HORIZON at BBC (UK)

Hi Al and all,

What you say sounds good Al, but it ignoires the real situation. We've
known here in UK, let alone the US, how to launch 50 folk into LEO at
$10,000 a head for over 15 years now. Read the IAF papers for 1986 and
1987 if you don't believe me.

The reason this hasn't happened is because of politics. The US
congressmen insist that space must be used to provide maximum numbers of
jobs in this state or that one, thereby grossly increasing the cost over
what it need be, and when a friendly country like UK comes up with
better ways of engineering things to bring the cost down, the US
Government leans on them heavily to ensure that it doesn't happen. Thus
it is now British National Space Centre policy not to get involved in
launchers at all.

As a result, space is presently costing the US around 40 times what it
need cost - despite the buyers market, which you are quite right, is now
really enormous. However, also now due again to stupidity in Congress,
that Arianespace has become the world's largest launcher manufacturer
coupled with the Russians having put the skids under the whole policy
business, the costs will inevitably begin to tumble. There will be
nothing the US Congress can do to stop this, no matter how many US jobs
are lost. Space is going to reach a realistic cost no matter who wants
to stop it doing so.

Best wishes, Andy.

Al Globus wrote:

> Ian Woollard wrote:
> >
> > Al Globus wrote:
> >
> > > Ian Woollard wrote:
> > >
> > >>Bearing in mind the recent Space Tourist a program on space
> > >>tourism would be VERY appropriate. There is a need to clarify the
> > >>TRUE costs of going into space (less than 1% of the current
> > >>costs),
> > >>
> > > Assuming Tito paid $20 million, that means your "TRUE" cost is <
> > > $200,000 -- about the full cost (salary, benefits, office space,
> > > computer, etc.) of one engineer for one year in the US.
> >
> > Sounds about right, a little high actually; but in the ballpark.
> >
> With all due respect, there is no way you can launch a person into
> space
> given today's technology with one engineer year of effort. Not even
> close. It takes a full time engineer just to keep a few dozen PCs
> functioning in today's environment.
>
> > Basically, asymptotic cost, based on consumable items i.e. fuel
> > plus some allowance for profit etc.
>
> Operating a car costs about $0.30-40/mile, but only $.10 of that is
> fuel
> cost today. Cars, however, operate in an extremely benign environment
>
> compared to launchers and thus need far less engineering, testing and
> (especially) refurbishment. Apparently your "TRUE" cost is something
> in
> the future with much more advanced technology than we have today
> (e.g.,
> molecular nanotechnology).
>
> > Well, there's plenty of obvious reasons ;-) but there's nothing
> > in physics that says that the costs are even $20 million/person.
>
> Physics never costs anything. Only people consume money. The
> sustained
> cost of anything is, at minimum, the cost of the people. At maximim,
> whatever the market will bear. Right now the launch market is a
> buyer's
> market and prices are approximating cost plus a little profit. One
> reason for high space launch costs is that you need so many people to
> get the failure rate down to the current 7% (commercial launchers) or
> 1%
> (US space shuttle). One reason you need so many people is that
> launchers operate in extreme environments so great care is necessary
> for
> things to work at all; in part because of materials limitations. My
> hypothesized solution is to improve materials to the point that they
> can
> easily survive inside rocket engines and in orbit. This should
> substantially reduce the engineering, testing and refurbishment
> necessary -- but this will take considerable time.
>
> --
> 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.
>
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