http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zk.html

--
-Ian

Motto: "You're Not Authorized to Know Our Motto."
So, like, how many lives DOES Shroedinger's cat have anyway?

Uh, yeah...

John McKnight made the mistake of assuming a press release, previously
published without attribution (so it looked like a regular news article)
by Space Daily was actually written by the Moon Society, rather than
by the Space Settlement Initiative folks. As far as I know, nobody
in the Moon Society saw that release before it went out; if we had
we would have corrected at least a couple of factual errors, such
as the fact that the endorsement was made by the board in November,
long before the Columbia accident, and that the Moon Society is a
supporter of John McKnight's space settlement summit. The tone
of the first couple of paragraphs was definitely not the way we
would have phrased it, but on the whole the press release didn't
seem that bad and we certainly weren't expecting this sort of rseponse...

We've had an item on our support for the "societies working together"
effort John's been talking about up on the Moon Society web site
for about a month now:

http://www.moonsociety.org/news/moon-announce-032003.html

(also the top "News" link on the home page). And we certainly
are all for cheaper access to space - we'll cheer all the way,
though it's not our specific focus as an organization.

Despite having contact information for several Moon Society board
members, John McKnight didn't bother to check any of these facts
before going into his rant there.

As Randall Severy, our chairman of the board put it, "We're all on
the same side. Honest."

Arthur Smith
Member, Moon Society Board of Directors

On Thu, 15 May 2003, Ian Woollard wrote:

I certainly gave the Moon Society/Artemis Society folks credit for more
sense than the author of this Space Daily.com piece did, as I was reading
it.

I tend to agree that the various space advocacy groups are too fractured,
and their disunity doesn't serve their various causes. I expect just about
everybody would agree with that, even the members of these groups. And I
also agree to the X-Prize is an incredibly important step forward, and I
expect there's a lot of consensus on that too.

But I think this columnist (and the piece wasn't clearly marked as opinion
anywhere) unfairly characterized these groups' focus as too fanatic and
thoughtless, in his effort to reach journalistic heights. Using over-broad
generalizations and stereotypes to describe members of advocacy groups whose
positions you don't agree with only deepens the disunity and lack of
cooperation. To use the columnist's analogy, his name calling just
distracts the driver practicing for his driving test, and starts a shouting
match among the students in the back seat.

Brad W.

The guts of this is right on -- building castles in the sky doesn't
work if you can't get to the sky. What we, and every other aspect of
space development, really need is cheap, safe, routine access to Low
Earth Orbit. That's where the vast majority of the money, time, and
effort needs to be and it isn't.

On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 02:13 AM, Ian Woollard wrote:

> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zk.html
>
> --
> -Ian
>
> Motto: "You're Not Authorized to Know Our Motto."
> So, like, how many lives DOES Shroedinger's cat have anyway?
>
> Questions.
>

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

Al Globus wrote:

>The guts of this is right on -- building castles in the sky doesn't
>work if you can't get to the sky. What we, and every other aspect of
>space development, really need is cheap, safe, routine access to Low
>Earth Orbit. That's where the vast majority of the money, time, and
>effort needs to be and it isn't.
>
It isn't? We have the space elevator people, the huge variety of X-prize
people (is the Rocket Guy shooting for the X-prize?), the Elon Musk
big-dumb-booster people, NASA's OSP and next-generation reusable
(formerly space launch initiative), the EELV's from Boeing and LockMart,
Orbital Science's various air-launched efforts, SeaLaunch, the Russian
ICBM-based launch platforms, not to mention the Indian and Chinese
manned and unmanned programs, and the new Ariane's. And we have the
failed Beal Aerospace, Rotary rocket - and what happened to Kistler and
the others? I find it hard to believe anyone thinks we need more
volunteers to put time and effort into new projects in low-cost access
to space right now. Somebody to maybe coordinate some of these different
efforts and get them to cooperate a bit might be a good idea, which is
perhaps what McKnight is proposing.

Of the three things you think are needed, it's not time and effort, but
money, and that means commercial markets for your services, that is the
real sticking point right now - the X-prize contenders hope the
sub-orbital tourism market will bring in sufficient funds; other people
are looking at other markets. And that's what this proposal was really
all about - creating a huge new market for space transportation and
infrastructure, by establishing a legal basis for celestial property
ownership, where law is currently very murky. It's not building castles
in the sky - it's building markets in the sky to support people working
here on Earth.

And obviously space settlement requires transport - the space settlement
initiative being discussed here (read the details at
http://www.spacesettlement.org/) has regular transport to the site in
question as a condition for making a claim.

Arthur Smith

I was refering primarily to NASA's budget. NASA has a 15 billion
dollar per year budget, of which only a small fraction goes into any
launch activity other than the shuttle (around $4 billion/year). While
all the activities you mention are great and certainly help, most are
either very small or are aimed at minor improvements in current
vehicles. What I would like to see is about half of NASA's budget
devoted to launch. I'd like to see it spent on:

- Propulsion and materials R&D
- Providing launch and test facilities to private industry
- Some sort of prize (like X-prize, but more money for orbital flight)
or purchase of initial flights (10-15) for reusable orbital vehicles.
- Other R&D of value to launch vehicles.

On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 12:13 PM, Arthur P. Smith wrote:

> Al Globus wrote:
>
>> The guts of this is right on -- building castles in the sky doesn't
>> work if you can't get to the sky. What we, and every other aspect of
>> space development, really need is cheap, safe, routine access to Low
>> Earth Orbit. That's where the vast majority of the money, time, and
>> effort needs to be and it isn't.
>>
>>
> It isn't? We have the space elevator people, the huge variety of
> X-prize
> people (is the Rocket Guy shooting for the X-prize?), the Elon Musk
> big-dumb-booster people, NASA's OSP and next-generation reusable
> (formerly space launch initiative), the EELV's from Boeing and
> LockMart,
> Orbital Science's various air-launched efforts, SeaLaunch, the Russian
> ICBM-based launch platforms, not to mention the Indian and Chinese
> manned and unmanned programs, and the new Ariane's. And we have the
> failed Beal Aerospace, Rotary rocket - and what happened to Kistler and
> the others? I find it hard to believe anyone thinks we need more
> volunteers to put time and effort into new projects in low-cost access
> to space right now. Somebody to maybe coordinate some of these
> different
> efforts and get them to cooperate a bit might be a good idea, which is
> perhaps what McKnight is proposing.
>
> Of the three things you think are needed, it's not time and effort, but
> money, and that means commercial markets for your services, that is the
> real sticking point right now - the X-prize contenders hope the
> sub-orbital tourism market will bring in sufficient funds; other people
> are looking at other markets. And that's what this proposal was really
> all about - creating a huge new market for space transportation and
> infrastructure, by establishing a legal basis for celestial property
> ownership, where law is currently very murky. It's not building castles
> in the sky - it's building markets in the sky to support people working
> here on Earth.
>
> And obviously space settlement requires transport - the space
> settlement
> initiative being discussed here (read the details at
> http://www.spacesettlement.org/) has regular transport to the site in
> question as a condition for making a claim.
>
> Arthur Smith
>
> Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions.
>
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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 10:32 AM, Brad Walsh wrote:

> I tend to agree that the various space advocacy groups are too
> fractured,
> and their disunity doesn't serve their various causes. I expect just
> about
> everybody would agree with that, even the members of these groups.

The one thing everybody needs, though, is better transportation. Every
single space project is severely limited by inadequate transportation,
especially Earth to Orbit. Perhaps this is an issue everyone could
unite behind.

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Ian Woollard
wrote:
> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zk.html

It seems to me that the Mr. McKnight has blown off some steam.
Perhaps he's been viewing the "fanaticism" building over time in the
various groups and sees that as non-productive towards his goal of
immediate steps. It appears that he's making the error of assuming
that the fanatic groups share his goals of immediate steps.

As for the Space Settlement Initiative being the event that
precipated Mr. McKnight's column, I have complete sympathy with him
on that issue. I infer that Mr. McKnight has some relationship with
the Moon Society and thus has strong feelings about their
endorsement of this plan. Perhaps he's coming from a position of
respect for the Moon Society.

I, on the other hand, am not so closely tied to the Moon Society, so
their endorsement didn't offend me. That's not to say that I didn't
find the Space Settlement Initiative cock-eyed and loopy, and that I
wasn't surprised by the endorsement; I was to both.

My criticism of the Space Settlement Initiative was posted to the
SSI list on Yahooo!Groups and follows below ( for those who follow
both Spacesettlers and SSI, this is a repeat for you.)

Oh my, where to start.

This canard about private property rights in the Outer Space Treaty
has more lives than a cat.

I hope you don't mind if I try to pop your balloon on this issue :)

You know, some guys down the street from me declared war on Iraq
before the US did, but nobody paid them any attention. I think it
may have had something to do with the fact that they're not a nation
and have no ability to declare war.

Did you know that the Geneva Conventions don't place any
restrictions on your ability as a private citizen to go to Iraq and
capture prisoners. Does that mean you've got carte blanche?

The Kyoto Accords don't mention anything about how much pollution an
individual creates. Does that mean that you can pollute to your
heart's content?

No to all of the above. The actors in the International system are
nation-states, thus there is no mention of private interest in
treaties, for each nation is responsible for the conduct of it's
citizens. Hence, TransOrbital had to receive US Gov't permission
for their private lunar mission.

The omission that you base your argument on is faulty at its core.

You seem to have invested a lot of energy in your website, so I'm
surprised that you haven't invested a few thousand dollars and gone
to a lawyer specializing in International Law and had a legal
opinion drafted that you could use to buttress your argument. I fear
you might be in for a bit of a letdown though. I'd really like to
see it published on your website though.

Further your scheme falls apart in its internal logic.

You state that no government has to claim sovereignty over the moon,
they just have to recognize private ownership. Well private
ownership can't exist without sovereignty. Without law and order,
how are property rights protected?

Your scheme requires the US Gov't to recognize the lunar property.
What if some Russian citizen claims the same plot of lunar land?
Then some Brazilian citizen also claims the land? How is that
resolved without the US Gov't being the judge, thus exercising its
sovereignty over the Moon?

Next, you're calling on the US Gov't to pass legislation prohibiting
title recognition until transport is offered.

All of this recognition, legislation and taxes paid to the I.R.S.
are de facto steps in the "claiming sovereignty" process, that the
Outer Space Treaty prohibits.

In your FAQ, you state, "There is already a sizable demand for phony
deeds to Lunar property, so it is safe to assume there will be much
bigger demand for real deeds to Lunar property."

Well, take a look at these sites:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_744764.html

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/business/moon_sale_000915.htm
l

As for your safe assumption, it isn't safe to assume it.

Land in the Arctic Circle is cheap and it is legally available for
purchase. Why aren't people flocking to buy it? Imagine the wealth
and new technologies that would develop if we had a thriving society
living comfortably in the Arctic.

In Question 4 of your FAQ, you're having the US recognize French
Natural Law, instead of the Common Law that is the basis of the US
legal system. How much effort do you think it's going to take to
have the US legal system twist into a pretzel to justify the basis
for your scheme? Good luck on this front!

Question 5: You're having the US State Department assuring other
nations that your scheme isn't a US land grab; that's exactly what
it is. The legislation is passed by the US Congress, recognition is
from the US Executive, adjudication is addressed by the US legal
system, the State Department is advocating it to other countries,
other nation's claims aren't recognized, but US claims are.

It was fun thus far, but there is so much more in your FAQ to
address, that I think I will leave it for others to continue.

A last word of hope - if you are really looking for an "out" from
the Outer Space Treaty, then look to the creation of a wholly new
state, which for your purposes would claim the Moon. Such a State
would not be a signatory to the OST, and wouldn't be bound by its
provisions.

Politically, the State wouldn't be recognized by any country, but
you wouldn't be violating the OST. If your State came to be viable,
and lunar operations became profitable, then this option may be the
most palitable to the nations of the Earth because no one nation
would have advantage over another. This is almost the same substance
as a UN mandate, but it has a slight twist to it.

I'm sure you'd get a lot more attention if your group did invest a
few grand and published legal opinions from respected International
Law scholars.

After that, start work on the economic rationale for your model. But
first things first.

Good Luck

TangoMan

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Ian Woollard
wrote:
> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zk.html

It seems to me that Mr. McKnight had to vent some steam because
other groups didn't share his more pragmatic viewpoint. That's OK;
it sure got us talking!

It also appeared that the Moon Society's endorsement of the Space
Settlement Initiative was the straw that broke the camel's back. He
seems to take issue with that endorsement, and perhaps it's because
he respects the Moon Society. I too think poorly of the Space
Settlement Initiative and not knowing much about the Moon Society, I
just thought it was one flakey fringe organization endorsing
another. Having looked into matters a little more, now I too am
puzzled by their endorsement of it, for in my opinion, it reflects
very poorly on the Moon Society.

As to my concerns about the Space Settlement Initiative, below is
got a response from the Space Settlement Initiative advocate.

Oh my, where to start.

This canard about private property rights in the Outer Space Treaty
has more lives than a cat.

I hope you don't mind if I try to pop your balloon on this issue :)

You know, some guys down the street from me declared war on Iraq
before the US did, but nobody paid them any attention. I think it
may have had something to do with the fact that they're not a nation
and have no ability to declare war.

Did you know that the Geneva Conventions don't place any
restrictions on your ability as a private citizen to go to Iraq and
capture prisoners. Does that mean you've got carte blanche?

The Kyoto Accords don't mention anything about how much pollution an
individual creates. Does that mean that you can pollute to your
heart's content?

No to all of the above. The actors in the International system are
nation-states, thus there is no mention of private interest in
treaties, for each nation is responsible for the conduct of it's
citizens. Hence, TransOrbital had to receive US Gov't permission
for their private lunar mission.

The omission that you base your argument on is faulty at its core.

You seem to have invested a lot of energy in your website, so I'm
surprised that you haven't invested a few thousand dollars and gone
to a lawyer specializing in International Law and had a legal
opinion drafted that you could use to buttress your argument. I fear
you might be in for a bit of a letdown though. I'd really like to
see it published on your website.

Further your scheme falls apart in its internal logic.

You state that no government has to claim sovereignty over the moon,
they just have to recognize private ownership. Well private
ownership can't exist without sovereignty. Without law and order,
how are property rights protected?

Your scheme requires the US Gov't to recognize the lunar property.
What if some Russian citizen claims the same plot of lunar land?
Then some Brazilian citizen also claims the land? How is that
resolved without the US Gov't being the judge, thus exercising its
sovereignty over the Moon?

Next, you're calling on the US Gov't to pass legislation prohibiting
title recognition until transport is offered.

All of this recognition, legislation and taxes paid to the I.R.S.
are de facto steps in the "claiming sovereignty" process, that the
Outer Space Treaty prohibits.

In your FAQ, you state, "There is already a sizable demand for phony
deeds to Lunar property, so it is safe to assume there will be much
bigger demand for real deeds to Lunar property."

Well, take a look at these sites:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_744764.html

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/business/moon_sale_000915.htm
l

As for your safe assumption, it isn't safe to assume it.

Land in the Arctic Circle is cheap and it is legally available for
purchase. Why aren't people flocking to buy it? Imagine the wealth
and new technologies that would develop if we had a thriving society
living comfortably in the Arctic.

In Question 4 of your FAQ, you're having the US recognize French
Natural Law, instead of the Common Law that is the basis of the US
legal system. How much effort do you think it's going to take to
have the US legal system twist into a pretzel to justify the basis
for your scheme? Good luck on this front!

Question 5: You're having the US State department assuring other
nations that your scheme isn't a US land grab; that's exactly what
it is. The legislation is passed by the US Congress, recognition is
from the US Executive, adjudication is addressed by the US legal
system, the State Department is advocating it to other countries,
other nation's claims aren't recognized, but US claims are.

It was fun thus far, but there is so much more in your FAQ to
address, that I think I will leave it for others to continue.

A last word of hope - if you are really looking for an "out" from
the Outer Space Treaty, then look to the creation of a wholly new
state, which for your purposes would claim the Moon. Such a State
would not be a signatory to the OST, and wouldn't be bound by its
provisions.

Politically, the State wouldn't be recognized by any country, but
you wouldn't be violating the OST. If your State came to be viable,
and lunar operations became profitable, then this option may be the
most palitable to the nations of the Earth because no one nation
would have advantage over another. This is almost the same substance
as a UN mandate, but it has a slight twist to it.

I'm sure you'd get a lot more attention if your group did invest a
few grand and published legal opinions from respected International
Law scholars.

After that, start work on the economic rationale for your model. But
first things first.

Good Luck

TangoMan

Arthur,

Of the list of rocket providers you have mentioned,
none IMO fit the criteria of CATS. I would not even
consider the space elevator people at this point. The
X-prize is great start but just a start. Musk is a
niche market that competes with Orbital. nasa's SLI
program is pretty much a bust and OSP doesn't fit the
CATS principle. Its beginning to look like another
expensive architecture and still only deals with LEO
access (something I would like to see us get out of).
EELV's and Arianne are still very expensive. Chinese
and Indian are still in their infancy, too early to
speculate. Russian ICBM's are probably the cheapest
and most reliable but there is definitely some foreign
policy issues there.

Right now it seems like we have a chicken and egg
scenario. We need CATS to develop a space market, but
we need a space market to bring about CATS.

As far as the property issue, I really don't think
that is holding anyone back. We've pretty much have a
model right now (based off telecom sats) that what we
put into space, we retain ownership of. I think it is
premature to talk about ownership of the
Moon/Mars/asteroids. When the technology has matured
to the point where we can think of exploiting these
resources, then I believe we can have a good
discussion. Though if history is a judge, it will
probably end up being a first come first claim on the
asteroids.

Ryan Z

On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 02:07 PM, Ryan Z wrote:

> Of the list of rocket providers you have mentioned,
> none IMO fit the criteria of CATS.

What is CATS?

> I would not even
> consider the space elevator people at this point. The
> X-prize is great start but just a start. Musk is a
> niche market that competes with Orbital. nasa's SLI
> program is pretty much a bust and OSP doesn't fit the
> CATS principle. Its beginning to look like another
> expensive architecture and still only deals with LEO
> access (something I would like to see us get out of).

LEO access is the key to everything. It doesn't help to have a 4 lane
superhighway with a 100 mile dirt track for an onramp.

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- Al Globus wrote:
> What is CATS?
Cheap Access To Space

> LEO access is the key to everything. It doesn't
> help to have a 4 lane
> superhighway with a 100 mile dirt track for an
> onramp.
>
I don't quite follow how LEO is the key. If I'm
launching beyond LEO, I don't even stop in LEO. I
bypass it totally. If I want to goto the Moon, I try
to boost into a lunar transfer orbit directly instead
of LEO. One of the major problem with the shuttle in
fact is that it is stuck in LEO. What good is shoving
things up 100 km in space when I really want to be
23k+ km in space.

In fact, launching stuff into LEO just requires my
spacecraft to waste precious lbs in fuel and
propulsion systems to get it to the real orbit I want
it to be in. A great example of how much mass is
wasted in launching too low is the Cosmic Background
Explorer. It was originally slated to be launched
from the Shuttle in the late 80s into a polar orbit at
900 km (i forgt the inclination). However, after the
challenger accident it got switched to a delta 2
launcher. Due to this it was able to reduce its mass
by 50% by removing the fuel and propulsion systems
neeed to it from the shuttle's orbit (about 100 km) to
its designed orbit!

So what good is LEO? Maybe its okay for some tourist
jaunts, but not much else. If you want to get to the
big money, mining and manufacturing, you need to get
beyond LEO. Same with going to the Moon.

Ryan Z

On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 04:38 PM, Ryan Z wrote:

>
> --- Al Globus wrote:
>> What is CATS?
> Cheap Access To Space
>
>> LEO access is the key to everything. It doesn't
>> help to have a 4 lane
>> superhighway with a 100 mile dirt track for an
>> onramp.
>>
> I don't quite follow how LEO is the key.

Because, as Heinline said, it's halfway to everywhere.

> If I'm
> launching beyond LEO, I don't even stop in LEO.

There's no need to stop in LEO, but if you can't get to LEO cheaply,
you can't get any further without spending even more moeny.

>
> So what good is LEO? Maybe its okay for some tourist
> jaunts, but not much else. If you want to get to the
> big money, mining and manufacturing, you need to get
> beyond LEO. Same with going to the Moon.

Total space revenues from mining and manufacturing today are 0. Total
tourist revenues are $40 million and not climbing. Manufacturing needs
a breakthrough but doesn't need mining or high orbit for high value
products, mining is a distant dream, tourism might make money once
someone wins the X-Prize.

I'm not sure of world revenues. Anyone know the numbers for
terrestrial mining, manufacturing, and tourism?

>
> Ryan Z
>
> Questions.
>

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

Ryan Z wrote:

>I don't quite follow how LEO is the key. If I'm
>launching beyond LEO, I don't even stop in LEO. I
>bypass it totally. If I want to goto the Moon, I try
>to boost into a lunar transfer orbit directly instead
>of LEO.
>
Good points. However, note that Apollo staged in LEO, before boosting to
the moon. The difference in delta-v was only about 100m/s as I recall,
and they preferred to check stuff out before doing the burn for the moon.

There are a number of other disadvantages of launching straight to
escape velocity:

a) your upper stage suddenly isn't reusable, because it isn't coming
back any time soon
b) if a stage isn't reusable then it becomes more expensive by a factor
of perhaps 10x
c) your upper stage is likely to be heavier than it needs to be, because
space-only stages only need smaller engines; whereas upper stages need
big ones because they are fighting gravity, this add to the dry mass and
increases the fuel needed
d) space taxi concepts where you launch only the fuel to LEO and not the
engines are more efficient
e) there's often problems with Van Allen belts- LEO is below the worst
of the Van Allen belts

> One of the major problem with the shuttle in
>fact is that it is stuck in LEO. What good is shoving
>things up 100 km in space when I really want to be
>23k+ km in space.
>
The major problem with the Shuttle is it is too expensive; that means
you can't use it to launch fuel.

>In fact, launching stuff into LEO just requires my
>spacecraft to waste precious lbs in fuel and
>propulsion systems to get it to the real orbit I want
>it to be in. A great example of how much mass is
>wasted in launching too low is the Cosmic Background
>Explorer. It was originally slated to be launched
>from the Shuttle in the late 80s into a polar orbit at
>900 km (i forgt the inclination). However, after the
>challenger accident it got switched to a delta 2
>launcher. Due to this it was able to reduce its mass
>by 50% by removing the fuel and propulsion systems
>neeed to it from the shuttle's orbit (about 100 km) to
>its designed orbit!
>
Delta-2 is a GEO sat launcher. Geosats are 3 stages, so this probe was
able to use the third stage to boost it up and could reduce the fuel in
it's own tank. The Shuttle is sort of a 2 stage design really, so the
probe itself becomes the third stage.

The rule of thumb is (1-)2 stages = LEO 3 stages = GEO/Escape

>Ryan Z
>

--
-Ian

Motto: "You're Not Authorized to Know Our Motto."
So, like, how many lives DOES Shroedinger's cat have anyway?

--- Al Globus wrote:
> Total space revenues from mining and manufacturing
> today are 0. Total
> tourist revenues are $40 million and not climbing.
> Manufacturing needs
> a breakthrough but doesn't need mining or high orbit
> for high value
> products, mining is a distant dream, tourism might
> make money once
> someone wins the X-Prize.
>
> I'm not sure of world revenues. Anyone know the
> numbers for
> terrestrial mining, manufacturing, and tourism?
>
It took some digging but I found a good website with
mining pricing.
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/of01-006/
Following are some of the highlights from 2000. Each
figure is created by multiplying the amount produced
that year times the price for that year (in 98
dollars) per ton:

Platinum - $6,570,000,000
Rare Earths (bastnasite and monazite
ores)-$508,963,000
Silicon - $3,780,000,000
Gold - $21,045,500,000

This is to just name a few of the hundreds of minerals
and metals that can be mined in space. This isn't
even including precious gems (its been shown that it
actually rains diamonds on Uranus and Neptune -
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/carbon-99d.html).

In all fairness, Tourism isn't so bad a piece of pie
either, $462 billion in 2001 alone
(http://www.plunkettresearch.com/travel/travel_statistics_1.htm).
What percentage of this can be diverted to space I
cannot answer.

Manufacturing is the hardest thing to find a relevant
statistic. The closest applicable stat I could find
was U.S. Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing Research
& Development Expenditures, which $121,025,000,000 for
manufacturing in 1997 (
http://www.plunkettresearch.com/engineering/engineering_statistics4.htm).
The relevance of this number I mention is that is the
pot of money that could be also drawn from for r&d
manufacturing in space to get it going.

I am so far unable to find statistics to how much
money is made globally in manufacturing but I would
place it in the trillions.

So with all this being said, I would say that tourism
is one of the smallest industries of the three. It
also has some of the heftiest demands as it requires
building systems and safety constraints for humans,
which the other two industries do not necessarily
require.

Ryan Z

Ryan Z wrote:

>Right now it seems like we have a chicken and egg
>scenario. We need CATS to develop a space market, but
>we need a space market to bring about CATS.
>
Perhaps CATS as you define it isn't possible yet? The Russian launchers
and SeaLaunch are already 10 times less expensive per pound than the
shuttle - but that's not cheap enough apparently... If none of the many
efforts I mentioned are going to provide cheap access to space, then
where do you see it coming from?

>As far as the property issue, I really don't think
>that is holding anyone back. We've pretty much have a
>model right now (based off telecom sats) that what we
>put into space, we retain ownership of.
>
The question is use of space resources, not your own equipment, where
the law is clear. Closest at hand is lunar material, NEO's should be
shortly after that - without clear legal authority or rights, the
situation is identical to the problems with the "Law of the Sea" treaty
- there's no way to own undersea resources outside of national
boundaries, so nobody will invest real money in efforts to prospect for
resources in international waters (or in space) or in infrastructure to
extract and use them.

> I think it is
>premature to talk about ownership of the
>Moon/Mars/asteroids. When the technology has matured
>to the point where we can think of exploiting these
>resources, then I believe we can have a good
>discussion.
>
Read the "Moon Miners' Manifesto", the "Artemis Databook", the
"P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T" site, the various books like the "Lunar Base
Handbook" - we're not being held up by technology, although there's a
need for some low-gravity location/material-specific processing R&D, and
lots of "prospecting" will of course be needed. I have little doubt that
we will be starting to exploit off-Earth resources well before 2020; IF
we can gather the investment capital needed to make it happen. CATS cuts
down some of the costs (but far from all of them - most satellites
launched now cost considerably more than the launch fee) and so reduces
the capital investment needed - so it helps. But we still need some big
billion-dollar-level investments with or without CATS.

> Though if history is a judge, it will
>probably end up being a first come first claim on the
>asteroids.
>
That's basically what the Space Settlement Initiative proposal does -
establish what "first come" means so you can make the first claim.

Arthur

There's overcapacity in the commercial launch market right now relative to
demand. The U.S. military has just gotten new Delta 4 and Atlas V
launchers, and both of these have some really dynamite engines, the RS-68
and and the RD-180. There are still lots of old U.S. and Soviet
ballistic missiles that can be converted to launchers for civil or
military use.

It's really not clear to me that technology advancement is right now the
solution to the high cost of accessing space. What is needed is more
demand for launchers.

But of course the high cost of accessing space limits demand severely. And
small reductions in the price of accessing space may or may not increase
demand significantly; it is not clear how price-elastic that demand might
be. We might, for example, have to see a further 10-fold reduction in
price before we really see a demand explosion, but of course that 10-fold
reduction in price can't occur without the demand explosion to support it.
That's a conundrum, and I don't know what the answer is to how to
increase demand. But to assume that the answer lies in more launcher
technology development does not seem to me to be necessarily wise.

It seems to me that the major cost of launching is not in the variable
cost of launching, but rather in the amortization of initial R&D costs.
This is one of the reasons (although not the only) that Russian launchers
are 'cheap'. There are actually quite a few new or relatively new
launchers on the market, for example, Ariane V, Delta 4, Atlas V (plus new
variants of Delta 4 and Atlas V that will show themselves over the next
year or two), India's GSLV, H-2, and so on and so on. But each of these
launchers has had very few launches.

Even the venerable Ariane 4, recently retired, only saw 114 launches
during it's entire service life. I don't know what the initial
development cost of Ariane 4 was, but let's assume it was $1.14 billion.
That works out to $10 million per flight just for amortization of
development costs, excluding any discount factor, or double or triple that
to account for discounting and risk and so forth.

Ron
******

Al Globus
05/15/03 04:22 PM
Please respond to spacesettlers

To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
cc:
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

I was refering primarily to NASA's budget. NASA has a 15 billion
dollar per year budget, of which only a small fraction goes into any
launch activity other than the shuttle (around $4 billion/year). While
all the activities you mention are great and certainly help, most are
either very small or are aimed at minor improvements in current
vehicles. What I would like to see is about half of NASA's budget
devoted to launch. I'd like to see it spent on:

- Propulsion and materials R&D
- Providing launch and test facilities to private industry
- Some sort of prize (like X-prize, but more money for orbital flight)
or purchase of initial flights (10-15) for reusable orbital vehicles.
- Other R&D of value to launch vehicles.

--- "Arthur P. Smith" wrote:
> Perhaps CATS as you define it isn't possible yet?
> The Russian launchers
> and SeaLaunch are already 10 times less expensive
> per pound than the
> shuttle - but that's not cheap enough apparently...
> If none of the many
> efforts I mentioned are going to provide cheap
> access to space, then
> where do you see it coming from?

Sea Launch is not less expensive, its just on the
equator so you can save some weight on a satellite by
not having fuel on it needed to move it to the correct
orbital inclination. Also, Sea Launch is having some
problems keeping to schedule (see last weeks Space
News article for more info on this).

As for Russian launchers, yes they are cheaper then
American counterparts. However, Russia is strapped
for money right now and only time will tell how this
effects their industry. Also, thanx to the Iran
weapons proliferation act, there is some friction now
between US and Russian space agencies. This "could"
lead to problems in the future (other than the current
ISS problems it is causing), though none at this point
for commercial enterprises.

There has always been the threat that Russia could
undercut the ELV market. However, it is not in their
economic interests to reduce the profit margins on
their Proton and smaller rockets.

As for is it cheap enough, a recent study put out by
Futron (which I posted a link to this group a few
weeks back) clearly shows that it is in fact not chap
enough. Launch costs need to go less than $1000 per
pound to GTO. We are not even close to that yet.

As for humans, currently its at $20 mil to LEO (ala
Soyuz). That definitely is not CATS! Even the
x-prize doesn't fulfil this part of CATS as it is
sub-orbital only. Though it is without a doubt a
great step to getting CATS.

> The question is use of space resources, not your own
> equipment, where
> the law is clear. Closest at hand is lunar material,
> NEO's should be
> shortly after that - without clear legal authority
> or rights, the
> situation is identical to the problems with the
> "Law of the Sea" treaty
> - there's no way to own undersea resources outside
> of national
> boundaries, so nobody will invest real money in
> efforts to prospect for
> resources in international waters (or in space) or
> in infrastructure to
> extract and use them.
>

International waters is greatly exploited for
resources already (fishing and oil primarily, though
natural gas has also been on the rise) and alot of
"real money" is put into these projects. Not to
mention the ownership of optical networks running
across the bottom of international waters as an
example of "real money" being used.

> Read the "Moon Miners' Manifesto", the "Artemis
> Databook", the
> "P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T" site, the various books like the
> "Lunar Base
> Handbook"

I've read every single one of these you've mentioned
and then some. I would also recommend that you read
the many Futron reports on space, at least a years
worth Space News and Aviation Weekly, Department of
Commerce's yearly commercial space report, the FAA's
yearly forecasting reports on Launch demand, and
various peer-reviewed ideas for space habitats and
lunar and asteroid resources that have been published
in Astrophysics Today, Science, Nature and other peer
reviewed magazines.

> - we're not being held up by technology,
> although there's a
> need for some low-gravity location/material-specific
> processing R&D, and
> lots of "prospecting" will of course be needed. I
> have little doubt that
> we will be starting to exploit off-Earth resources
> well before 2020; IF
> we can gather the investment capital needed to make
> it happen. CATS cuts
> down some of the costs (but far from all of them -
> most satellites
> launched now cost considerably more than the launch
> fee) and so reduces
> the capital investment needed - so it helps. But we
> still need some big
> billion-dollar-level investments with or without
> CATS.

Most of the technology to do this is already here. We
can already use spectroscopy and crystal field theory
to help prospecting. Yes, there still needs to be
some r/d done and yes, we are talking billion-dollar
investments are always needed, just as they are needed
to open up new gold mines in Indonesia (see Freeport
gold mine story some time, a multi-billion effort to
build a mine that has over S50 billion worth of gold,
copper and silver).

However, look at global trade today. What would
happen if the cost of shipping goods across the ocean
we ten times as high as they are now? How would that
effect our electronic industry? Would we have such a
grerat gobal economy if shipping costs were higher?
The same lesson I believe applies to space.

As Futron's report on launch costs showed (you can get
this report from their web site or dig for the link i
provided earlier), existing space markets don't need
CATS. Telecom has shown its demand fits the current
costs, as has remote sensing. However, to move beyond
these markets and open up space to new markets, we
must drive down shipping costs. Just as lower
shipping costs here on Earth have opened up new trade
avenues.

> That's basically what the Space Settlement
> Initiative proposal does -
> establish what "first come" means so you can make
> the first claim.

There are already laws written which describe what
first claim is. Not being a lawyer, I do not know all
the ins and outs of this. But I'd bet my last dollar
that when these large mining companies wish to exploit
these resources, their lawyers will bend the law to
their wills, just as they have done in Indonesia.

NOTE: I am in NO WAY endorsing what happened in
Indonesia for those who are familar with the cultural
crimes committed. I am just using this as an example
of the power of mining. It is in fact because of
these human right violations which happened there that
I am even aware of how powerful mining interests are.
For those who have no idea what I am talking about,
the controversy is way beyond this newsgroup's
discussion.

Ryan Z

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Arthur P. Smith"
wrote:

> >As far as the property issue, I really don't think
> >that is holding anyone back. We've pretty much have a
> >model right now (based off telecom sats) that what we
> >put into space, we retain ownership of.
> >
> The question is use of space resources, not your own equipment,
where
> the law is clear. Closest at hand is lunar material, NEO's should
be
> shortly after that - without clear legal authority or rights, the
> situation is identical to the problems with the "Law of the Sea"
treaty
> - there's no way to own undersea resources outside of national
> boundaries, so nobody will invest real money in efforts to
prospect for
> resources in international waters (or in space) or in
infrastructure to
> extract and use them.

I agree with Ryan on this point; lack of property rights isn't
holding any project back. Further, lack of property rights isn't
holding back any oceanic projects either. Thus far there have always
been more efficient land-based projects competing for the investment
dollars, even the infamous manganese modules on the seabed couldn't
compete economically with terrestrial mining.

>
> > I think it is
> >premature to talk about ownership of the
> >Moon/Mars/asteroids. When the technology has matured
> >to the point where we can think of exploiting these
> >resources, then I believe we can have a good
> >discussion.
> >
> Read the "Moon Miners' Manifesto", the "Artemis Databook", the
> "P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T" site, the various books like the "Lunar Base
> Handbook" - we're not being held up by technology, although
there's a
> need for some low-gravity location/material-specific processing
R&D, and
> lots of "prospecting" will of course be needed. I have little
doubt that
> we will be starting to exploit off-Earth resources well before
2020; IF
> we can gather the investment capital needed to make it happen.
CATS cuts
> down some of the costs (but far from all of them - most satellites
> launched now cost considerably more than the launch fee) and so
reduces
> the capital investment needed - so it helps. But we still need
some big
> billion-dollar-level investments with or without CATS.

Again, I'm with Ryan on this point. There is no driving force, no
impetus for legislative action. When prospecting is on the cusp of
reality, and the legal issues need to be cleared up, then the powers
that be, who aren't space nuts, will move to reach agreement for
their own self-interest.

I do have serious doubt about your 2020 prediction. Investment
dollars flow to projects that have the greatest return. There are
more projects available than capital to fund them, so there is a
rationing of investment. I see no investment proposals, nor
technologies, on the horizon, nor a gleam in the eye of a budding
engineer, nor speculative business plans that past first muster,
which lead me to share your conclusion that 2020 is a viable date.
If deus ex machina is the vehicle that underlies your prediction,
well, I can't argue against that, but look back over the last 17
years and check the progress of technology, and the instances of
multi-billion dollar investments in groundbreaking projects.

I have no doubt it'll happen, but it'll need a unique driving force
in orbit, something that absolutely can't be done on Earth, and
further, for which there must be a sizable market on Earth. I have
no clue what that driver is, but the possibilities are infinite, and
all we need to do is find the first one.

And I don't think it's going to be mining platinum.

>
> > Though if history is a judge, it will
> >probably end up being a first come first claim on the
> >asteroids.
> >
> That's basically what the Space Settlement Initiative proposal
does -
> establish what "first come" means so you can make the first claim.
>
> Arthur

The Space Settlement Initiative falls apart in its internal logic.
It shouldn't have been published, nor supported by other groups
until it was internally consistent in its logic. Further, it's on
par with the Lunar Land registries and Archimedes Registry. All lack
substance.

If there is something valuable in space, and somebody wants it,
they'll either find laws to support their position, or quite
seriously, they'll just go there and get it. The law is there to
protect, but if there is no one to threaten the claim, the
claimholders can just wait for the law to catch up. That is often a
good impetus to effect legislative change. Look at Internet
commerce. No one asked permission to conduct commerce online, often
interstate, and occasionally, international, nor did buyers and
sellers have online rights, nevertheless, pioneers paved the way,
and brought the law into this new arena.

TangoMan

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, rmenich@m... wrote:
>> It's really not clear to me that technology advancement is right
now the
> solution to the high cost of accessing space. What is needed is
more
> demand for launchers.

Nice analysis. I agree completely with your whole post. You raised
good points.

TangoMan

On Sat, 17 May 2003, victoriatangoman wrote:

> I do have serious doubt about your 2020 prediction. Investment
> dollars flow to projects that have the greatest return. There are
> more projects available than capital to fund them, so there is a
> rationing of investment. I see no investment proposals, nor
> technologies, on the horizon, nor a gleam in the eye of a budding
> engineer, nor speculative business plans that past first muster,
> which lead me to share your conclusion that 2020 is a viable date.

(1) The companies are out there. TransOrbital is flying
the first commercial mission to the Moon later
this year. If they're successful with that (and they sound very
positive about it right now, in contrast to some earlier reports I'd
heard from the same people) they plan follow-on missions of increasing
scope - the next one (scheduled for 2005) would be a lander with sample
analysis, etc. LunaCorp seems well on their way to something similar next
year with a bit more on the government sponsorship side, though they're not
as far ahead on permits etc. as far as I can tell. This is one
route, and far more than a "gleam in the eye" at this point. The business
plans are evolving; if these companies crash and burn like Beal and Rotary
Rocket, I fully expect followers who will have learned from their mistakes
and try again, perhaps with more modest plans. No, they're not at the
billion dollar level yet, but they are working with 10's of millions
right now, and to get there in 17 years takes only a modest 30%/year :-)

(2) One major market: large-scale space structures. For example, the
recent space.com article on future space telescopes. Communications satellites
have also been getting larger at an accelerating pace. Within the next 15
years we'll be regularly putting things in space that can not be launched
in one piece, but (like ISS) will need in-orbit assembly - that also provides
opportunities for in-orbit re-fueling, and supply of bulk or lightly
processed materials that could be manufactured and brought to LEO (or
wherever the assembly point is) from the Moon more cheaply than from Earth.

(3) The greatest return on investments comes from creating and improving
economic "loops", where part of the output of the economic process
provides most of the input required for the next iteration;
the development of agriculture, utilization of metals, industrialization,
electricity, computers and the internet all provided new opportunities for
a variety of economic feedback loops. Development of space resources
provides us a similar loop, completely new, and in the long run the returns
will be astronomical! Now we just need to convince those investors...

Arthur

On Fri, 16 May 2003, Ryan Z wrote:

> However, look at global trade today. What would
> happen if the cost of shipping goods across the ocean
> we ten times as high as they are now? How would that
> effect our electronic industry? Would we have such a
> grerat gobal economy if shipping costs were higher?
> The same lesson I believe applies to space.

Hi Ryan,

good comments. I think this is your main point - at least
on the importance of CATS. If the transport cost were much higher,
obviously many more things would have to be produced locally rather
than being imported. Would this necessarily be a bad thing? In the
space analogy, the higher the cost to orbit, the more things it would
be economical to produce in space, rather than importing from Earth.
Doesn't seem such a bad consequence to me... The problem is high transport
costs increase overall costs and discourage the initial investments
needed in remote locations, and also discourage future markets like
tourism that are more heavily dependent on transport costs.

So cheaper access to space would obviously be a great help. But personally
I think we (1) will get started without it, if necessary, and (2) by
doing so we'll increase launch demand sufficiently to motivate innovations
that should keep launch costs coming down.

Arthur

After we launched the MUSES-C mission on May 10 th,
I have been always asking myself questions concerning space mining and
manufacturing.

We have various amounts of materials on NEO, which are quite expensive
on Earth.
and I am sure, companies or people, dealing with these materials on
Earth (like Gold or Platinum)
earn good money, already built up their systems and business connections
etc.

The question would be how much they would like the idea to have new
competitors..
or how much they would support new sources (especially in space)...
I am sure such business owners will do everything to avoid using space
resources to keep their on-going profit. Who would want his business to
go down?

Rare materials are expensive. If we can retrieve gold from space sources
and bring back to Earth,
will Gold be still worth the same if we start mining it from an asteroid?

Also imagine the energy industry. Space exploration proposals are
usually based on creating new energy sources. (which I think is quite a
good idea...) but, energy sources are also reasons today, to start a
war or attack/create conflicts in other countries. Would the big
petroleum companies allow scientists and engineers to develop new
systems for regenerative energy sources in the coming ten years? It is a
pity but I think, the most important problem that space settlement
faces, is the "Politics" and there would be no reasonable solution for
this problem, unless we are too lucky and will have great leaders in the
coming years :-)

I think mining the NEO to sell on orbit for in-situ construction
proposals would make the only near-future viable profit if we are able
to mine an asteroid or the Moon.

anilir

Ryan Z wrote:

On Friday, May 16, 2003, at 07:46 AM, Arthur P. Smith wrote:

> CATS cuts
> down some of the costs (but far from all of them - most satellites
> launched now cost considerably more than the launch fee)

But much of that cost is driven by the cost of launch. Basically,
everything has to be a light as possible and there are no repairmen.
Both are a consequence of launch cost and safety. Designing things to
be small and light is expensive. Simple example, you need expensive
rad hard electronics because you can't afford to simply put them inside
of a bunch of lead for shielding. No repairman means everything needs
to be extremely reliable and redundant - meaning expensive. If
transportation to orbit were cheap and reliable, you could have
repairmen.

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Sunday, May 18, 2003, at 07:38 PM, Arthur P. Smith wrote:

> If the transport cost were much higher,
> obviously many more things would have to be produced locally rather
> than being imported. Would this necessarily be a bad thing?

If you're the producer it's great -- you can make more profit. If
you're the consumer it sucks, because less competition means higher
prices and/or lower quality (on the average).

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

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.