TGD(ver 1.0) Waste of Time

Ian Woollard wrote:

> Al Globus wrote:
>
> > Ian Woollard wrote:
> >
> 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?
>

I believe the shuttle has the greatest capacity to LEO, and it's less than Saturn V, so
no, they aren't.

> >> 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?

No. Cost goals for the shuttle were $500/lb in 1980 dollars and one failure in 100,000
flights. The shuttle missed these goals by over an order of magnitude in cost and three
orders of magnitude in reliability. Nonetheless, the space shuttle is by far the most
capable launch vehicle in the world.

> NASA don't
> care about cheap launch.

There's a difference between failing to achieve your ambitious goals and not caring. In
my experience, many people at NASA do care about cheap launches, although there has been
little success.

> 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.

I think there may be some truth to this. However, in the current launch market people
are cutting margins to the bone because of the extreme competition. Most of the fat is
either gone or will be gone soon, so current commercial prices are a pretty good
indication of real cost.

> Why else
> is the space shuttle the most expensive launcher ever per pound
> (ignoring the small launch systems)?

Other possibilities: It's the only re-usable launch vehicle, it's man-rated, and
operations are quite different than other vehicles. The shuttle has a 1% failure rate
while commercial launchers have about a 7% failure rate. At these levels, additional
reliability is pretty expensive. Also, the shuttle is the *least* expensive launcher in
volume per lb., so your choice of measurement affects the analysis.

>
> 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?

I think there's may be some of that going on, but I don't think it's decisive. Gathering
evidence on the subject will be extremely difficult and probably not particular
productive.

Beale had plenty of problems other than the government. His analysis may be correct, or
it might have been sour grapes. Note that Orbital Sciences was able to create a new
company, break into the aerospace market (including launchers), and become a major player
over the last 10 or 15 years. It's not impossible.

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

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.

I think we should:

1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020 goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500 times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space colonies,
each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.