Diminishing launching co$t...

Here are a few reasons why we should expect launch costs to continue to diminish in the future. I don't know the rate at which they will diminish, and have no idea whether the rate you quoted (halve the price every 5 years) is good or bad:

* Increased competition
More and more players will want a piece of the commercial satellite launch business, or an increased share of the business. Because of these economic pressures, every year or so a new launcher rolls out somewhere. Recent examples include Ariane V, Delta III, Japan's H-2, and India's GSLV.

* Increased ability to capture a comprehensive design electronically, and handle changes more fluidly
These days, the need for physical paper blueprints in aerospace design is presumably very small and diminshing each year. Some systems (e.g., 777) have been designed entirely within software tools such as CATIA. The ability to do this will increase over time as computing power increases and better software tools are developed. These advances can make the design process less costly.

* Increased ability to simulate and analyze before building hardware
These days, we have massive computational power available to us to do CFD, finite element, and other analyses. Our ability to do these things increases with time in accordance with the same laws that govern computer hardware. The need to actually build physical hardware in order to ascertain knowledge grows less with time (but of course, is still necessary to some extent, and will remain so).

* Progress in materials science
Launch system designers today have access to a variety of light and strong composite materials that were not available to rocket designers in the '50s and '60s. Composites have many uses outside of launch vehicles, so continuing development of new materials can be expected to continue. Usage of composites allows designers to get more favorable mass fractions.

* More historical failure examples from which to gain experience
Every time a launcher fails, some experience is gained that can potentially benefit a future rocket designer.

I do not suppose that my list is all-inclusive.

Ron Menich

cfrjlr@...
10/05/01 10:31 AM

> It was suggested that launch cost would
> diminish by 1/2 every 5 years...what
> could possibly drive such happenstance?
>

There are several points to consider.

First, in recent years launch prices have been artificailly high, fixed by the western launch producers.

The former-USSR launch providers were forced by a one-sided trade agreement (signed in 1993) appended to the
ISS agreement, to keep their prices comparable to western levels. A similar agreement applies to China.

This ex-USSR price fixing restriction expired as of 31st December 2000, although I believe the Chinese agreement might still be in effect.

So the former USSR providers are now free to lower their prices. In the face of competition they are sure to do so. Currently most of what they charge is profit, and they are happoy to continue to charge high prices because it brings in a lot of fast cash. However, as forces of free market competition take hold, ex-USSR launch providers will compete with each other, reduce their vast profit margins, and drop their prices to
obtain market share.

There is currently a surplus of launch capacity in the world, this will inevitably lead to lower prices as
launch providers fight agressively to preserve market share.

Ultimately, the ex-USSR launch providers could reduce their prices by a factor of ten and still make a profit. This is due in large part ot the cheap cost of skilled labor in their countries, mostly Russia and Ukraine.
A PhD aerospace engineer in Russia is as skilled as his/her counterpart in the USA, but is paid about a factor of ten less.

Also USSR has some advantages of economies in scale.

In addition, they have made some shrewd investments in manufacturing technology, for exmaple, the Krunichev company has a highly automated welding shop which makes high precision welds with robots, this has proven to be a highly cost effective system for fabricating their large stages for the Proton launch vehicle.