Robber Barons in Space

--- In ssi_list@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
wrote:
--- In ssi_list@yahoogroups.com, "jdr7181" wrote:

> My logic in seeing the MULE concept as a "bootstrapping step"
comes
> from believing that an incremental buildup in infrastructure is
more
> likely than a huge consortium doing it all at once.
>
> Let's say a product was developed or invented whose cost-effective
> production is exclusive to the space environment.

What you postulate involves a very big leap in the suspension of
credibility department, but if this proposition is critical to your
argument, then I'll go along with it to explore the remainder of the
argument.

OK, a wonder product is developed, what is it? After all these
decades of microgravity research I'm not left with a clue as to what
it could be. Care to comment?

Would this not
> likely provide some impetus for change in the aerospace industry -
> strengthen and enlarge the market for microgravity research,

Let's say the wonder product is a pharmaceutical. I don't see how
its successful development will act as an impetus to further the
research in other diverse areas of product development. Even more
tenuous would be the proposition that work on industrial refining
and fabrication processes will be boosted.

Quite frankly, I don't see the linkage, other than for similar
products.

drive an
> appropriate policy and legal framework (soft infrastructure),

What do you foresee here? I don't believe that there is currently
any legal prohibition to launching orbiting laboratories or
fabrication satellites.

> contribute to the dream of cheaper access to space, etc?

How would this work? There is already a marketplace for launch
services. Couldn't launching payloads to a MULE or independent
satellite facilities be accomodated within the existing technology?
Is it necessary to expend tens of billions of dollars on R&D to
service a market for the first successful product that is developed
in orbit? Does that make economic sense? How big is the market for
the wonder product? Can enough cost savings be gained from a new
launch design to make the new rocket competitive when that R&D has
to be amortized into the price? Will the market for the new product
be so large as to be able to single-handedly support the R&D effort?
How can this be determined so early in the product's life to allow
the R&D to run its course? Do you expect the orbital innovations to
flow like water after the first innovation is announced> If so, why
then, and not after all these yars?

In other
> words, wouldn't such a discovery or invention likely contribute
> significantly to reducing the common impediments to space
development
> currently hamstringing all efforts?

Not necessarily. The first litmus test would be to compare the
economic value generated, or likely to be generated, by the wonder
product, against the economic costs of "reducing the common
impediments to space development." Sticking with the pharmaceutical
example, if a marginally improved drug to treat depression is
developed I can't see that it could cover the expenses associated
with meeting your goal. If, OTH, a drug is developed that extends
lifespan by a generation and reduces the ailments of age and is
generally an elixer of health and happiness, then sure, that will
warrant spending countless billions on making sure that drug is
widely available. The calculus is thus shifted in your favor. How
likely is the latter example compared to the former?

But how does the wonder drug help spur research into metallurgy,
engineering for varibale gravity, and the countless other avenues of
mundane research necessary for the product development to support
the needs of an orbital population?

I mean, it seems logical that
> cracking the market will set in place a series of events that
would
> likely drive incremental growth in space development.

I don't follow. Why does it seem logical? Just look to Earth for
counterexamples. You can get gold from seawater, you can desalinate
seawater to have fresh drinking water, you can extract heavy water
from seawater, you can crack seawater to get liquid hydrogen and
liquid oxygen. Other than some desalination plants, the other
technologies aren't used. They're not used because they're not
economic and substitutes exist. Thus, being able to successfully
develop one product doesn't open the floodgates for all products.
>
> I believe this is possible - even more likely than any other
concept
> or scheme I have read or heard about.

You need to expand on this statement some more for me to be able to
understand what you mean.

I'm inferring from your writings that the other schemes you refer to
are SPS. Let's compare: the technology of SPS is well understood, so
too is the engineering. What still needs to be determined is cost
effectiveness. By that I mean, can all of the necessary costs
associated with constructing SPS be borne by the revenues generated
from selling that power. Furthermore, can the power be sold into the
marketplace at a price competitive to substitute sources? That's the
big unknown.

Yet, you express confidence in the success of space research and/or
manufacturing as being the driver to bring about an orbital
infrastructure, but the unknowns with this vision are much more
numerous. The SPS proposal is almost fleshed out completely, whereas
your propsal is wispy as last night's dream. You can't identify a
product, a market, a competitor, a process, etc.

On what basis do you make your assessment? On the basis of existing
research I have to strongly disagree with your belief. SPS is the
most likely driver for future development. I will though, reconsider
my position when more substance is added to alternative proposals.
It seems to me that you're arguing from a position of faith and not
evidence. It's akin to the "prove god exists" arguments that take
place between the religious and the skeptics. The believers presume
the existence and their arguments follow from there, whereas the
skeptics won't allow that presumption to serve as guiding principle
for the evidence that is cited.

And once those impediments
> begin to fall, isn't market growth and cost reductions a natural
by-
> product?

Sure, as a best-case scenario. Surely, you've heard of cost
overruns, dwindling markets, bankruptcy. The Apple preceded the PC;
what happended there? The Betamax was superior to the VHS. HDTV
signals are superior to NSTC singals yet people aren't swamping the
stores buying their HDTV sets.

Even if we accept your conclusion, it is not unique to MULE. It
would apply just as much to other endeavors, such as SPS.

Aren't more companies and people likely to invest in space
> ventures once some profitability is demonstrated?

No. To be absurd in my example, if I can't harvest copra
successfully from an island in the middle of the Pacific, that won't
have any bearing on whether Intel builds a Fab plant there.

And as the market
> grows and additional space-borne products are developed, the need
for
> an industrial infrastructure in space increases.

You magically assume too much to reach your conclusion.

>
> But people are already doing microgravity research. Granted, the
> market isn't that well developed but there's no denying that a
market
> exists. It's a tough case to make, but not impossible. Surely
these
> companies currently paying for microgravity research would
appreciate
> a cheaper more effective way in which this research can be
conducted?

Yes, SpaceHab is such a company and their performace isn't burning
up the stockmarket. Yes, I'm sure that the companies would indeed
appreciate cheaper methods, but that doesn't mean that MULE is
cheaper or is even the answer. That needs to be demonstrated, and
further, you need to demonstrate how your proposal serves the market
better than SpaceHab.

> And if the cost of microgravity research can be brought down to a
> more manageable level, the market grows even larger.

No, to start, only the potential market grows. Then you have to
still convince decisionmakers to conduct microgravity research
rather than terrestrial research. They can get more bang for their
buck on Earth, so is the microgravity environment so necessary that
they're willing to pay so much more to have access to it? You've
altered the equation, and on the margins you've brought new people
on board, but can those new projects cover the cost incurred in
making access cheaper? I don't know.

The
> market isn't strong enough at the current costs. To strengthen the
> weak market for microgravity research, cost has to be reduced. I
> can't say for sure the MULE will be a cheaper method, but logic
and
> my limited sense of these matters suggest it is at least likely to.

You really need to expound more on your logic because I'm not
following your train of thought on this matter. All I can conclude
is that MULE becomes a one-off business model that flies or crashes
on its own merits but doesn't add to the infrastructuralization of
orbit.

>
> One comment about market vs. cost:
>
> I believe the market is the critical factor, not cost. While it is
> logical to conclude that reducing cost will increase the market, I
> believe this to be true only in established, if underdeveloped,
> markets. You can't reduce cost in the absense of a definable
market.
> First comes market, then comes cost reduction, then comes larger
> market, etc. Is this backwards? I know there is a great deal of
> debate among space advocates regarding the market vs. cost issue.

Cost is a driver of market. Sales price must exceed cost. You'll buy
a can of Coke for a $1, but very few will buy it for a $100. Hence
no market without prices.

Further, you can't have a definable market without price. You can
define consumer wants and desires independent of price but that
offers little help to the decisin maker. You can ask people if they
would like to buy a drug that extends their lives by twenty years.
Most people will say yes. Then tell them that it'll completely
eliminate their sex drive and that it'll cost $100,000 per year that
they take it and that to get the extra 20 years of life they'll need
to take the drug for at least 60 years. Hmm, you may not have a
market for your drug afterall!

>
> One other comment about the MULE concept in general: I am not
saying
> that the MULE is the end-all, be-all of space development. I just
> want to demonstrate that we are not completely helpless and there
are
> ways we can contribute to increasing the likelihood of space
> development. The MULE is one possibility - the only one I know of,
in
> fact.

I understand your point about MULE. I just happen to think it is
like SpaceHab, and is a one off business venture. Nothing wrong with
that. I don't see how it aids orbital infrastructure development.

As I've pointed out above, MULE has too many unknowns compared to
SPS, so I'm baffled how you can conclude that MULE is the only
possibility leading towards space development. That's a hell of an
unsupported statement to make :)

> > After that, will come the entrepeneurs and the small fry.
Further,
> > the serendipitous results of working in, creating for, and being
> > inspired by, an environment of cheap energy, cheap temperature
> > control, cheap vacuum and cheap access to variable gravity will
> > result in new technologies, new products, and new wealth.
>
> Boy, do I agree with that last sentence. I see space development
as
> an end, at least to some extent, to Earth-based limitations on
> economic growth. In space, once the infrastructure is in place to
> support industry, there will always be room and a need for more
and
> better services and products. The possibilities are endless.

Classic Chicken and Egg conundrum.

> > I'm curious on what basis you believe there would be lot's of
money
> > to be made and how much infrastructure is needed before money
can
> be
> > made, and who would pay to use that infrastructure?
>
> I could be wrong - do Earth-based power providers make money? What
> about the telecommunications industry? The companies that provide
> water, do they make any money from this service? These are Earth-
> based profit-making services - can the same not be applied to
space.
> There are differences, of course, but there is no reason space
> infrastructure itself cannot be profitable.
>

My point is that on Earth the infrastructure providers serve within
an economic marketplace and that marketplace doesn't exist in orbit.
Thus, no entity will invest in orbital infrastructure until they can
be reassured that they'll be servicing a merket.

My contention is that a critical mass is needed to jump start the
marketplace. It won't be developed piecemeal because the volume of
business can't justify the business decisions.

Once the critical mass is established, then incremental growth can
follow.

TangoMan

P.S. Did the explanation about skyhooks and rotating tethers clear
things up for you?

What did you conclude about tethers vis a vis rockets?