L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

RobS · 2002-11-30 10:24:44

Why do you think NASA should be privatized? They've privatized the shuttle launching already and all that means is that Boeing makes a lot of money launching the shuttles. And as Zubrin has shown, the cost of private launching has not dropped in the last twenty years. The French are trying to gain as much of the launch market as possible and have actually managed to grab a lot of it; but not by launching at a tenth of the cost! Their costs are about the same.

And there's no point to mass producing space shuttles when the machines are too expensive to fly. There's inadequate demand for it.

-- RobS

Tyr · 2002-11-30 20:44:20

Rob, my answer can be found at http://www.spaceislandgroup.com As long as Congress is in control of the space program instead of businesses trying to make a profit off everything from comsats to tourism to SPS or helium 3 (when we get fusion), we will get nothing but political pork projects. The best way to get more done in space is to do away with NASA the way they are doing away with AMTRAK. The defense space operations which are separate from NASA will have to remain intact, and since the DOD uses Titans to launch their spy sats they don't need the Shuttle. As long as Congress sets the objectives which amount to nothing but flags and footprints missions or flags and a space station that's no better than the MIR and not nearly as good as Skylab, instead of entrepeneurs whose objectives are high-volume space tourism and low cost space transportation for industrial operations, we will have $500 million per launch dinosaurs and not much else.

Tyr · 2002-11-30 20:50:41

And while I am on the soapbox, the creation of fully reusable launch vehicles made of standardized parts, mass produced with automation and even some cheap foreign labor, simplified designs (the RS-68 motors have 90% fewer parts than the SSMEs), in other words building space vehicles the way we build cars and airliners, would make things cheap. When the price to orbit comes down to $20,000 a person, there will be millions of customers in the tourism and industrial sectors of the market. Washington D.C. just has no interest in operating a for profit business. If they did, maybe our taxes would be much lower!!!

Bill White · 2002-12-01 12:41:21

As long as Congress is in control of the space program instead of businesses trying to make a profit off everything from comsats to tourism to SPS or helium 3 (when we get fusion), we will get nothing but political pork projects.

Heh! Explain where these "profits" will come from?

If there were profits to be made why ask Congress for anything. The Russians will gladly sell you all the heavy lift you can afford to buy and given the current exchange rate and the Russian need for hard currency you could probably get a really good deal if you offered to purchase, say, a dozen Energia launches.

The Russians *are* selling tourism spots as fast as possible - comsat launch capability is three times what the market can use and as for H3 demand? - well - fusion has been 20 years away for the last 50 years and IMHO will still be 20 years away 30 years from today.

Sorry for the rant - but I am sick and tired of guys saying space will come if only we "unleash" the private sector.

Unleash the private sector? There are NO leashes on the private sector right now. The Russians will sell big corporations all the space access they can afford.

IMHO, privatization talk usually comes from private companies wanting to milk the federal teat and their lobbyists who are seeking commissions.

And while I am on the soapbox, the creation of fully reusable launch vehicles made of standardized parts, mass produced with automation and even some cheap foreign labor, simplified designs (the RS-68 motors have 90% fewer parts than the SSMEs), in other words building space vehicles the way we build cars and airliners, would make things cheap. When the price to orbit comes down to $20,000 a person, there will be millions of customers in the tourism and industrial sectors of the market. Washington D.C. just has no interest in operating a for profit business. If they did, maybe our taxes would be much lower!!!

Find someone willing to invest multiple zillions of dollars and RSC Energia will build as many of these things as you can dream of. Multi-zillionaires, however, like to see some assurance of profit before investing.

Tyr · 2002-12-01 12:50:39

I suggest you go back and read my posts more closely, and give it some thought. What has 40 years of government activity and corporate welfare for Lockheed and Boeing achieved??? If we stay the present course, the most you will ever get is a token Moon base and a tuna-can mission to Mars if your are lucky. A new direction is necessary. Profits-tourism, alloying, energy, comsats, etc. This all depends on the price of a pound orbit coming down to well under $1000. What's your idea??? Some original thought would be appreciated.

Phobos · 2002-12-01 14:46:48

This all depends on the price of a pound orbit coming down to well under $1000. What's your idea??? Some original thought would be appreciated.

I'm pinning my hopes on the space elevator. I have no idea if Highlift will ultimately pull it off or not but it would certainly bring launch costs below a $1000 and since it's being operated by a private company it's possible it'll open space access that much more to organizations who could never afford to launch payloads using the traditional government subsidized system. I'm beginning to subscribe to the RaW idea, rockets are wrong.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-12-01 18:50:51

Wouldn't it be great if this argument about public-versus-private, and rockets-versus-elevators, were just a repeat of the kind of arguments which probably occurred back in 1902: Ships or trains or some combination of the two? Where does the future of transport lie? Naval power or the Army? Which branch of the military will wield the real power in the next hundred years?
Nobody had a clue that air transportation and air power wielded by Air Forces would transform the world. Their thinking just didn't extend to that kind of possibility.

Just suppose that while we're all examining rocket capabilities, both chemical and nuclear, or even surmising about space elevators, the real action is happening in research labs.
Call me a dreamer if you will (I've been called worse! ), but wouldn't it be stunning if the gravito-magnetic effect were just about to make all our arguments moot?!!
:0

A little off-topic, I know. But the thought entered my head so I decided to throw it into the discussion.
Go Ron Koczor !!!

Phobos · 2002-12-01 22:00:17

Just suppose that while we're all examining rocket capabilities, both chemical and nuclear, or even surmising about space elevators, the real action is happening in research labs.
Call me a dreamer if you will (I've been called worse! ), but wouldn't it be stunning if the gravito-magnetic effect were just about to make all our arguments moot?!!

I certainly won't be the one to argue against the possibility that radical new technologies could come along and totally make our discussions about elevators and rockets seem outdated and primitive. Personally I hope it happens! Who knows, Shaun might be rubbing our faces in it when that first anti-grav ship glides easily and quietly out past the atmosphere and toward Mars.

Bill White · 2002-12-02 00:18:15

I suggest you go back and read my posts more closely, and give it some thought. What has 40 years of government activity and corporate welfare for Lockheed and Boeing achieved??? If we stay the present course, the most you will ever get is a token Moon base and a tuna-can mission to Mars if your are lucky. A new direction is necessary. Profits-tourism, alloying, energy, comsats, etc. This all depends on the price of a pound orbit coming down to well under $1000. What's your idea??? Some original thought would be appreciated.

This is a very nasty Catch-22 with NO easy answers.

Lower launch costs opens space to increased demand and increased demand will lower launch costs. Which comes first? Today, launch capability greatly outstrips demand. In retrospect, even the Ariane5 was a lousy investment, given the lack of payloads - so why invest in new heavy lift?

Profit motive is not a sufficient reason to go into space since safer and more certain profits can be earned on Earth. Put simply, we need to articulate better reasons for going into space, reasons NOT initially based on making money.

Comsats? Can you say Iridium? Been there, tried that, bankruptcy court. Fiber and wi-fi nets may always be cheaper than comsats for high bandwidth communication nets.

Energy? Not the old solar power microwave idea? Wired Magazine just ran a piece about a guy gene splicing bacteria seeking to create a microbe that will crack water into H2 and O2 using nothing but sunlight. His energy will always be cheaper than anything beamed to Earth from gigantic solar arrays AND allows de-centralized H2 production for local electric power without massive infrastructure.

Alloys? The percentage that raw material costs contribute to the price of everything has been falling by orders of magnitude every few decades. This will continue. Besides, as I posted on another thread, import a billion tons of platinum or diamonds from an asteroid and the price of platinum or diamonds will fall to pennies on the pound.

Tourism? Sure, I can agree with this one. But lots of really smart and rich people are already running with this ball as fast as they can. Good luck. But remember - Cunard and White Star could only afford to run those giant cruise ships like the Titanic because of 3rd class and steerage immigrants paying one way tickets from Europe to America.

In the 1920s, when the USA closed Ellis Island and greatly restricted immigration, the paying 1st class passenger generated insufficient revenue to keep the cruise lines running.

So, let go back to square one. Why is everybody so eager to go into space anyways? Lets go back to square one and analyze our true motives and intentions and maybe we can find a way to get there without merely hoping and praying for a technological miracle to fall in our laps.

Now, if this ice can be broken, or this catch-22 solved, I will readily and completely agree that humankind's first Trillionaire will be made from developing commercial space ventures. That trillionaire, however, will NOT be the icebreaker, the first billionaire to grab for the brass ring - - he/she may well be the 2nd or the 5th or the 17th following the bankrupcty of all earlier efforts.

Bottom line - IF - you were Bill Gates would you place $10 or $20 or $50 billion on the craps table and hope to roll a "lucky 7" or would you invest in places like India or the next edition of Windows or by giving money to Senate campaign funds?

Which is most likely to earn a good return with least risk?

= = =

Here is another fly in the soup - suppose Earth to LEO for $500 a pound was readily and commercially available on the international market. After 11 September 2001, what would US Space Command think about that development, especially if you were one of the generals responsible for missile defense?

Tyr · 2002-12-02 15:29:45

A) Such pessimism
B) you guys suggesting space elevators and anti-gravity know you are on the "lunatic" fringes, but so what? If I told an engineer 40 years ago that I would have a computer on my desk like this for under $500, he would have laughed at me!! There's no telling what might come out of high energy particle physics in the future.
C) once again, see http://www.spaceislandgroup.com
D) Lower launch costs=tourism for sure
E) have you read anything about undercooled alloy research in microgravity?? Liquid metals can be cooled in microgravity to temperatures below their freezing point without solidifying and this leads to interesting possibilities. Raw materials might come from Earth or the Moon to be alloyed in huge amounts at LEO factories in the future. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Of course, the success of such operations depends on low cost access to LEO
F) low cost access to LEO will lead to space observatories operated by consortiums of large universities-building those observatories will be profitable for the builders
G) Inmarsat, Globalstar, Astrolink are doing OK. Sirius and XM radio are going good. DirecTV is no flop. As for Iridium, it was bought up for only $25 million and is now operating mostly with defense contracts. Teledesic is on hold for now, but when the economy picks up again, which it will, Bill Gates and Craig McCaw will build their internet in the sky.
H) protein crystals, pure gallium arsenide,???
I) sub-orbital rocketplanes and mach 7 bombers
J) advanced satellite applications involving the most sophisticated microcircuitry and high powered radios
K) helium 3-when we get fusion beyond D-T
L) low launch costs will make Moon mining and solar power satellites possible and profitable. Future world energy demand will be so great that all forms of energy will be developed-fusion, winds, tides, OTEC, biogas, ground based and space based solar. High temp. superconducting cable, now in production by American Superconductor, will allow efficient transmission of power and all the remaining fossil fuels will be used for chemical and synthetic materials rather than being burnt and causing global warming.

Phobos · 2002-12-02 21:47:43

F) low cost access to LEO will lead to space observatories operated by consortiums of large universities-building those observatories will be profitable for the builders

Perhaps the reason some of these launchers are having a hard time finding employment is because of the high launch costs themselves. I believe there would be a lot done in space if the launch prices were to come down very dramatically, like $100 a kg as opposed to $5000-$25000 per kg. I think Bill White is correct in the sense that launchers as they exist now could use more business but I believe the reason is price and not necessarily because there is a true lack of demand out there. For instance if automobiles were priced at a million dollars each it'd be easy to deduce there is no demand for them when in reality there's plenty of demand for them but the price exceeds the limits.

Bill White · 2002-12-02 22:42:47

A) Such pessimism

Hope for the best, but plan for the worst. . .

Tyr · 2002-12-03 07:42:35

Regarding the two previous posts, I agree 100% with both of them. If it does turn out that privateers can't make money in space, could a future where robots and perhaps nanotech has made everything so cheap that we don't even worry about money anymore? At the very least, use your caclulator to see what happens at a mere GDP growth rate of 3.5%, which is considered low. In 100 years the economy would be 30x as big-that's alot of goods and services.

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#26 2002-11-30 10:24:44

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#27 2002-11-30 20:44:20

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#28 2002-11-30 20:50:41

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#29 2002-12-01 12:41:21

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#30 2002-12-01 12:50:39

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#31 2002-12-01 14:46:48

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#32 2002-12-01 18:50:51

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#33 2002-12-01 22:00:17

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#34 2002-12-02 00:18:15

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#35 2002-12-02 15:29:45

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#36 2002-12-02 21:47:43

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

#37 2002-12-02 22:42:47

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#38 2002-12-03 07:42:35

Re: L5 societies responce to "The Case for Mars"

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