Lunascaping and Zubrin

It sure is a pleasure to see all of this discussion populating the
list again!

> I've gone way past my initial point here, so I'll stop. There's
plenty
> more on my mind, but I'll save it for another post.

Andrew, I enjoyed reading your post and I look forward to the other
points you'll raise.

Now onto my 2 cents worth.

> The real problem is therefore how to bring
> about the necessary investment of time and money. I believe that
this
> is a case where the relatively new ideas of Von Braun, O'Neill,
and
> Zubrin are completely wrong. All three (and indeed most people who
have
> published in this area) endorse what is effectively a monolithic
> centrally planned approach to the problem.

I can forgive Von Braun because that's the method that he'd used his
whole life, and it worked very well for him.

Zubrin, well Big Government is the only source of money that could
finance Mars Direct and the subsequent schemes. He never made an
effort to find a source of profit in his plan, and even went so far
as to denigrate private financing of space development, perhaps as a
premptive strike against criticism of his Big Government financing
model.

O'Neill made a concerted effort to ground the High Frontier vision
in a profitmaking/bootstrappng mode. He looked to government to be a
key player because they are the ones that have the ability to
marshall immense resources for the benefit of society.

Unlike Von Braun and Zubrin though, because O'Neill's vision is
premised on making a profit, a consortium of corporations could pull
it off without government involvement if they did see a benefit to
themselves.

That said, I believe that even they would follow a monolithic
centally planned approach because they'd have to. There are too many
interdependent functions required in orbital manufacturing that
aren't profitable unless other functions are there as well. It
beceomes a chicken and egg scenario very early on in the
developement process. A guiding hand is required.

This is very much a 20th
> century view, growing out of things like the Apollo project and
the
> large scale industrial projects of the 1930s such as Hoover Dam.

Which worked to fulfill their purpose. Without the governement's
involvement they simply wouldn't have been done.

I've spent my entire career in business and economics and I watch
with bewilderment as the cult of "free market" permeates more and
more arenas. Markets are very powerful concepts and are brutally
efficient when used properly but they have their place and cannot be
extended to all areas. In some instances government is a more
efficient mechanism to bring about desired results.

Consider the role of government in the Tennessee Valley Authority,
Bonniville Power Authority, Rural Electricification Authority,
Fannie May, Freddie Mac, National Science Foundation, and other such
organizations. There was no movement to electricify rural areas
without government assistance. No moves to create liquidity in the
mortgage market without government impetus. Further look at gov't
involvement in protecting monopolies such as Major League Baseball,
the early days of AT&T, and the regulated industries of aviation and
utilities. Without gov't protection the infrastrucure wouldn't have
been laid down. Who would be the first innovator to build an airport
as a business endeavor when there were only a few airplanes in the
sky? The Free Market Mantra wouldn't have yielded desired results in
the early days of those industries. Of course the trick is knowing
when govenment should ease it's involvement!

> Unfortunately that is just not how frontiers have historically
been
> opened. History is full of examples of colonization and
exploration,
> but very few examples exist of centrally planned frontier opening.
> Fewer still are the examples of successful central planning
leading to
> opening frontiers. There are many examples of government funded
> enterprises aimed at exploration, but in nearly every case the
> successful exploitation of the resources of the new frontier was
> carried out by private enterprise.

I'm not sure how far you could take this analogy. All previous
frontiers had "Free Goods" involved. These would be land, air,
water, food. You could live and prosper on the frontiers. Space is
on a different level.

>
> Based on these observations, it seems to me that the route to the
high
> frontier must lie in private enterprise.

I'm not sure it must lie with private enterprise. Recall that gov't
sets the rules under which private enterprise operates. What some
may see as private enterprise may just be a game with the rules set
by the government.

For instance, one scenario that I'm toying with has to do with the
Kyoto Treaty. If the signatories do permit an emissions credit
exhange, then a consortium of companies can put together a SPS plan,
which sell credits for reduced emission energy from SPS to replace
fossil fuel emissions. The worldwide volumes can be huge and the
credit volumes could finance SPS. But the rules of the game are set
by governments so is this plan really a free enterprise model? Would
you consider Boeing or Lockheed to be true private enterprise
companies? Will the government let them fail? Will the government
let them sell their technology to the highest bidder?

Further, if world government's sweetens the pot by allowing tax
credits for SPS funding, they're forgoing revenue in order to bring
a future benefit to society. Also, consider which companies would be
able to benefit from an emissions trading scheme? Are they pre-
selected or is the market free for all? If no pre-selection is in
place, then companies that fail to deliver will nullify their
emissions credits. What happens to the company that sold the credit?
Who indemnifies it? It's still on the hook and now has to find
someone else to buy it's pollution. As soon as government comes in
to indemnify the company, then we're no longer talking about free
enterprise.

http://phoenix.liunet.edu/~uroy/externalities/emmisions101802.html

This need not mean business
> per se - recall that many of the private groups that settled the
> frontier in what became the USA were religious sects. The
government
> has a role to play in lowering the risks associated with private
> enterprise, most importantly by exploring (which reduces
investment
> risk by reducing unknowns). Government can also provide incentives
> (such as the zero-g zero-tax proposal), but it cannot run the
whole
> show.
>

The O'Neill proposal doesn't require the government to run the whole
show. It just requires a coordinated effort by a group of actors.

The problem with a situation of uncoordinated actors is that only
profitable niches would be exploited, and the necessry but
unprofitable niches would be ignored. The free market isn't always
the most efficient mechanism to achieve every goal.

> There's more to it than just government, though. Any enterprise
that
> requires huge amounts of capital to be expended before any income
is
> generated is necessarily going to run a much higher risk of
failure
> than enterprises which generate income in the shorter term and
with
> less up-front investment.

You sure got that right!

In order to raise the kind of money needed,
> either the promised payoff must be simply enormous, or the risk
must be
> negligible.

On the mark with this too.

> There is no way for SPS to meet these criteria at present.

True enough. But consider that there isn't any space activity that
could lead to orbital infrastructure that meets those criteria. I'm
not including the varous satellite systems in this category.
Basically, they benefit the economy of the Earth by being built
here, launched from here, and operated from here.

> This doesn't mean that none of O'Neill's ideas are good, it just
> requires reexamining them with an eye to reduction in initial
> investment, and rearranging them in order to make them more
friendly to
> private enterprise. In the short term that means ditching SPS and
> massive stations.

If there was a more suitable replacement candidate for orbital
commerce, then I'd see no problem with this position. Unfortunately,
I don't see any activity that makes more sense than SPS. Yes, the
resources that must be marhsalled are immense, but the resultant
product would be as transformational as electrication and telephony
were in the eartly 20th Century. Without SPS, what is there to build
in orbit?

Will private enterprise undertake massive capital investment in
developing CATS? Consider that Boeing spent over $14 billion
develoing the 777 airliner. What would a privately developed orbital
launch vehicle cost? Could it generate the volume of traffic needed
to amortize the development expense? Do Atlas and Delta have enough
launch volume?

http://yahoo.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/apr2003/nf20030410_9298
_db035.

Further, even if we consider a tourist industry in LEO. How would it
be employing orbital resources. The way I see it the orbital hotel
would be built on Earth, lofted into orbit, tourists, crew,
consumables would be launched into orbit and the whole enterprise
would be an island of Earth in the sea of space.

In the longer term it means that both SPS and Island
> One (through Island 200, let's hope) will be privately owned and
> operated, and designed to respond to the needs of the market as it
> exists when they are built.

Yes, I agree with you that a case could be made for this scenario,
but it is just as likely as a government directed scenario.

Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts, and rebuttals to
the above.

TangoMan