STOP PRESS: Scaled announce launch date

GCNRevenger · 2004-06-07 09:39:22

$6Bn at 8-10% of interest... to be paid for by launching small numbers of tourists willing to pay $10M and launching a few low-cost LEO satellites... Iiii don't think so.

Yes it does Bill, because we don't need it to get astronauts to the Moon or Mars... build a HLLV based on Shuttle or EELV hardware to launch only a few times a year, and maybe an uprated Delta/Atlas, and that would do if you just want to get your boots red.

clark · 2004-06-07 09:52:00

6 Billion. 9% interest. $1000 per pound. 10MT to orbit per ride.

You would need to fly your bird twice a month.

Bill White · 2004-06-07 09:56:13

6 Billion. 9% interest. $1000 per pound. 10MT to orbit per ride.
You would need to fly your bird twice a month.

Fuel? Crew? Ground support infrastructure? Insurance?

Pay $1500 per pound and you can fly Zenit-2 today.

= = =

But we are back to the demand side // supply side business JimM talked about in that other thread.

ONLY emigration (IMHO) will support the demand needed to justify the investment needed to reduce launch costs.

An RLV needs assured payloads. Even if it can fly 4 times per month, why should you assume 4 payloads will be commercially available each month?

clark · 2004-06-07 10:00:30

No Bill, you and I can't fly on a Zenit-2. It isn't built for people. Even if it was, there is nothing to ride in and back (other than the Soyuz, and they aren't for sale, and they aren't cheap).

At $1500 per pound, you would need to lift 30,000 lbs to orbit per month, and you would need 1.23 flights per month to break even.

An RLV needs assured payloads. Even if it can fly 4 times per month, why should you assume 4 payloads will be commercially available each month?

Because it will be people. The ones you can't fill, hold a lottery. Sell tickets to business men who want to impress Saudi princes. Sell entire flights for scientific research programs. Mail delivery. You only need one flight to keep the lights on- everything else is gravy, which you use to build more ships, to handle more people, to make it easier to pay the bills in the long run.

Bill White · 2004-06-07 10:24:08

No Bill, you and I can't fly on a Zenit-2. It isn't built for people. Even if it was, there is nothing to ride in and back (other than the Soyuz, and they aren't for sale, and they aren't cheap).
At $1500 per pound, you would need to lift 30,000 lbs to orbit per month, and you would need 1.23 flights per month to break even.
An RLV needs assured payloads. Even if it can fly 4 times per month, why should you assume 4 payloads will be commercially available each month?
Because it will be people. The ones you can't fill, hold a lottery. Sell tickets to business men who want to impress Saudi princes. Sell entire flights for scientific research programs. Mail delivery. You only need one flight to keep the lights on- everything else is gravy, which you use to build more ships, to handle more people, to make it easier to pay the bills in the long run.

Why fly cargo in a man-rated limousine?

Zenit-2 can carry cargo just fine. So much so that Boeing threw in the towel and just started buying Zenit-2 lower stages for their Zenit 3SL for SeaLaunch.

People? Kliper from Kouru will be your cost target for crew.

I believe it would cost far less than $6 billion to man-rate a 5 or 6 seat Kliper capsule lifted on an R-7 with a cryogenic upper stage.

Besides, how many people do you need to fly every month to amortize a $6 billion investment?

GCNRevenger · 2004-06-07 11:42:32

Thats one and a quarter fligths per month assuming no launch costs at all beyond development, which I would say will be nontrivial considering the cost of insurance for the inevitable vehicle "mishap," which I would say means you do need to fly weekly - three times monthly to pay for devel, fuel, etc - and one for profit.

Again, space tourism isn't going to do it for you, because there just aren't enough passengers. You would need to seat three at a bit over $11M a pop to fly at least three times a month lets say plus one for satelite business (optimistic!) to make this thing work... I don't think there are 108 people a year who would cough up that kind of money for the life of the vehicle and there aren't many satellites launched yearly either. There just aren't enough Titos and Shuttleworths.

---

Ehhh about Klipper/Onega, I don't have alot of faith that the Russians can build it with how stone-cold broke they are... it would be great if they could, but where would they fly it to besides the ISS or the occasional tourist flights? The Soyuz/R7 combo today costs $40-50M a pop, and even though Klipper is semi-reuseable, it would be hard to do more than break even with tourists.

clark · 2004-06-07 12:59:15

A better question is, how many people can fit in a 10MT payload?

I simply have no idea.

GNC, would you go on a ride to orbit if the price was right?

I'm betting most people would, assuming of course the price is right. Just like the determination between traveling to Europe, or say Mexico. Price plays a major factor in where you spend that free money.

Worldwide, I'm betting that there are more than enough people interested in this. And yes, they have done preliminary studies and found that a market exsists (substantial) from the super rich. Of course you'll make more money if you can bring operating costs down and just have fuel as the primary cost driver (which lowers costs and allows you to expand the available market by making it a bit more affordable).

Bill White · 2004-06-07 13:05:08

Ehhh about Klipper/Onega, I don't have alot of faith that the Russians can build it with how stone-cold broke they are... it would be great if they could, but where would they fly it to besides the ISS or the occasional tourist flights? The Soyuz/R7 combo today costs $40-50M a pop, and even though Klipper is semi-reuseable, it would be hard to do more than break even with tourists.

That comes back to the demand side again.

If an American alt-space project or a DC-? did create new demand, wouldn't some international mogul decide to partner up with Energia?

If you had $6 billion to invest for flying tourists to LEO would you build a new spacecraft or simply offer the cash starved Russians just enough to get the job done?

Euler · 2004-06-07 13:30:26

Our materials science has advanced, but you forget that rocket fuel, the biggest contributor to vehicle mass, has not. The SSME and RL-60 already run at above 90% of the maximum theoretical efficency for LOX/LH2, the best practical fuel there is, because the hydrogen and oxygen bonds simply won't re-arrange any faster than that. Even if your structure dry mass were near zero, you would still need a big expensive rocket just to carry the fuel you need to get the fuel to get into orbit. THATS why Burt/Carmack/et al aren't going anywhere fast. Current rocket technology is reaching a plateu, where it just isn't getting any better as long as we rely on chemical rockets.

Actually, the LOX/LH2 reaction has an ideal isp of 528. SSME (vacuum isp=453) has 86% of the maximum isp, or 74% energy efficiency. RL-60 (vacuum isp=465) has 88% of the maximum isp, or 78% energy efficiency.

LOX/LH2 is the best practical rocket fuel right now, but that does not mean that it always will be. There has bben research on using tripropellants such as Be-O2/H2 (ideal isp=705) or Li-O2/H2 (ideal isp=703). Farther into the future, atomic hydrogen (ideal isp=2112) or triplet helium (ideal isp=3150) could be used, though currently there are problems creating and storing these fuels.

GCNRevenger · 2004-06-07 13:56:52

88% is pretty close to 90%

You get the idea though. There is not alot more performance that can be squeezed out of the sorrta-easy-to-handle current rocket fuels. Mixing metals with the fuel is possible to get more Isp, but the exhaust with Be is somewhat toxic I would imagine, and probably the same with Li. (Lithium used to be given to psychiatric patients) There is also a question if the engine itself would tollerate the metal dopants, would it wear down a turbopump? Scratches in machinery operating at -400F are not a good thing. Especially an issue if you are wanting to reuse the engine. I would think it would be easier just to make a LOX/LH rocket bigger than to use metal doped fuel.

Radical hydrogen or spin-controlled Helium I would place in the far-far out catagory of metastable fuels, ones that we won't be seeing for a while if ever. There is a pretty small amount of helium in the world anyway I believe, which you need liquid helium to stabilize the radical hydrogen from what i've read of it. If you have alot of it in one place, very very nasty tendnacy to explode outside of carefully controlled conditions.

There is a solution though... don't bring any LOX. Using the oxygen in the atmosphere would substantially lighten the load and raise the effective Isp of hydrogen fuel several times. Say, Isp in the 1,200-1,500sec range or more perhaps? This is the ultimate goal of the Scramjet engine, but is a ways off from being fast enough for space travel. An in-between measure, like the White Knight but far larger and faster, would be a carrier plane taking off by jet and a rocket upper stage powerd by conventional hydrogen rockets. It would be pretty large, but I believe possible.

Euler · 2004-06-07 14:22:15

88% is pretty close to 90%

Yes, but that small difference represents a significant increase in payload for a reusable vehicle.

GCNRevenger · 2004-06-07 14:33:47

I know that the improvement is nonlinear, but I doubt very much we'll be able to build a LOX/LH rocket engine that can top 500sec Isp, and just a few percent better Isp doesn't translate into a huge difference in payload. The DC-I's aerospike engine was supposed to have an Isp around 423sec if memory serves.

I would love to go Clark, but if I wanted to or not, I can't pay that $11M now and probably won't be able to ever. I certainly wouldn't be able to afford TWO tickets... There aren't enough millionaires willing to go to give you over a hundred passengers a year ever year to help you pay off those billions in development costs.

How many people 10MT buys you depends on how safe you want them to fly. Ejectable titanium reentry escape pod? Ejection seats? Or just trust in the rocket not to blow up or crash? If you say the latter two, I think there is enough mass for six and perhaps eight. If you want an escape pod arrangement however, it is going to get cramped pretty fast... Four tops.

clark · 2004-06-07 15:20:04

Okay- I'm basing this off of an estimate for the Kankoh Maru, which was a japanese orbital tourist monstrosity. It called for 50 passangers to LEO, which is about 50 tons or so.

So, 1 ton = 1 person.

10MT to LEO with the DC-XA, with the previously mentioned numbers comes out to 4.5 million a seat for one flight a month. That means, to break even with only one flight per month, it would cost 4.5 million per person.

However, let's assume weekly launches- the number of people would be 40, which reduces the need to charge as much to break even. It comes out to 1.125 million per person.

Still a millionaires club deal, so the real solution is to up the passanger number. Two ways to do this, make her bigger. Just scale up, which allows better mass ratio's to orbit. Fly even more often, which allows you to send up more people, thereby decreasing the cost and increasing the market size that can take advantage of the cost. (really, it's the supply that limits the profitability).

So, do exactly what the airliners did. They got biiger planes, and flew more often. Oh yeah, they started out with small planes flying the rich.

Bill White · 2004-06-07 15:22:40

So, do exactly what the airliners did. They got biiger planes, and flew more often. Oh yeah, they started out with small planes flying the rich.

I suggest NOT buying any airline stocks right now. . .

GCNRevenger · 2004-06-07 15:50:58

DC-XA was the vehicle that crashed and burned and would never reach more than a few hundred feet, you mean the DC-I right?

Unfortunatly the crazy Japanese tourist vehicle probably isn't safe enough to be flying that often, and extra safety... in this case an armored cabin capable of being ejected in the event of "failure" and withstand reentry... would add substantial mass in order to give you reasonable volume to do more than give your passenger a place to sit. The Apollo capsule of old weighed in at around 6MT I think and had no room at all hardly, so I think 10MT for a four-seat arrangement and a cabin with room to stand up, room for a toilet, room for a group photo... And one of those seats needs to be for the pilot. Klipper will weigh in at around 15MT and it has very little internal volume. Three seats per flight for paying customers I would think a maximum for the escape-pod arrangement or pod+orbital cabin Russian-style setup.

Thats 1.25 flights per month to pay the interest on a $6Bn development loan at 9% is not a break even point, thats only what you owe the venture capital people in interest, and doesn't count any other launch cost. Launch pad lease, insurance, engineer staff, equipment, hangers, fuel handling, parts, etc...

I would imagine that you would have to fly weekly at the full $33,000,000 per flight/"$1500 a pound" level to make any money to pay down your loan with said venture capitalists, lets say that you manage to make three quarters of a flight worth of money per month in net profit with four flights a month. So as it stands, you need to find twelve people per month willing to pay you $11,000,000 each or four 10MT satellites/kick-stages or a mix thereof every month for what, 20 years? Just to pay down your loan.

THEN you can make one whole red cent off the whole ordeal, provided you can get a loan for a rocket system for so long, and don't forget your chances of losing and having to replace a vehicle or two in ~1000 launches is pretty good.

GCNRevenger · 2004-06-07 16:05:34

Oh and scaling up... yes you can make the DC-I bigger, but as it stands right now, its already 40M long weighs in at a bit under a million pounds wet. Making the vehicle larger will make that $6Bn figure climb and climb, spiraling out of control... it isn't practical to make a single-chaimber cryogenic engine a great deal bigger than the highly modified J-2 on the DC-I, the pressure inside would be too high for any material to withstand, and using multiple engines will raise the development price substantially... More size means more plates for the skin, more pieces, more expense. That $6Bn figure for the modest DC-I will get swallowed up pretty quick by the monster devel bill for a giant version.

clark · 2004-06-07 16:29:02

Alright, stay on planet earth. I'm off to dream.

clark · 2004-06-07 16:48:53

What if...

Tax free zone. All the profits don't get taxed. Still want to rain on my parade?

Euler · 2004-06-07 21:21:51

I know that the improvement is nonlinear, but I doubt very much we'll be able to build a LOX/LH rocket engine that can top 500sec Isp, and just a few percent better Isp doesn't translate into a huge difference in payload. The DC-I's aerospike engine was supposed to have an Isp around 423sec if memory serves.

If the vehicle is similar to shuttle (payload= 1/5 dry mass), then a 1% increase in isp should increase the payload by about 10%. That by itself won't make spacetravel cheap, but when you combine it with better materials, it could be the difference between a sucsessful spaceplane and a failure.

Okay- I'm basing this off of an estimate for the Kankoh Maru, which was a japanese orbital tourist monstrosity. It called for 50 passangers to LEO, which is about 50 tons or so.
So, 1 ton = 1 person.
10MT to LEO with the DC-XA, with the previously mentioned numbers comes out to 4.5 million a seat for one flight a month. That means, to break even with only one flight per month, it would cost 4.5 million per person.

I think that the ammount of people that can be carried varries nonlinearly with the mass of the vehicle. It may be possible to carry 1 person/ton for a large vehicle, but 1 person/2.5 tons is more reasonable for a smaller vehicle.

The DC-I's aerospike engine was supposed to have an Isp around 423sec if memory serves.

Aerospike engines generally have a lower maximum isp than bell nozzel engines, but thier advantage is that they are efficient at all altitudes (at sea level the SSMEs have an isp of only 360). If the engine can maintain an isp of close to 423 for it's entire flight, then it should be competative with conventional engines.

Rxke · 2004-09-13 08:01:39

Gazillion of topics related to Scaled Composites, dunno where to post this???

Before you click... Try to guess what... It's rather weird, come to think of it...

http://www.desertnews.com/2004/Septembe … tml]Scaled gets a job... From NASA

SpaceNut · 2004-09-13 09:06:44

That is big news for scale composite but it is also an awakening of Nasa to not always do if it is not invented here we do not care approach. One can only hope that this is successful and that more of this continues with Nasa.

dicktice · 2004-09-14 16:03:08

Read the news item, and it sounds just like our Burt, from my alma mater Cal Poly. He never misses a chance to capitalize on whatever he dreams up. Whatta guy!

John Creighton · 2004-09-15 22:03:02

So what is the x-37 anyway? It looks like a lighter more reliable version of the space shuttle orbiter. I wonder if it could be used as an escape pod for the ISS.

Rxke · 2004-09-27 03:55:48

We have Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Megastores and Virgin Credit Card...

Enter http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/natu … stm]Virgin Galactic!

Not such a big surprize, but still... Branson took the jump!

"The new service will be called Virgin Galactic. Up to 3,000 astronauts could be flying into space over a five-year period, according to Virgin."

And:

"Virgin Galactic will be run as a business, but a business with the sole purpose of making space travel more and more affordable."

http://www.virgingalactic.com/]Official site here...

Rxke · 2004-09-27 04:42:32

http://www.spacedaily.com/2004/04092709 … .html]From SpaceDaily some more details.

Branson planning to build several launchpads in different countries!?!

Pads? What do you need launchpads for if you use SS1 (or SS1.2 or wahtever...)

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