Alot of talk on here is about how expensive
transportation costs are to space. An article today
came out on space.com (for those with subscriptions:
http://www.space.com/spacenews/launchindustry/spainsat_0916.html)
that talked about a recent launch contract for
spainsat which kinds of puts things in perspective:

"We are seeing prices of $45 million for a
4,000-kilogram satellite during this competition,
which means $11,250 per kilogram into geostationary
orbit," one industry official said. "These companies
are doing whatever they have to do to win business."

My question is this, just how low does it really have
to get to make launching no longer appear to be a
barrier?

We are talking just over $5k per pound. Compared to
the cost of manufacturing a satellite (roughly $125
mill for something the size of spainsat), the cost of
transportation is not that major of a factor. For
Spainsat is taking roughly $170 mill to deliver in
orbit, which leaves us with 26% of total costs
(45/170) is transportation.

I'd be interested to hear the ratio of transportation
of something like a car or other large ticket items
from Europe to an American dealer to compare just how
different this really is. My gut feeling is that it
is not going to be all that significantly lower.

My mass is approximately 100 kg. At $11,250 per kg, my mass alone would
cost $1,125,000. That's more money than my net worth at this point in my
life. And that $1,125,000 doesn't even account for all the support mass
that would need to be launched to keep me alive once I get to orbit.

So, as far as space tourism goes, I contend that launch costs are still a
factor that makes it impossible for me to get to orbit. Now, Lance Bass
might have that kind of money, but I don't !!

Ron

Ryan Zelnio ryjaz@...
09/17/02 03:47 PM

Alot of talk on here is about how expensive
transportation costs are to space. An article today
came out on space.com (for those with subscriptions:
http://www.space.com/spacenews/launchindustry/spainsat_0916.html)
that talked about a recent launch contract for
spainsat which kinds of puts things in perspective:

"We are seeing prices of $45 million for a
4,000-kilogram satellite during this competition,
which means $11,250 per kilogram into geostationary
orbit," one industry official said. "These companies
are doing whatever they have to do to win business."

My question is this, just how low does it really have
to get to make launching no longer appear to be a
barrier?

We are talking just over $5k per pound. Compared to
the cost of manufacturing a satellite (roughly $125
mill for something the size of spainsat), the cost of
transportation is not that major of a factor. For
Spainsat is taking roughly $170 mill to deliver in
orbit, which leaves us with 26% of total costs
(45/170) is transportation.

I'd be interested to hear the ratio of transportation
of something like a car or other large ticket items
from Europe to an American dealer to compare just how
different this really is. My gut feeling is that it
is not going to be all that significantly lower.

Now, Lance Bass
might have that kind of money, but I don't !! As it happens, Lance didn't have that kind of money either. :)

Regards,

Mike Combs

So, us poor folks won't get to go. We have lots of industries on Earth
which cater to the rich. Why not in space? Also, that is to geosynch,
which might not be where you would want to go. The price would be lower for
lower orbits. Jay Huebner

My mass is approximately 100 kg. At $11,250 per kg, my mass alone would
cost $1,125,000. That's more money than my net worth at this point in my
life. And that $1,125,000 doesn't even account for all the support mass
that would need to be launched to keep me alive once I get to orbit.

So, as far as space tourism goes, I contend that launch costs are still a
factor that makes it impossible for me to get to orbit. Now, Lance Bass
might have that kind of money, but I don't !!

More seriously, though...

It is surely the case that for those businesses such as telecom and remote
sensing for which successful profitable businesses currently exist, that
those businesses do not find launch costs to be an unsurmountable barrier.
But that's almost a tautology --- these are the small number of business
models that have extremely high value, high enough to overcome the
awesomely high launch costs.

But there are other potential businesses, not yet operating in space, that
are blocked by high launch costs from getting started. Such as space
tourism for the everyman...

Ron

rmenich@...
09/17/02 04:04 PM

My mass is approximately 100 kg. At $11,250 per kg, my mass alone would
cost $1,125,000. That's more money than my net worth at this point in my

life. And that $1,125,000 doesn't even account for all the support mass
that would need to be launched to keep me alive once I get to orbit.

So, as far as space tourism goes, I contend that launch costs are still a
factor that makes it impossible for me to get to orbit. Now, Lance Bass
might have that kind of money, but I don't !!

Ron

Ryan Zelnio ryjaz@...
09/17/02 03:47 PM

Alot of talk on here is about how expensive
transportation costs are to space. An article today
came out on space.com (for those with subscriptions:
http://www.space.com/spacenews/launchindustry/spainsat_0916.html)
that talked about a recent launch contract for
spainsat which kinds of puts things in perspective:

"We are seeing prices of $45 million for a
4,000-kilogram satellite during this competition,
which means $11,250 per kilogram into geostationary
orbit," one industry official said. "These companies
are doing whatever they have to do to win business."

My question is this, just how low does it really have
to get to make launching no longer appear to be a
barrier?

We are talking just over $5k per pound. Compared to
the cost of manufacturing a satellite (roughly $125
mill for something the size of spainsat), the cost of
transportation is not that major of a factor. For
Spainsat is taking roughly $170 mill to deliver in
orbit, which leaves us with 26% of total costs
(45/170) is transportation.

I'd be interested to hear the ratio of transportation
of something like a car or other large ticket items
from Europe to an American dealer to compare just how
different this really is. My gut feeling is that it
is not going to be all that significantly lower.

You are right for tourism. Overall I do not see
tourism ever being a substantial driving force to
lower the economic barriers to accessing space. It is
the drive for efficiency in industry that have
traditionally lowers costs.

To put this into perspective, even though tahiti is a
nice place to visit, no one ever plans on lowering
costs to get there cause tourists are willing to pay
alot to get there and don't need to ship alot to
there. Whereas take someplace like indonesia which is
rich in resources and the price for shipping there is
drastically less then tahiti as there are
substantially more options to choose from.

The reason however why i thought this interesting for
this discussion group however was in terms of thinking
of economical feasibility of things like SPS,
tele-robotic mining and manufacturing, and orbital
debris cleanup.

Often times costs are quoted to be around $10k per
pound and what is needed is $1k per pound. Personally
I do not agree with this. I think even at $5k per
pound, the transportation costs are feasible for most
business plans. Again, I am VERY interested in
hearing from anyone if they can show what percentage
of large ticket item's (cars, cranes, industrial
equipment) price is attributed to transportation
costs.

> More seriously, though...
>
> It is surely the case that for those businesses such
> as telecom and remote
> sensing for which successful profitable businesses
> currently exist, that
> those businesses do not find launch costs to be an
> unsurmountable barrier.
> But that's almost a tautology --- these are the
> small number of business
> models that have extremely high value, high enough
> to overcome the
> awesomely high launch costs.
>
> But there are other potential businesses, not yet
> operating in space, that
> are blocked by high launch costs from getting
> started. Such as space
> tourism for the everyman...
>
> Ron
> ******
>
> rmenich@...
> 09/17/02 04:04 PM
>
> low enough
>
> My mass is approximately 100 kg. At $11,250 per
> kg, my mass alone would
> cost $1,125,000. That's more money than my net
> worth at this point in my
>
> life. And that $1,125,000 doesn't even account for
> all the support mass
> that would need to be launched to keep me alive once
> I get to orbit.
>
> So, as far as space tourism goes, I contend that
> launch costs are still a
> factor that makes it impossible for me to get to
> orbit. Now, Lance Bass
> might have that kind of money, but I don't !!
>
> Ron
> ******
>
> Ryan Zelnio ryjaz@...
> 09/17/02 03:47 PM
>
> enough
>
> Alot of talk on here is about how expensive
> transportation costs are to space. An article today
> came out on space.com (for those with subscriptions:
>
http://www.space.com/spacenews/launchindustry/spainsat_0916.html)

You'd need to divide the cost by 4-5 for going to LEO, and multiply by 2
to allow for life support.

So it would only cost about half of that, which you probably still can't
afford, but hopefully
in the next ten years the price may drop by a factor of 4; it did that
in the last 10 years, so
there is hope. Many people might consider Space Tourism to be for them,
then.

While not directly answering your question you might consider this
article to have some relevance.

http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,62200,00.html

I agree with your points, Ian.

Ron

Ian Woollard ian.woollard@...
09/17/02 09:27 PM

You'd need to divide the cost by 4-5 for going to LEO, and multiply by 2
to allow for life support.

So it would only cost about half of that, which you probably still can't
afford, but hopefully
in the next ten years the price may drop by a factor of 4; it did that
in the last 10 years, so
there is hope. Many people might consider Space Tourism to be for them,
then.

>My mass is approximately 100 kg. At $11,250 per kg, my mass alone would

>cost $1,125,000. That's more money than my net worth at this point in
my