Excerpted from a letter to the editor of Space News:

Launch cost is the reason all space science, Mars exploration, space
tourism and everything else is limping. It's not just the actual launch
cost. Weight and volume limitations drive the cost of nearly every
aspect of space hardware and mission design. We need better launch, and
everything else is strictly secondary. To this end I believe NASA
should devote at least 50% of the budget to reusable launch vehicle
development. Several expendable launch vehicles have been developed in
last 20 years without much NASA involvement, so there is no need to fund
expendables. The $7.5+ billion/year should be used to

-- upgrade the shuttle
-- develop new materials and propulsion
-- provide test facilities and consulting to vehicle developers
-- and, most important, buy the first ten+ launches of new reusable
vehicles developed by the private sector. Launch developers should be
paid after launch, but could use the guaranteed business to get loans
for development. Most launch failures occur in the first 10 or so
flights, so this proposal effectively funds flight test programs. NASA
hasn't developed and flown a new orbital vehicle since the shuttle and
must be paid up front for all work, whether it flies or not. This
proposal only costs taxpayer dollars when the vehicle is flown -- no
flight, no expense. It's time to directly address the real problem of
space development: launch cost.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

>To this end I believe NASA should devote at least 50% >of the budget to
>reusable launch vehicle development.

And/or to developing the Space Elevator concept, using carbon nanotube
technology.

Brad

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*

While I do not totally disagree with this I do wish to
point out that RLVs are really only about manned
launch. Launching sats and other cargos are
apparently at an affordable launch as industry
(telecom and remote sensing) has already sprouted
which can bear the costs of launching. IMHO, the cost
of launching, while high, is bearable commercially.

With the current glut of launchers, I imagine this
price will only go down more and more. It will be
very hard to compete rlv with an elv, something I
doubt will ever happen. First and foremost, all RLV's
assume a payload involving humans, this eats up alot
of space, some predictions I have read is roughly 10%
of the mass is devoted to life supports for all rlvs.
Considering that fuel take up almost 90%, it does not
leave alot of space for cargo.

Now for human flight, I agree that RLV is the way to
go. How much the government should be involved in
this thogh I am not sure. Some items I would add to
your list though include:

1) putting an infrastructure in for commercial
launches. This includes ground stations and launch
pad. Currently several states are already creating
commercial launch facilities but these facilities are
all geared towards ELVs. RLV will have a very
different demand for facility support.

2) develop streamlined procedures with the faa and
other government orgs to help get vehicles qualified
for flight. Currently this is a mess which have
caused many delays. Just look at the problems groups
like armadillo aerospace and beal have had with
government regulations. Not only are permits needed
to fly but new permits whose regulations have not even
been ironed out are needed to land a spacecraft.
There has never been to date any need for this as the
shuttle lands on an air force base, but I am assuming
a commercial RLV will be landing at a commercial base,
which falls under faa regulation.

Not only is the faa takeoff/landing permits required,
but just like the aircraft industry, all
mechanics/engineers/ground support personnel need to
be qualified to even work on an RLV. These standards
need to be ironed out also in order to facilitate
paper work.

3) Highly placed government officials and respected
academics need to start saying its possible. I know
its easy to rag on these guys, but the fact of the
matter is, Wall Street listens to these guys. Why
would wall street back a commercial project if highly
respected leaders in the field say your full of crap?
For further elaboration on this matter look at
comments from Boeing and Dan Goldin in the past
lamenting the problems of RLVs...

4) I cannot help but stress your last point but for a
different reason, insurance carriers. There needs to
be several flights accomplished before an insurance
carrier even begins to CONSIDER underwriting such an
undertaking. I am not even sure ten flights are
enough. There are massive liabilities associated with
manned space flight. These liabilities will scare off
serious investors. By having the gov pay for the
first 10 launches, you can build up a record which may
help bring over insurance underwriters. My only
concern is that 10 launches will not be enough to win
over the insurance industry. It may still require gov
backed insurance for RLVs for the first 5 years
minimum until commercial insurance companies will even
think about it.

For an RLV to be successful I do not think NASA alone
is enough. This is more a concerted effort between
private and public institutions. I believe it can be
done but it will take a heck of a lot more then nasa's
current SLI vision, especially since now half of that
program is being cut to fund a space plane!

Just my buck and a quarter...

Ryan Z.

On Tuesday, November 19, 2002, at 09:34 AM, Brad Walsh wrote:

>> To this end I believe NASA should devote at least 50% >of the budget to
>> reusable launch vehicle development.
>
> And/or to developing the Space Elevator concept, using carbon nanotube
> technology.

Space elevators certainly deserve some long term R&D (actually, I've
done a tiny bit of this myself on NASA's dime), but the probability of
success isn't all that high even in the long term. It only takes one
fatal problem to make a system unusable, and there are several candidate
fatal problems for space elevators. They include:

-- strength of materials. For example, measured carbon nanotube
strength is much less than the early theoretical calculations predicted.
-- atmospheric interference
-- safety

This isn't to say we shouldn't work on it, we should. But we certainly
shouldn't count on it.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Ryan Zelnio wrote:

>While I do not totally disagree with this I do wish to
>point out that RLVs are really only about manned
>launch.
>
No I don't think that that is necessarily correct. RLVs are cheaper
because they amortise the costs over lots of flights. And, most flights
currently are cargo, so that's likely to continue to be the bigger
market. An operator that can capture more of the cargo market with a
reliable and cheap RLV is going to do well. The only question is whether
the launch rate is there to pay for it at the moment.

> Launching sats and other cargos are
>apparently at an affordable launch as industry
>(telecom and remote sensing) has already sprouted
>which can bear the costs of launching. IMHO, the cost
>of launching, while high, is bearable commercially.
>
That's true for the current markets, but there's currently other
untapped markets out there; and there are existing cases where the
launch costs dominate. For example, I understand that someone just built
a space telescope for $4 million.

> With the current glut of launchers, I imagine this
>price will only go down more and more. It will be
>very hard to compete rlv with an elv, something I
>doubt will ever happen.
>
No it will happen.

> First and foremost, all RLV's
>assume a payload involving humans,
>
No. Check out Kistler.

> this eats up alot
>of space, some predictions I have read is roughly 10%
>of the mass is devoted to life supports for all rlvs.
>Considering that fuel take up almost 90%, it does not
>leave alot of space for cargo.
>
Yes, so ditch the lifesupport and you get 10% more cargo. So a cargo
flight is 10% cheaper per kg. It's a no brainer.

Some comments on Zeinio's excellent critique of my launch vehicle
development proposal:

On Wednesday, November 20, 2002, at 07:58 AM, Ryan Zelnio wrote:

> While I do not totally disagree with this I do wish to
> point out that RLVs are really only about manned
> launch.

Perhaps you believe this because there is only one RLV (shuttle) and it
launches people. One should note that all other forms of transportation
use reusable vehicles.

> Launching sats and other cargos are
> apparently at an affordable launch as industry
> (telecom and remote sensing) has already sprouted
> which can bear the costs of launching. IMHO, the cost
> of launching, while high, is bearable commercially.
>

Bearable cost depends on the application. For
- geosynchronous telecom YES
- for LEO telecom NO -- (Iridium only survived by reniging on
billions of dollars of debt)
- remote sensing MAYBE -- these companies are marginal or unprofitable
- tourism NO (unless your hotel - the ISS today -- is free)
- low-G retirement homes NO
- solar power satellites NO
- asteroid mining NO
- colonization NO

So, if you're happy with geosynchronous telecom and don't want to do
anything else commercially, current launch capabilities are just fine.

> With the current glut of launchers, I imagine this
> price will only go down more and more. It will be
> very hard to compete rlv with an elv, something I
> doubt will ever happen.

Ever is a long time. Some believed railroads would never really compete
with horses.

>
> Now for human flight, I agree that RLV is the way to
> go. How much the government should be involved in
> this thogh I am not sure.

Without major breakthroughs in propulsion and materials RLVs are
probably an iffy proposition. Government R&D works for these kinds of
things. Also, by providing a guaranteed market the government can also
spur development that could, otherwise, never generate a decent business
plan. The government subsidized the development of nearly every form of
modern transportation -- sometimes in major ways -- and continues to do
so. I wouldn't expect launch to be any different.

>
> 2) develop streamlined procedures with the faa and
> other government orgs to help get vehicles qualified
> for flight. ...

Be careful here. Streamlining can becoming corner-cutting and launch
failures do not help the cause.

Complete post:

While I do not totally disagree with this I do wish to
point out that RLVs are really only about manned
launch. Launching sats and other cargos are
apparently at an affordable launch as industry
(telecom and remote sensing) has already sprouted
which can bear the costs of launching. IMHO, the cost
of launching, while high, is bearable commercially.

With the current glut of launchers, I imagine this
price will only go down more and more. It will be
very hard to compete rlv with an elv, something I
doubt will ever happen. First and foremost, all RLV's
assume a payload involving humans, this eats up alot
of space, some predictions I have read is roughly 10%
of the mass is devoted to life supports for all rlvs.
Considering that fuel take up almost 90%, it does not
leave alot of space for cargo.

Now for human flight, I agree that RLV is the way to
go. How much the government should be involved in
this thogh I am not sure. Some items I would add to
your list though include:

1) putting an infrastructure in for commercial
launches. This includes ground stations and launch
pad. Currently several states are already creating
commercial launch facilities but these facilities are
all geared towards ELVs. RLV will have a very
different demand for facility support.

2) develop streamlined procedures with the faa and
other government orgs to help get vehicles qualified
for flight. Currently this is a mess which have
caused many delays. Just look at the problems groups
like armadillo aerospace and beal have had with
government regulations. Not only are permits needed
to fly but new permits whose regulations have not even
been ironed out are needed to land a spacecraft.
There has never been to date any need for this as the
shuttle lands on an air force base, but I am assuming
a commercial RLV will be landing at a commercial base,
which falls under faa regulation.

Not only is the faa takeoff/landing permits required,
but just like the aircraft industry, all
mechanics/engineers/ground support personnel need to
be qualified to even work on an RLV. These standards
need to be ironed out also in order to facilitate
paper work.

3) Highly placed government officials and respected
academics need to start saying its possible. I know
its easy to rag on these guys, but the fact of the
matter is, Wall Street listens to these guys. Why
would wall street back a commercial project if highly
respected leaders in the field say your full of crap?
For further elaboration on this matter look at
comments from Boeing and Dan Goldin in the past
lamenting the problems of RLVs...

4) I cannot help but stress your last point but for a
different reason, insurance carriers. There needs to
be several flights accomplished before an insurance
carrier even begins to CONSIDER underwriting such an
undertaking. I am not even sure ten flights are
enough. There are massive liabilities associated with
manned space flight. These liabilities will scare off
serious investors. By having the gov pay for the
first 10 launches, you can build up a record which may
help bring over insurance underwriters. My only
concern is that 10 launches will not be enough to win
over the insurance industry. It may still require gov
backed insurance for RLVs for the first 5 years
minimum until commercial insurance companies will even
think about it.

For an RLV to be successful I do not think NASA alone
is enough. This is more a concerted effort between
private and public institutions. I believe it can be
done but it will take a heck of a lot more then nasa's
current SLI vision, especially since now half of that
program is being cut to fund a space plane!

Just my buck and a quarter...

Ryan Z.

Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 08:17:02 -0800
From: Al Globus
Subject: launch

Excerpted from a letter to the editor of Space News:

Launch cost is the reason all space science, Mars
exploration, space
tourism and everything else is limping. It's not
just the actual launch
cost. Weight and volume limitations drive the cost
of nearly every
aspect of space hardware and mission design. We
need better launch, and
everything else is strictly secondary. To this end
I believe NASA
should devote at least 50% of the budget to reusable
launch vehicle
development. Several expendable launch vehicles
have been developed in
last 20 years without much NASA involvement, so
there is no need to fund
expendables. The $7.5+ billion/year should be used
to

-- upgrade the shuttle
-- develop new materials and propulsion
-- provide test facilities and consulting to vehicle
developers
-- and, most important, buy the first ten+ launches
of new reusable
vehicles developed by the private sector. Launch
developers should be
paid after launch, but could use the guaranteed
business to get loans
for development. Most launch failures occur in the
first 10 or so
flights, so this proposal effectively funds flight
test programs. NASA
hasn't developed and flown a new orbital vehicle
since the shuttle and
must be paid up front for all work, whether it flies
or not. This
proposal only costs taxpayer dollars when the
vehicle is flown -- no
flight, no expense. It's time to directly address
the real problem of
space development: launch cost.

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~500 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Suppose that we have the following alternatives:

RLV Option
Development costs: $6 billion
Marginal manufacturing cost per unit: $400 million
Operations cost per launch: $10 million

ELV Option
Development costs: $1.5 billion
Marginal manufacturing cost per unit: $50 million
Operations cost per launch: $60 million

Which is the "better" option?

Ron
*******

Ian Woollard
11/20/02 01:00 PM
Please respond to spacesettlers

To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
cc:
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Launch

Ryan Zelnio wrote:

>While I do not totally disagree with this I do wish to
>point out that RLVs are really only about manned
>launch.
>
No I don't think that that is necessarily correct. RLVs are cheaper
because they amortise the costs over lots of flights. And, most flights
currently are cargo, so that's likely to continue to be the bigger
market. An operator that can capture more of the cargo market with a
reliable and cheap RLV is going to do well. The only question is whether
the launch rate is there to pay for it at the moment.

> Launching sats and other cargos are
>apparently at an affordable launch as industry
>(telecom and remote sensing) has already sprouted
>which can bear the costs of launching. IMHO, the cost
>of launching, while high, is bearable commercially.
>
That's true for the current markets, but there's currently other
untapped markets out there; and there are existing cases where the
launch costs dominate. For example, I understand that someone just built
a space telescope for $4 million.

> With the current glut of launchers, I imagine this
>price will only go down more and more. It will be
>very hard to compete rlv with an elv, something I
>doubt will ever happen.
>
No it will happen.

> First and foremost, all RLV's
>assume a payload involving humans,
>
No. Check out Kistler.

> this eats up alot
>of space, some predictions I have read is roughly 10%
>of the mass is devoted to life supports for all rlvs.
>Considering that fuel take up almost 90%, it does not
>leave alot of space for cargo.
>
Yes, so ditch the lifesupport and you get 10% more cargo. So a cargo
flight is 10% cheaper per kg. It's a no brainer.

Ryan Zelnio wrote:

"
Launching sats and other cargos are
apparently at an affordable launch as industry
(telecom and remote sensing) has already sprouted
which can bear the costs of launching. IMHO, the cost
of launching, while high, is bearable commercially.
"

I believe that these statements are true, but irrelevant.

To paraphrase: For the industries that can afford the current high
launch costs, high launch costs are not a barrier to them doing business.
True, but tautological.

There are potentially many other industries --- for example, mass space
tourism, commercial industrial parks, etc. --- that cannot function in the
current high launch cost environment. These other industries await lower
launch costs.

Ron
*******

To Brad Walsh's reply, I in turn reply "Good answers". The point of my
question was not really to get the exact answer, but rather to illustrate
that RLV is not necessarily an unalloyed good: it is not necessarily
better than ELV in all respects and scenarios. There's a lot of "it
depends on ..." type of considerations, and what the definition of
"better" is.

Ron
******

"Brad Walsh"
11/20/02 03:32 PM
Please respond to spacesettlers

To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
cc:
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Launch

That's fairly simple algebra--for less than 49 launches the ELV is
cheaper,
and at 50+ launches the RLV becomes cheaper. But I'm assuming that by
"better" you mean cheaper. Other assumptions--that the turnaround time
for
the RLV does not pose problems, such that you won't need to purchase two
RLVs to keep up the desired pace. If you needed two RLVs, the fixed costs

of $400 million would double, raising the point at which the RLV would be

cheaper.

On Wednesday, November 20, 2002, at 12:32 PM, rmenich@... wrote:

> The point of my
> question was not really to get the exact answer, but rather to
> illustrate
> that RLV is not necessarily an unalloyed good: it is not necessarily
> better than ELV in all respects and scenarios. There's a lot of "it
> depends on ..." type of considerations, and what the definition of
> "better" is.
>

A large number of ELVs have been developed in the last 20 years. All
this development did not lower launch cost enough (although it helps).

RLV is another story. There shuttle and that's it. In theory, with a
high launch rate RLVs should be the way to go. Government R&D is an
effective way to address high risk, big payoff issues. Thus, this is a
good thing for NASA to do. Unfortunately, NASA hasn't flown a new RLV
since the shuttle, and there have been lots of failures to orbit
anything (X33, X37, X34, aerospace plane, SLI, etc.). Therefor, perhaps
we should try guarantees for commercial ventures (say, pay for the first
10 flights or so) that develop RLVs. There were three or four of these
a few years ago when everyone thought there would be a lot of LEO com
sat business. I'm not sure if any are still in business.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

A new ELV flew for the first time last night (Delta IV). Every year or
two a new one flies. The point of the newer ELVs is to lower costs and
raise reliability.

Ron
******

Al Globus
11/20/02 05:14 PM
Please respond to spacesettlers

To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
cc:
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Launch

On Wednesday, November 20, 2002, at 12:32 PM, rmenich@... wrote:

> The point of my
> question was not really to get the exact answer, but rather to
> illustrate
> that RLV is not necessarily an unalloyed good: it is not necessarily
> better than ELV in all respects and scenarios. There's a lot of "it
> depends on ..." type of considerations, and what the definition of
> "better" is.
>

A large number of ELVs have been developed in the last 20 years. All
this development did not lower launch cost enough (although it helps).

RLV is another story. There shuttle and that's it. In theory, with a
high launch rate RLVs should be the way to go. Government R&D is an
effective way to address high risk, big payoff issues. Thus, this is a
good thing for NASA to do. Unfortunately, NASA hasn't flown a new RLV
since the shuttle, and there have been lots of failures to orbit
anything (X33, X37, X34, aerospace plane, SLI, etc.). Therefor, perhaps
we should try guarantees for commercial ventures (say, pay for the first
10 flights or so) that develop RLVs. There were three or four of these
a few years ago when everyone thought there would be a lot of LEO com
sat business. I'm not sure if any are still in business.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Alot of good comments yesterday which I'll try to
address some of them. Brad and Ron helped to make my
point of elv vs rlv with some nice numerical terms.
Currently ELV is a well matured technology in which
launch costs are coming down over time. While he
showed that it would take over 40 launches in his
scenario for an rlv to equal the cost of an elv, this
does not take into effect anything more then the
initial R&D costs. Thanx to the maturation of ELV
technology, there is less recurring R&D needed while
RLV still requires significant R&D to make ground
breaking discoveries in propulsion and materials.
This in effect makes for more recurring R&D dollars.

To Ian's comments:
1) Kistler remains to be seen as a viable
alternative, while they are probably one of the best
RLV designs out there, they are still unproven. I
think if they have enough money, they may in fact be a
player but with the current slashing of SLI funds for
the space plane, I am not so sure they can survive.

Even if they survive, they are in a tough market.
They will have to compete with Orbital's rather cheap
(less than 20 mil) Pegasus rocket and there is also a
new competitor (led by the guy who founded paypal) who
is promising to put up an elv of the same power for
less then 10 mill a pop.

I think this trend of lower costs will continue to be
seen and the true bottom price for ELV is not even
close to being seen. The russians alone are still
selling their rockets for an estimated 3 times more
then they need because the US is forcing them to not
undercut american markets.

As far as small payloads are concerned, I think you
will continue to see an increase of globalstar type
launches in which you'll through 5 or 6 sats together
in a cheap rocket and launch them into leo. I believe
the telescope you were referring to (which is built by
canada) is using a piggy back technique for launch
into space which in of itself is another way to reduce
launch costs using ELV.

Back to Al Globus comments:
in terms of bearable costs, i agree anything human
related is not for an elv, re retirements homes,
colonization and space tourism. As for asteroid
mining, an elv to get there and an in situ mass driver
built by robots I think could be a viable arrangement
more so then having humans go there.

The Delta IV is part of a military program to provide assured access to
space. DOD funded development of two vehicles, the Delta IV and Atlas
V, both derivatives of earlier rockets. In the current commercial
market, at least one and probably both cannot survive, so DOD is looking
into ways to subsidize them at least until the current slump ends.

On Thursday, November 21, 2002, at 05:44 AM, rmenich@... wrote:

> A new ELV flew for the first time last night (Delta IV). Every year or
> two a new one flies. The point of the newer ELVs is to lower costs and
> raise reliability.
>

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

On Thursday, November 21, 2002, at 07:44 AM, Ryan Zelnio wrote:

> I think this trend of lower costs will continue to be
> seen and the true bottom price for ELV is not even
> close to being seen. The russians alone are still
> selling their rockets for an estimated 3 times more
> then they need because the US is forcing them to not
> undercut american markets.

The agreements you are thinking of have expired. The Russians do have
very low costs -- because really good engineers can be hired for a tiny
fraction of the equivalent Western personnel. This can't last forever,
but it does keep prices down for now.

The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr. Tito
going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

On Thursday, November 21, 2002, at 07:44 AM, Ryan Zelnio wrote:

> in terms of bearable costs, i agree anything human
> related is not for an elv, re retirements homes,
> colonization and space tourism. As for asteroid
> mining, an elv to get there and an in situ mass driver
> built by robots I think could be a viable arrangement
> more so then having humans go there.

I work in an AI group that investigates automating robots, mostly for
Mars, but also for the ISS. Judging by the work in our group, we have a
very, very long way to go before we can automate anything as complex as
an asteroid mining operation with a robot or group of robots.
Teleoperation might help, but for an easier approach to asteroid mining
that we might be able to automate in the relatively near future, see
http://people.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/papers/AsterAnts/paper.html. The
basic idea: capture very small asteroids (~1 meter diameter) whole. One
big problem with this approach is dealing with rotation and tumbling.

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

--- In spacesettlers@y..., rmenich@m... wrote:
> Suppose that we have the following alternatives:
>
> RLV Option
> Development costs: $6 billion
> Marginal manufacturing cost per unit: $400 million
> Operations cost per launch: $10 million
>
> ELV Option
> Development costs: $1.5 billion
> Marginal manufacturing cost per unit: $50 million
> Operations cost per launch: $60 million
>
> Which is the "better" option?
>

There are a few variables missing from the data: the number of RLVs
in a fleet and the maintenance costs on the fleet.

Without the maintenance costs, a fleet of 4 RLVs becomes better than
ELV after 61 launches, and a fleet of 7 after 73 launches, a dozen
after 93. The smaller the fleet, the more launches per vehicle
required to reach the break-even, and the greater the maintenance
costs. If the fleet is larger, then maintenance costs per unit
should be less than for a smaller fleet: less wear and tear on
individual vehicles, economies of scale for replacement parts, and so
on. A larger fleet also means more launches per year.

:) ed

Al: I don't disagree with anything you just wrote.

Ron
*********

Al Globus
11/21/02 11:35 AM
Please respond to spacesettlers

To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
cc:
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Launch

The Delta IV is part of a military program to provide assured access to
space. DOD funded development of two vehicles, the Delta IV and Atlas
V, both derivatives of earlier rockets. In the current commercial
market, at least one and probably both cannot survive, so DOD is looking
into ways to subsidize them at least until the current slump ends.

On Thursday, November 21, 2002, at 05:44 AM, rmenich@... wrote:

> A new ELV flew for the first time last night (Delta IV). Every year or
> two a new one flies. The point of the newer ELVs is to lower costs and
> raise reliability.
>

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Good points with respect to size of fleet and breakeven points.

You may wish to re-title the category "Operations cost per launch" to
"Operations and maintenance costs per launch".

Ron
******

"Ed Minchau"
11/21/02 12:56 PM
Please respond to spacesettlers

To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
cc:
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Launch

--- In spacesettlers@y..., rmenich@m... wrote:
> Suppose that we have the following alternatives:
>
> RLV Option
> Development costs: $6 billion
> Marginal manufacturing cost per unit: $400 million
> Operations cost per launch: $10 million
>
> ELV Option
> Development costs: $1.5 billion
> Marginal manufacturing cost per unit: $50 million
> Operations cost per launch: $60 million
>
> Which is the "better" option?
>

There are a few variables missing from the data: the number of RLVs
in a fleet and the maintenance costs on the fleet.

Without the maintenance costs, a fleet of 4 RLVs becomes better than
ELV after 61 launches, and a fleet of 7 after 73 launches, a dozen
after 93. The smaller the fleet, the more launches per vehicle
required to reach the break-even, and the greater the maintenance
costs. If the fleet is larger, then maintenance costs per unit
should be less than for a smaller fleet: less wear and tear on
individual vehicles, economies of scale for replacement parts, and so
on. A larger fleet also means more launches per year.

:) ed

Message text written by INTERNET:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
>Launch cost is the reason all space science, Mars exploration, space
tourism and everything else is limping. It's not just the actual launch
cost. Weight and volume limitations drive the cost of nearly every
aspect of space hardware and mission design.<

A comment on launch costs:

The January (2002) Wired magazine had a sidebar (in an article about
Moore's law) about the experience curve, first documented by Henderson of
the Boston Consulting Group in the late sixties. This says that the cost
effectiveness of any manufacturing process increases 20 to 30 per cent with
each cumulative doubling of volume. Empirically, this has been shown over
a wide range of both high and low tech items, from TVs to broiling
chickens.

To get a rough idea of what this might mean for launch, I looked at the TRW
space log for worldwide launches. Below I have listed the years in which
doubling occurred, starting in 1959. Also listed are the cumulative
doubling amount and the total cumulative launches at the end of each year.

Year Doubling Cumulative launches
1959 24 24
1961 48 78
1962 96 150
1963 192 205
1965 384 404
1968 768 768
1975 1536 1558
1988 3072 3095

There has been no doubling since 1988, cumulative launches through 1998
were 3973.

For U.S. launches alone, there is one doubling from 1972 to 1998.

Cost figures I have seen support the experience curve for launches. Costs
dropped rapidly through the early sixties, then more slowly, then very
slowly since the end of the Apollo program. This is just what you would
expect from the experience curve.

I am not so sure I agree with your analysis. General
speaking, Moore's law applies to doubling of the POWER
of a chip not the doubling of volume.

As for launch costs, they only go down so long as the
yearly volume increases, not the volume over 16+
years. If, for instance, you launch 10 rockets a year
for 3 years in a row, launch prices will stay flat or
go up in fact. The reason for this is mainly because
rockets are constantly evolving. This is especially
true in the medium-heavy lifters.

Just glancing at Jonathan's space page
(http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/space.html)
I am seeing a decline in yearly launches worldwide,
ranging from 88 launches a year in 1991 to 82 in 2000.
Since then the market has further tanked due in large
part to the downturn in the telecommunication sector
(the largest user of commercial launchers).

Now Jonathan's space report does not differentiate
between government and non-gov but you can get the
picture, both of these affect launch costs. If you
want something with more economical teeth, the
Department of Commerce releases an annual report call
Trends in Space Commerce. This is an excellent look
only at the commercial sector. Looking there you can
see revenue declining in the space transportation
sector in 2000, and its gotten even worse since then.
Don't mistake the jump in 1998 in launches to repeat
any time soon, this was caused mostly by the launch of
low earth constellations like globalstar and iridium,
which since then are all in bankruptcy. You can view
this report at http://www.ta.doc.gov/Reports.htm

Finally, there is also a problem with correlating
experience within the launch market. Launchers are
not like TVs and broiling chicken, each rocket is
generally unique and they are constantly evolving.
Except for some russian rockets and small launchers
for the military, there are no mass manufacturing
processes for rockets.

For example of the uniqueness of the rockets you can
look at the arianne. It had 6 different
configurations for it!!! Not to mention no two
launches had the same configuration of strap-ons and
third stages. Just go look at another excellent web
resource, Gunter's space page
(http://www.skyrocket.de/space/).

All in all, this is a problem with this sector in
general, launch costs have not gone down and continue
to be a deterent. The EELV is suppose to address this
but I will reserve my judgement on these programs
until they got a year or two underneath them.

- Ryan

--- Lynn Olson wrote:

Thank you for your reply

>I am not so sure I agree with your analysis. General
speaking, Moore's law applies to doubling of the POWER
of a chip not the doubling of volume<

My analysis was based on an article on historical manufacturing cost data.
The article was a sidebar to put Moore's law in its historical context.
The relevant volume for Moore's law is the number of transistors, and yes
this does track the historical trend I cited. The number of transistors on
a chip has gone up sharply over time.

The unusual thing about Moore's law is the long time it has gone on, not
the trend itself.

>As for launch costs, they only go down so long as the
yearly volume increases, not the volume over 16+
years<

This may be true, but it would make rockets different from all other
products that have been studied.
I think this is unlikely. Any product could make a claim to uniqueness,
and yet a variety of very different products show very similar experience
curves with respect to cost. [cars, golf balls, limestone, phone calls,
paper bags, steel ingots, pins, cookies, airplanes, TVs, broiler chickens]

If, and note I do say if, the experience curve argument does apply to
rockets, what would be the consequences?

1. re: Al Globus' proposal.
The proposal may be a way around the experience curve, by paying for
development costs before the market justifies it. However, in the
historical examples technological advance is only one facet of cost
reduction, and I do think volume will be required to really push costs
down. I would also hesitate to favor RLVs over expendables - see below.

2. Expendable costs can still come down a lot. The experience curve says
the lack of cost reduction over the past couple of decades is to be
expected. Those people who point to the cost of materials, propellants,
and operations and say that costs could be a lot lower are probably right.
However, we need experience to get there. As an example, Intel could
probably have predicted the performance of the Pentium IV in 1990, but that
did not mean they could produce it in 1992. Experience is important.

3. As someone (Jack?) said earlier on this forum, for near term market
ideas we need to accept current launch costs. We would like ideas for
which the market would increase rapidly as costs are lowered, which would
produce the "virtuous cycle" typified by Moore's law. More volume = lower
cost = more volume = lower cost, etc., etc.

4. To produce cost reductions of 20-30 per cent per year, we need 4000
launches the first year, 8000 the second, and so on.
This is the key, and somewhat discouraging point. Maybe the market can be
segmented, allowing a start over at lower numbers.

5. Launches of any sort should be encouraged.

Here's the paper for you: A Rocket a Day Keeps the High Costs Away
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html

Personally, I'd be turning handsprings over a company that was launching a
rocket a week.

Regards,

Mike Combs
(903)-868-6314

This is a very interesting train of discussion.

I believe launch costs have actually dropped recently with the rise of
Russian commercialism in the market: the converted soviet-era missiles
have launched things very inexpensively, and Sea Launch has (from what I
hear) greatly reduced costs to geosynchronous orbit. But this is a
one-time cost reduction that probably won't be sustainable without a
continued substantive market. Prices will likely rise as Russian
commercial firms get more firmly grounded and start looking for higher
profit margins in the market they've captured, and the resulting
reduction in market for western launch firms will force them back on the
launch markets where they have a monopoly and can keep prices high (NASA
and the US military).

What is really needed are new markets, beyond the currently stagnant
government and communications satellite industries. Is there a
sub-orbital market that could be served with large numbers of
launches? Fast package delivery? Tourism? Surveying/mapping? In a sense
we really need
to start over - which is I think where XCOR and related companies are
trying to get.

Arthur

On Wednesday, December 4, 2002, at 08:25 AM, Arthur P. Smith wrote:

> Is there a
> sub-orbital market that could be served with large numbers of
> launches? Fast package delivery? Tourism? Surveying/mapping?

Tourism and military, IMHO.

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html