all manners of brutal abuses. It’s not that we condone prison rape per se, but it doesn’t exactly concern us, and occasionally, as in the comments made by Lockyer, we take a perverse satisfaction in its existence.

Morally, our tacit acceptance of violence within prisons is grotesque. But it’s also counterproductive. Research by economists Jesse Shapiro and Keith Chen suggests that violent prisons make prisoners more violent after they leave. When your choice is between the trauma of hardening yourself so no one will touch you or the trauma of prostituting yourself so you’re protected from attack, either path leads away from rehabilitation and psychological adjustment.

I think that we have a lot too many people in prison, but that aside, with the possible exception of rapists (for whom it might be an appropriate eye-for-eye punishment) no one should have to fear being raped in prison. I think that it’s shameful that our society tolerates this. If we want to be explicit and openly declare that we are sentencing drug offenders and others to be raped, then we should do that, but if not, then we should put an end to it. I accept no excuses from the penal community. If they didn’t want it to happen, they could stop it.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has pointed this out, and sadly, it won’t be the last, either. I see no groundswell of support to do anything about it.

Administrative, General, History

Back In LA

5 Comments

I took a little longer to drive back from Phoenix because I did two things that I’ve never done, in all the times I’ve made that trip over the past thirty years. I stopped at the Colorado River in Blythe and walked across, and I stopped and did a quick tour of the Patton Museum at Chiriaco Summit. I’d show the pictures, but I don’t seem to have my card reader with me. I might pick one up at Fry’s tomorrow.

The latter was more impressive than I expected, considering that it’s private, not official. More so on the interior than outside, though. They have a number of tanks out there, in various states of decrepitude and disrepair, and no signs to provide any useful information about them. Still worth a visit, though, for anyone interested in military history.

Business, Space

Wrap Up

1 Comment

Joe Pistritto: We have a couple teams (Virgin and XCOR) that are planning to fly in a couple years, about the same time as the Shuttle is retired. At that point, the NewSpace industry will be the only way that Americans can get into space, and in that first year more people may fly into space on the new vehicles than have flown in space to date. At that point everyone in the country will have a better idea what this new industry does.

Henry Vanderbilt: Also, they’ll see that there is a horse race. A year or two ago it was assumed that Virgin would be first to market. That’s no longer the case.

Joe: There are going to be different types of experiences at different price points, and as the horse race becomes more clear, it will expose the business to a lot of potential investors who haven’t been paying attention up to now. This is good not just for investment, but for creating a supply chain of suppliers that are needed. Still thinks that this is an individual investor market. Venture funds can’t justify this investment in the current business environment. Can do it with their own money, but not someone else’s. For someone with their own money, there’s no industry that is more exciting than this one.

Henry: Not important who comes in first. Emphasis needs to be that there is competition and that we’re in for exciting times.

Muncy: Difference between spaceflight participants (passengers) and Russ Blink strapping on an oxygen tank and flying out of the atmosphere on an Armadillo vehicle. Markets are wonderful magical things. We have no idea what the possibilities are (who knew that someone would program Doom eventually when Bill Gates said 640K would be plenty). Smart guys in the military might figure out what to do with these things once they’re flying. NASA may want to replace the T-38s now that they’re not flying the Shuttle any more (I think he means Gulfstream), or they might want to practice lunar simulations.

Challenge is to figure out how to get customers interested beyond the tourist flights. It will be different flying in the back of SpaceShipTwo than flying in the cockpit of the Lynx. We’ll see what the market wants. Lord willing the market will want both, and other flavors. The good things about markets is that if you offer something out there of value, it will be rewarded. Thinking about package tours of all the vehicles: Grand Slam of rockets.

[Update]

At that point, I got pulled up to join the panel by Muncy, so I couldn’t blog it.

Anyway, another conference is history. More thoughts later.

Political Commentary, Space

Jim Muncy Speaks

9 Comments

Says that we have to engage SEDS, both because it’s a good source of enthusiastic people who will work cheap, and more importantly because we aren’t getting any younger, and we have to start nurturing young people.

He’s here from Washington, and he’s here to help.

Depressing to sit in meetings in Washington listening people talk about The Vision, and hearing the same things he heard about X-33, SEI, Space Station Freedom, etc. They don’t even seem to learn any new lies.

It is silly season in Washington. Working on the budget. It’s an election bill so they won’t even finish the budget before the election. Wants the election to be over, and has wanted it to be over for months.

Does it matter? Probably not. He and Lori Garver did a “debate” (really an assessment of the candidates at the time) a month and a half ago. Hillary is probably the most supportive of space spending. Fairly pro defense for a New York Democrat. Has in tepid words endorsed the idea of the vision. Also said positive words about private companies and working with them. Has not specifically endorsed Ares.

McCain’s experience with space has been primarily concerned with cost control and getting the job done right.

Obama is the most interesting, and unclear what he thinks. But there is potential for something different, because he says Shuttle is boring. Instincts are not to support current NASA approach. But worst thing would be to continue Ares I and Orion and delay lunar missions. Could create opportunities, or not. Crisis is coming, and crisis represents opportunities. NASA and Air Force are not monoliths.

“You should see the list of things that Orbital wants from Florida to get them to move ther e from Wallops.” There are figures inside the establishment calling for different approaches. Senator Nelson is writing a bill that increases COTS by several hundred million dollars to augment SpaceX and bring in an additional provider for crew transport. He recognizes that this is the only way to have a chance of closing “the Gap.” Senator Shuttle recognizes that he has to bring private space companies to Florida.

We’ve seen NASA put out an RFI for human suborbital science from the private sector. Things are changing. But don’t assume that NASA and the Air Force have come around in general. Also don’t assume that NASA or the Air Force are going to write you a check. Have to figure out what their real mission/requirements are.

We are the PC industry of space. It wasn’t just the people running the computer centers and mainframes thinking that PCs were choice. The challenge was getting the people who used computers then to think through what they did, and how they did it, and imagine doing it differently, and how they could use these new small computers. There are half a dozen people like Ken inside of NASA, but that’s not enough. We have to do their job (which is also our job) which is to figure out how to provide value to them
from their perspective. What he does for a living is help companies do that.

We have to figure out how we play a role in this future, and if an Obama becomes president, and we can’t continue to fund space on an ICBM budget, and we want to continue to send people into space, we will have to come up with new ways.

ESAS is not the same as the Vision. The Aldridge Report is right. It’s not perfect, but it’s largely right. It’s not a blueprint, which is why Griffin was upset with it, and wrote one of his own instead.

Work together, build alliances, come up with concepts to get to market sooner. As the dinosaurs die off, there will be some scraps for the mammals, and room to grow. We are coming to the attention of powerful people, which is a good thing. There are good times ahead, and people are figuring out that there is something wrong. The house of cards is going to fall. Can’t say well, but it’s going to fall.

Mike Griffin might be arrogant (and he has enough degrees to justify that) and he may be building the wrong rockets, but he has also been putting money into commercial activities while he builds das rocketz. We haven’t proven ourselves. Elon still hasn’t launched a payload to orbit. John Carmack still hasn’t won his two million dollars. Only Burt has an accomplishment to date. We can’t just be intellectually correct. We have to show the world that we can do it.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!