TGD(ver 1.0) Waste of Time

Al Globus wrote:

> Ian Woollard wrote:
>
>> Al Globus wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Ed Minchau wrote:
>>
>> My theory is that the price will halve every 5 years for the
>> foreseeable future; on average; but it may drop more quickly in
>> the short run due to competition between the Russian block and
>> the Americans.
>
> Considering that the price of launch has actually risen over the last 30 years,
> that's a theory in need of some data. Measured in person-hours per ton to
> low-Earth-orbit, a Saturn V launch was cheaper than any current alternative, with
> the possible exception of some Russian launchers

Yes, but costs to launch go down greatly with launcher size. Saturn V
was rather a lot bigger. Launchers are getting bigger aren't they?

> Source: Reducing Space Mission
> Cost, James Wertz and Wiley Larson, page 116. In addition, launch costs have never
> halved over any 5 year period. Why would they suddenly start now?

Launchers are getting bigger. Therefore costs are going down. There
does not appear to be much limit as to how big launchers can get. The
cost per launch is to a first approximation fixed. The amount
launched scales with launcher size.

> As to competition between the old USSR and the U.S., most of the new and recent
> launchers developed or in development in the US use major pieces of ex-Soviet
> hardware (engines, whole vehicles, etc.).

Yes. Also it has been shown that kero is cheaper than hydrogen and
has similar performance (although kero rockets give
less unit thrust per pound of fuel, the lower tankage costs;
smaller engines and most importantly, faster mass reduction to
reduce gravity losses help kero match hydrogen.)

>> Tourism is ~15 years away, if I am right.
>
> I wish you were right, but I don't see a shred of evidence for a tourism business
> outside of people with literally millions to spend on a trip to space.. The only
> hope I see for middle-class tourism is NASA's official goal of a few hundred
> dollars/lb to LEO by 2020 or so with one failure in 10,000 flights. If this goal
> were reached, tourism should work. However, I don't see a development path that
> will get us there. Hopefully am wrong.

Isn't that the same goal they had for the Space Shuttle? NASA don't
care about cheap launch. Or more accurately the associated companies
around NASA don't care about cheap launch. They like it just
fine really expensive with them raking off a percentage. Why else
is the space shuttle the most expensive launcher ever per pound
(ignoring the small launch systems)?

Right now there is negligable tourism of course.

>> Can NASA supply a market? Can a government make profit? It seems
>> unlikely, but it has happened occasionally.
>
> NASA by itself is not really a market. A market with one customer, isn't a
> market. Also, governments aren't supposed to make profits. If they did, they
> could use the power of taxation and their control of the legal system to destroy
> all possible competition. This happens in many countries, almost all of which are
> pretty poor as a result. We need to insure that our government never makes a
> profit, and removes itself from any line of development that begins to be
> profitable. That's for business and private enterprise.

There is good evidence that NASA and the associated companies are
squashing competition. Beale specifically said so when he closed his
launch business. Or perhaps he was trying to cover the size of his mistake?

> --
> Al Globus
> aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
> http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

--
- Ian Woollard (ian.woollard@...)

"Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding technological
civilization?"
- Gerard O'Neill