launch

Excellent comments and I will try to address them one
by one.

--- Lynn Olson wrote:
> >As for launch costs, they only go down so long as
> the
> yearly volume increases, not the volume over 16+
> years<
>
> This may be true, but it would make rockets
> different from all other
> products that have been studied.
> I think this is unlikely. Any product could make a
> claim to uniqueness,
> and yet a variety of very different products show
> very similar experience
> curves with respect to cost. [cars, golf balls,
> limestone, phone calls,
> paper bags, steel ingots, pins, cookies, airplanes,
> TVs, broiler chickens]

The big difference here between rockets and the other
product again goes down to mass production. All of
those you mentioned are mass producable, commercial
rockets at this point have not been. No rockets, save
those use for ICBMs, have been mass produced in the US
or Europe. I make this distinction because if I
remember correctly, the Russians have mass produced
the proton but I do not have the sources to back up
that statement.

> If, and note I do say if, the experience curve
> argument does apply to
> rockets, what would be the consequences?
>
> 1. re: Al Globus' proposal.
> The proposal may be a way around the experience
> curve, by paying for
> development costs before the market justifies it.
> However, in the
> historical examples technological advance is only
> one facet of cost
> reduction, and I do think volume will be required to
> really push costs
> down. I would also hesitate to favor RLVs over
> expendables - see below.
>

I agree with you on this point and have argued in the
SSI list of the advantages of ELV over RLV for any
non-human flight and will not start that one up again
right now.

> 2. Expendable costs can still come down a lot. The
> experience curve says
> the lack of cost reduction over the past couple of
> decades is to be
> expected. Those people who point to the cost of
> materials, propellants,
> and operations and say that costs could be a lot
> lower are probably right.
> However, we need experience to get there. As an
> example, Intel could
> probably have predicted the performance of the
> Pentium IV in 1990, but that
> did not mean they could produce it in 1992.
> Experience is important.
>

The excellent article Mike Combs mentioned covers this
point (thanks Mike, I've bookmarked that article for
future reference!)

> 3. As someone (Jack?) said earlier on this forum,
> for near term market
> ideas we need to accept current launch costs. We
> would like ideas for
> which the market would increase rapidly as costs are
> lowered, which would
> produce the "virtuous cycle" typified by Moore's
> law. More volume = lower
> cost = more volume = lower cost, etc., etc.
>
> 4. To produce cost reductions of 20-30 per cent per
> year, we need 4000
> launches the first year, 8000 the second, and so on.
> This is the key, and somewhat discouraging point.
> Maybe the market can be
> segmented, allowing a start over at lower numbers.
>
> 5. Launches of any sort should be encouraged.

more volume is definately the key as only with more
volume can we reach a stage of mass production.
Unfortunately I do not see the volume picking up
again.

Wall Street was burned pretty bad on its investments
in large space projects. Alot of money was lost on
the low earth constellations and on creating creating
rockets (re: Beal). It is going to take a long time
to regain their trust. Just like when you go
bankrupt, it takes 5-7 years to regain a credit
rating, the same I think holds for space investment.

Compounded on this is a decline in the
telecommunications segment. Just pull up a graph of
lucent, nortel, loral and other backbone telecom
companies and you will see a battered sector. This is
important as telecom is the largest investor in space
related products, whether it be in a satellite in
orbit or the ground infrastructure to utilize space
resources.

It will be 2006 at the earliest till we can depend on
wall street getting excited enough to start investing
in space again. Until this happens, we in the
industry will have to ride it out.

To tie this analysis back to launch, without the
increase in demand for space services, the demand for
space transportation will not grow. Without growth,
costs will not be lowered. Currently no rocket
manufacturer can exist on its own two feet. Boeing,
Lockheed, Arianne, H2-A, Orbital, Great Wall Company
all depend on their respective governments to keep
them afloat.