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This is one scenario that I imagine might happen in the near future:
NASA and other nations' space agencies dink around for another decade or so with big promises and little results.
A group of companies and other organizations get together (probably organized by a charismatic JFK type leader) and set out to explore/colonize Mars without the government's help.
Once this group shows some solid results, like returning a sample from Mars, NASA and other space agencies get serious and join the race in earnest.
The private organization will have very little cash compared to the government, so NASA catches up in a short time. They are neck and neck down to the last minute.
Who will get there first -- NASA, the private group, or a third nation like China, Russia, or even the ESA?
Do you think it could happen like this?
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My first thought is "unlikly"
The problem is, all corperations are bound to the need to make profit, or die trying. Further, major corperations require investment in order to grow and not be swallowed up/crushed by their competitors, and said investors require a reasonable assurance of return on their money within a relativly short span of time. Lastly, such investments are inversely attractive to their risk, that is a risky venture is one that few/no wise investors will put money into. And an unwise investor is a broke investor...
Anyway, Mars or even Lunar development are all of these things... low certainty of return, very long time until maturity, and high risk of catastrophy or unforseen expense/delay... which is why only a government which can stomach these sorts of things will go anywhere offworld first.
Its a long, long way from doing "sample return" for zero profit using rockets developed by the government to actually putting people on Luna or Mars for profit.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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To do it, the private industry must be given access, and clearance to operate nuclear reactors in space.
As we see with the sub-orbital industry, it takes time to clear the regulatory hurdles and economic costs associates with new technology. But it does happen.
If the world governments keep developing the technology, without going anywhere, eventually the technology and capabilities filter down into a larger pool that is able to exploit it. One of the major reasons to lower launch costs- the lower it is, the more feasible it is for any "crazy" to pursue an eccentric goal.
When a private group tries for Mars, then the governments will probably step in too. Perhaps a similar model to what occured with decoding the human genome could happen. But something like this would probably take another 50 years before it even becomes feasible.
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Maybe some kind of space race can happen between NASA on the one side and a join of private and RSA on the other. Private organisations which buy cheap launch possibilities from Russia. But I think, this will cost time.
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In a way, there is already such a race; NASA, China, and the Artemis Society all have plans to go to the moon, and NASA, ESA, and the Mars Society have plans to go to Mars. The Artemis Society has quite an elaborate moon plan on their website; I looked at it for several hours the other day. The Mars Society not only has a plan--Mars Direct--but an implementation plan (a million-dollar Mars analog site, a ten million dollars Mars biosatellite, a hundred million dollar sample return or other trip to Mars, then the multi-billion dollar Mars Direct). But I don't think very many people believe either Artemis or Mars Direct will be implemented without government assistance.
The main way it could happen is with a series of government-funded prizes, as Zubrin discussed with Newt Gingrich (see end of The Case for Mars).
-- RobS
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The cost for space travel of any kind is still far beyond profitablility for unsubsidized commertial flight. Not talking tourist flights either, but real persistant development. Somthing like the X-30 or Shuttle-LSA would be needed before costs begin to get anywhere that low with reasonable volumes and payloads.
I don't see ESA/RSA going to Mars any time soon because they do not have the funding. Russia cannot hardly come up with enough money to keep Soyuz-TMA/Progress-B flying on the old R-7 rocket and the ESA's budget is likewise quite small. Yes the Russians can do more with less money, but Mars is somthing of a daunting task, and would require billions... billions that are not available.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Good replies.
My first thought was also "unlikely", GCNR, but ever the optimist I have come up with some scenarios that might make it possible:
As for investors and the bottom line...I am a businessperson myself with a good understanding of those things. I think angel investors would be the most likely to get the ball rolling. Then, as the private venture gathered some steam (and credibility) real investors just might jump on for the ride. It might turn into another internet bubble, but it might put someone on Mars before it popped. Another strong source of financing could be membership dues from any participating organizations like the Planetary Society or the Mars Society.
Clearance to launch and operate nukes in space is important. That is why the leader of this private venture would have to have good connections in congress (if launched from USA). Or they could just find another country that will grant them access at an expedited rate. The Transnational companies in "Red Mars" kind of used small countries as pawns to get things done on Mars. It's plausible.
Yes, RobS, the Mars Society is building up to this very situation. They could possibly be the ones to do it. Maybe if the Biogravity satellite is a smashing success it will inspire some billionaire to become the angel investor we're looking for.
When we talk about private corporations we usually think of profit hungry capitalists who are only worried about quarterly reports. However, there are still some long term thinkers out there who just need to be convinced of the true (albeit very long term) value of Mars.
It may be improbable, but it's not impossible or implausible.
(Is "implausible" a word?...Mission Implausible!...
Dunt-Dunt...Daaaada!...Dunt-Dunt...Duuuudu!)
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Well then you have a little economic sense... my take is that the investment required to even begin a project of that magnetude is much greater than anyone will be able to come up with privatly to get sufficent credibility for serious investment needed to make it fly.
There is too big of a gap from Armadillo Aerospace to doing something beyond Nasa's grasp. Someone would have to donate like at least a few billion dollars, which I don't see happening unless said Angel Investor had been skipping his Prozac doses, for real investors to even think something of this magnetude is doable... Donations from various space advocacy groups are also a pretty small drop in the bucket overall too. In short, you still need a good load of coal before you can make ANY steam for such a wild venture.
Unfortunatly, overall market forces will probably dictate that the risk is too high for the level of investment required.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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The costs of a large manned space effort are just too large for private industry, IMO. However, there's a lot of room for innovation for private industry in space. For example, the Planetary society is launching a test solar sail later this year. Electropropulsive tether and M2P2 drive technology are two other potential systems that are lightweight and have a great deal of potential. Assuming that you can get LEO masses down to <200 kg, there are sub-$million launchers (old Soviet ballistic missiles) that can get you to orbit.
NASA is the only game in town for things like large space nuclear reactors but they tend to prioritize the little experiments like M2P2 too far down the list, IMO. There's little return on the investment but if an angel investor were willing to put up a few million, a small expermental space probe is perfectly feasible. It's too small to do much of anything useful but the experience gained would be potentially very useful for NASA or other agencies in the future.
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A lot of the X Prize companies, for example, are building vehicles that would allow a small or microsatellite to orbit or escape. This bring development range down a whole lot to just the cost of a flight plus the constrution of a small booster.
These companies will fight tooth and nail for any contracts that could give them revenue. After all most of their bussiness plans are about bootstrapping from sub-orbital tourisim all the way to mars.
8 or 9 digit donations/investments/contracts are not unimaginable but will require credibility to be built up with the really small projects and tourists.
I think it comes down to how canny the CEO's are and also upon a big slice of extended good fortune.
Come on to the Future
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Well theres the trouble though... you aren't going to gain any credibility launching little 50lb suitcase sized satelites, in fact I think it might even accomplish the opposit, and prove to potential investors just how far private space companies are from any real venture...
"You guys can hardly get 100lb coffee cans into orbit, and you want $100 million to build a Mars probe?"
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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GCNRevenger, funny you mention ArmadilloAerospace as an example how hard it is to surpass NASA...
I've been following them fairly closely for quite awhile, and what they are in essence doing is a SkunkWorks approach to a SDB (*Small* Dumb Booster, heh)
And given, they are only now starting to do some hovering tests on a sub-scale prototype... Tethered at that... And only during the week-ends...
BUT what they achieved so far is simply amazing: from zero knowledge to tough, reusable, restartable engines with a serious ISP, built with off-the-shelf stuff... Running on fairly cheap and easy to handle propellant. Best thing is, these engines seem to be reasonably scalable, so while not overly impressive in ISP numbers, they're SIMPLE (read cheap)
So far, they have only invested about some two-three hundreds of thousands of dollars, a lot of sleepless weekends, and an almighty series of stubborn push-it-till-it-breaks series of tests...
I know: they're nowhere near LEO, but they have everything now to make a kick-ass, very cheap, because reusable w/o a lot of servicing headaches, first stage... And it cost them 'nothing' compared to similar tests (RVT, for instance)
For the latest news: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/A … ews_id=254 (there's a link to a 4Mb mpg in the article with a hovertest...)
Gotta love the SkunkWorks approach: they're going to keep testing with this prototype 'till it -inevitably- crashes. Only *then* they will build a bigger one.
Carmack has said himself that only a crash of SS1 will give them a chance to win the Prize, BTW. Not that he want that to happen, of course!
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Ehhh they are further from LEO than you think... getting up 60mi at ~0 ground speed isn't a difficult feat for amerature rocketeers, so making a big one that people can ride isn't so big of a deal, the low Isp of the engines and high vehicle weight aren't a showstopper.
But for orbital flight, you have to reach double that altitude AND accelerate nearly fifteen thousand miles an hour laterally to STAY up.
And thats just to get up there, that doesn't include power enough to keep the crew from freezing/roasting, that doesn't include life support sufficent for a one-week trip to get anywhere, and doesn't forget a RCS system to be able to maneuver either.
Then you have to come back down... which does require maneuvering, and requires an OMS engine, and then the biggie - the heat shield. Making a manned spaceship isn't easy, the old Mercury/Gemini capsules were still feats of engineering.
Etcetera etcetera... such a vehicle able to move multiple people and come back down is going to get pretty heavy, and thats where the "Alt Space" people will get their heads handed to them with their little vehicles and low-Isp rockets. It all adds up to killing the payload mass fraction, which is where the dollars go to eek out the last bit of weight in gov't rockets and they are still very, very big to reach a reasonable payload weight.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Well theres the trouble though... you aren't going to gain any credibility launching little 50lb suitcase sized satelites, in fact I think it might even accomplish the opposit, and prove to potential investors just how far private space companies are from any real venture...
Isn't it possible, due to electronic miniaturizing ao, that in about a decade spacecrafts of 2 kg can flyby Mars? I can imagine such a project would be sponsered by some private person and make billionairs crazy. :rant:
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No, not really. There are some limitations to making a practical Martian probe that small...
1: Power. The data rate you can transmit to Earth is proportional to the power of the transmitter, so you need signifigant solar pannel area to move data, especially since the Sun is so dim at that distance. The size of transmitter dish is also an issue, it needs to be fairly large.
2: Propellant density & minimum engine size. Rocket fuel takes up space and rocket engines with sufficent thrust can't be too small, so you will need a probe of at least a little size.
As far as miniaturization, I really don't think that electronics or optics will get that small/light any time soon.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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As I have seen it, the whole point of the X-prize companies and other companies such as SpaceX and Xcor is to show that it can be done. They aren't interested in sending billion dollar satellites to orbit (At least not yet). The ships they are building are focused on sending people to Low-Earth-Orbit on a "First American in Space" ride. If they demonstrate the capability to send people to LEO at a reasonable cost, do you not think that that would generate demand among space enthusiasts?
Rutan for example, is about a third of way to LEO. And the thing is, he's been using a radically different approach then simply strap rockets onto a capsule (I know it's not that easy). He has built a custom aircraft to carry his custom ship to 50,000 feet. He has the funding of one of the founders of Microsoft for goodness sake.
And if any of you doubt his aircraft-building capabilities, check out their website and see what sort of hardware Scaled has gotten to fly.
I don't see Armadillo succeeding before Scaled, or Starchaser, although their design approach is most impressive.
And maybe, just maybe, a private craft reaching LEO will be a big wake-up call to NASA.
In the interests of my species
I am a firm supporter of stepping out into this great universe both armed and dangerous.
Bootprints in red dust, or bust!
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Ah but none of the X-prize people or any AltSpace NGO is even considering orbital manned flight, they are all exclusively SUB orbital. Suborbital flight is pretty easy, you just go straight up and come back down. If you don't fly too high or too fast, heating isn't a problem, and there is no deorbit burn either. Orbital spaceflight requires a vehicle of far, far, higher performance which will have to be more efficent and much larger, requiring a large investment just to get up there, to say nothing of the vehicle.
Scaled & Co are good at making aircraft, which is what their SS1/White Knight are, but they are a long long way from building a real orbital space ship.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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So then, the challenge after the X-Prize...
What would be the minimum design requirements to get three people into orbit, and back?
Nothing fancy, just the bare minimum?
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GCNRevenger,
I beg to differ. I would bet my family fortune (about $12.50) that every last one of the X-Prize contenders is considering LEO. They just don't talk about it much because they can't even accomplish suborbital yet. Just watch, when one of them wins the X-Prize, they won't stop talking about LEO.
Here's another way that private industry could compete with NASA: After the X-Prize is accomplished a few more Generation-X multimillionaires get excited and donate $500 million to the Y-Prize -- 3 people in LEO in the same vehicle twice in two weeks.
Then after that is accomplished even more million/billionaires pitch in with a $5 billion Mars-Prize -- 3 people to Mars and back.
Winning the X-Prize will excite many many people.
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This is probably the best way for an angel investor to use his/her money. The X-Prize has lured 10-20 contenders. At least one of them will eventually pull it off. Then, the investor can hitch a ride to space at a fraction of the cost of funding one company.
The same could work for Mars.
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Well then i'd have to call them lunatics...
A three-seater RLV all the way to orbit and back without a multibillion dollar investment? I don't think so... the size of vehicle required to do that is far, far bigger. Getting from suborbital to LEO is much harder than it at first seems, and getting back will easily make the ship far heavier, hence making the whole thing bigger and harder and more expensive... the rocket equation is a catch 22 if there is one.
Mars Prize? Maybe my (in the the unlikly event I have them) grand kids will see that.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Nah, take the RLV off the table. Just a one-shot cheap trip?
Something that gives you a couple orbits, at most.
Isn't the real issue just the launch costs of a rocket, and the reentry?
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The interesting thing is this -- Some of these companies are spending more than $10 million to win the X-Prize. (I'm pretty sure this is true. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
If that is true then some will spend more than the $500 million to get to LEO. And as a whole they are spending an order of magnitude more than the prize itself.
What these overspenders hope to get isn't the prize itself but the publicity of winning and the downstream returns of having a reusable vehicle.
Very interesting if you ask me!
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Eh, if the vehicle only lasts a few orbits, then you might as well be suborbital. It has to stay up at least a week, which is really the minimum to get anywhere. It takes several days for a Soyuz to rendevous with the ISS on an intercept orbit. A shorter flight isn't really worth the trouble.
The issues are that the vehicle itself will be pretty heavy and expensive, it will be MUCH more complicated than SS1 or any other X-Prize vehicle (OMS/RCS, heatshield/parachutes/airbags, power/thermal/LSS, maybe docking HW) and is probably beyond any 8-digit investment to make such a craft sufficently reliable for routine flight, reuseable or not.
The second problem is that X-Prize class vehicles are at least an order of magnetude or two too small because their low-ISP engines and cost-before-weight construction will make their payload fraction (mass to orbit vs. vehicle mass) very small.
Then there is the problem that you won't be able to fly an expendable vehicle very often, because the rocket engines and stages are expensive to make, particularly large ones, and take time to build. For a two-stage vehicle, that means fifty >99% reliable engines & stages a year to launch every other week.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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GCNrevenger, of course you can't go from having no experience with Spacecraft to putting a craft in orbit without some steps in between, to do so you would either have to be -improbably lucky- or -bloody stupid-.
So maybe NASA, with a comparitively massive budget compared to NGOs can pull it off, chunking a few people into orbit. What then?
They can inspire the next generation of scientists and dreamers, who inspire the next generation, and so on. They serve to inspire, but very few people actually go anywhere. So they advance the sciences, but we all go around in circles regardless. They lift national spirits, but to what end?
NASA gives us dreams, while NGOs have the potential to give flesh and bone to those dreams. Going suborbital is a way to make yourself less of an investment risk, as a company that can put its money where its metaphorical mouth is will be more likely to attract investors who are willing to lay down a large sum of money.
In the interests of my species
I am a firm supporter of stepping out into this great universe both armed and dangerous.
Bootprints in red dust, or bust!
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