I know, you’ve all given up, and just assumed that the piece in The New Atlantis was just another drug-addled Simberg fantasy of grandeur. That when I kept saying it would be Real Soon Now, that it was just vaporware. Well, Now has finally arrived.
As I wrote in an early draft, if extraterrestrial aliens had contacted the White House after the last lunar landing in 1972, and told the president that humans wouldn’t be allowed to move into space beyond earth orbit, and to pass the message on to his successors, but that the public was not to know this, it’s hard to imagine how policy actions would have been much different. Let’s Hope that this can finally Change with the new administration. That (unlike most of the rest of the agenda) would be Hope and Change that I could believe in.
[Late Friday update]
I want to thank everyone for the kudos, but I can’t accept it (did you know that kudos is not plural?) without acknowledging that this was a collaboration. Adam Keiper, the first and only (to date) editor of The New Atlantis, encouraged me to write this piece and, more importantly, played a key role in making it what it was. While we lost some things in editing (that I’ll rectify in a later Director’s Cut, and perhaps expand into a book), he focused it and almost certainly helped make it more influential in getting more to read it now, when we are at such a critical cusp of policy decisions.
But beyond that, he really helped write it. I was tired when I finished, and had a weak ending. The final paragraph, one of the best in it, if not the best (and it may be), is his.
And I’m grateful for the opportunity that he provided to get this message out, not just with The Path Not Taken five years ago (was it really that long?) but this and other pieces. The links in it are his, which indicates to me that he’s been following this topic closely. The most amazing thing is that this collaboration is a result of a snarky criticism by me of his own space-policy punditry, over half a decade ago. Rather than taking umbrage, he opened his mind to new possibilities, and the result is this (so far at least) collaborative magnum opus.
[Bumped]
<>
True, but if the “doers” had been dissuaded by the ghost towns, we’d never have settle the west.
<>
Hmmm. and mankind will never be able to handle the stress of flight, or go faster than 60 mph, or live with a tranplanted heart, or… I have an undaunted optimism in the human ability to adapt to any environment.
<>
And if we never go, we’ll never know. The explorers will be first of course, but when someone finds “IT” the rest will follow. That’s the point of course, without the infrastructure, none of the rest of this happens.
<>
I had thought the USA was still on the plus side of that equation, but couldn’t find a reference for it. Regardless, the argument isn’t strong. I don’t think over population drove very many colonial efforts (I can’t think of one off of the top of my head.) Normally, it was seeking something “different” from the father/motherland. For that matter, to go slightly off-topic, the de-population and resultant over-population of radical islamic immigrants may be the impetus to drive moving off planet!
Sorry about that. This should read better.
“There are a lot of ghost towns and ghost colonies on Earth saying the opposite. ”
True, but if the “doers” had been dissuaded by the ghost towns, we’d never have settle the west.
“And to make it worse, both moon and Mars don’t have enough gravity for long term health. ”
Hmmm. and mankind will never be able to handle the stress of flight, or go faster than 60 mph, or live with a tranplanted heart, or… I have an undaunted optimism in the human ability to adapt to any environment.
“Unless you can show some way to payback investment, adn make a profit by trade, you’re not going to sell the colony.”
And if we never go, we’ll never know. The explorers will be first of course, but when someone finds “IT” the rest will follow. That’s the point of course, without the infrastructure, none of the rest of this happens.
“no technilogical culture on Earth is having enough kids to even maintain their population – much less grow a colony.”
I had thought the USA was still on the plus side of that equation, but couldn’t find a reference for it. Regardless, the argument isn’t strong. I don’t think over population drove very many colonial efforts (I can’t think of one off of the top of my head.) Normally, it was seeking something “different” from the father/motherland. For that matter, to go slightly off-topic, the de-population and resultant over-population of radical islamic immigrants may be the impetus to drive moving off planet!
Great job, Rand! I am glad to have finally put a name to a face at the NewSpace 09 conference.
er, high T:W
darn you beer!
> — Mass fraction, as painful as the fact is, matters when it comes to scale and costs.
> The fact is if you actually do the math for chemical rockets, no matter how
> favorable the economic scaling laws you assume, you end up with answers
> that leave a required demand at least two orders of magnitude above the actual demand, —
I’ld agree with the demand not being there for economical space flight, but mass fraction won’t help any. If you disregard al costs associated with the tanks adn main propulsion – just asume magic alien engines needing no mass, power, or servicing – you’re STILL needing a couple orders of magnitude more lift market. You capital cost to build the ships adn facilities, and servicing not related to propulsion, drive you into aircraft cost factors. But with no real market. The mass ration for chemical rockets adds almost a order of magnitude – but its just insult on injury.
>– We don’t even know if there are practical lunar resources. We have to
> get to the moon with earth resources first to determine that. But we
> don’t need heavy lift to do so.–
Assuming you don’t mean heavy lift in the current “20ish ton” definition. Agreed. REally you only need lift capable of lifting your biggest heaviest part of your moon craft, and fly often enough to get fuel and lox up in a acceptable time period.
I remember in the ’90’s NASA was developing plans for LEO to Lunar surface and return maned craft that would be deployed from the shuttle bay. I beleave those weren’t even refueled in orbit. So certainly with refueling, a 20? ton lift craft is more then capable of lifting a prety capable lunar transport.
The fact is if you actually do the math for chemical rockets, no matter how favorable the economic scaling laws you assume, you end up with answers that leave a required demand at least two orders of magnitude above the actual demand, or approaching from the other side, a supply available at a price at least two orders of magnitude above the market-supporting price.
I have done that math. I didn’t get two orders of magnitude, and actually I don’t really understand what that means in this context. Clearly, we have commercial price points already, so launch pays for some businesses. Are you saying the elasticity curve is wretched? All market surveys say it is wretched – you can’t self-finance launch costs with added business until a two order of magnitude drop in launch costs.
But then you’re relying on paper studies, and then you have to start stating your own assumptions. The studies out there only look at elasticity in current industries, or in one prospective industry like space tourism, and didn’t take cumulative demand into account. Or, they made essentially WaGs about prospective industries. They don’t take into account the effects of lower marginal cost on payloads feeding back to higher price sensitivies on launch. And, of course, they don’t assume a propellant depot on orbit.
>> “There are a lot of ghost towns and ghost colonies on Earth saying the opposite. ”
> True, but if the “doers” had been dissuaded by the ghost towns, we’d never have settle the west.
It wasn’t settled by folks without a strong idea on how to make it pay.
>> “And to make it worse, both moon and Mars don’t have enough gravity for long term health. ”
>> Hmmm. and mankind will never be able to handle the stress of flight, or==
More basic – this is a “you can’t be a couch potatoes and stay healthy and thin” thing. A a factoid I was given, sitting up in a chair watching TV all day gives you more cardio then a few hours of cardo excersize adn full shift of work, in zero-G. Everyone wants a magic pill and be hard body couch potato – but you don’t ever see it work. So don’t bet your colony on it.
=
>> “Unless you can show some way to payback investment, and make
>> a profit by trade, you’re not going to sell the colony.”
> And if we never go, we’ll never know.
You don’t get to start a colony just in case — unless you have a lot of suicidal folks who can cough up tens of billions.
😉
>> “no technilogical culture on Earth is having enough kids to even
>> maintain their population – much less grow a colony.”
> I had thought the USA was still on the plus side of that equation,
> but couldn’t find a reference for it.
No, we’re close, but we only maintain and grow due to the extreamly high immigration rates (greater then the combined total of all nations).
>== I don’t think over population drove very many colonial efforts ==
Nope, but youseemed to be assuming a colony once founded would grown as a natural course – which sounded like you ment higher birth rates.
>== Normally, it was seeking something “different” from the father/motherland. =
Mainly seeking opportunity, which again brings us back to identifying a profit potential. What do you sell?
Sorry, that wan’t as clear as it could have been. The studies I have seen only ask the question “if price dropped, how far would it have to drop so that when you drop the cost one dollar, you get more than one dollar in extra revenues.” This refers to the non-linear part of the Schumpeter curve: when elasticity goes well above 1, the curve goes exponential until saturation. However, those studies (by necessity due to scope of the problem) don’t consider actual mechanisms for reducing launch costs, usually don’t consider more than one or two prospective industries (and they don’t generally do much homework on them for that matter) and don’t consider stimulated demand.
Putting aside the generally shoddy examples of surveying prospective markets that is found in most of these papers, there is some evidence that, while demand elasticity for space launch sucks, supply elasticity is really good. This is especially true for reusable vehicles, but it is also true of expendables (I think Rand participated in a study once that showed this). In other words, if you lower the cost of launch you don’t get much more business, but if you raise the amount of business you lower the cost quite a bit. It is this converse that the space launch elasticity studies tend to neglect.
Which is also the point of Rand’s article: flogging away at the supply side is pouring money down a rat hole. You get much better leverage if you put your money on the demand side.
roga
>== I have done that math. I didn’t get two orders of magnitude, and actually
> I don’t really understand what that means in this context. ==
I was responding to a statment that chemical rockets and their mas fractions are a major stumbling block.
>Mass fraction, as painful as the fact is, matters when it comes to scale and costs.
> The fact is if you actually do the math for chemical rockets, no matter
> how favorable the economic scaling laws you assume, you end up with
> answers that leave a required demand at least two orders of magnitude
> above the actual demand, kind of market growth needed to bring down cost. —
Instead the capital cost to develop the ships, build their bases, and support everything non related to propulsion – drives costs to $5,000 dollars a pound or so even if you assume your launching 10 flights a year (about 20% of all launches in the world in a year) for 30 years and ignore replacement or purchase costs for the ships.
Paradoxically, the fuel, deta-V, etc has virtually no impact on costs. So if you can increase flight rates, the cost per pound almost declines as fast as your flight rate increases.
>“if price dropped, how far would it have to drop so that when you drop
> the cost one dollar, you get more than one dollar in extra revenues.”
Iremember a lecture at NASA that suggested you don’t really get any disproportinal demand growth until cost per pound gets bellow $1,000 a pound? In the ’80’s I think they figured under $500.
Don’t know how valid their assumptions were – nore did they go into how they came up with those numbers.
Given the flight rates (really stunningly higher then now) chemical rocket RLVs could deliver cost to orbit of under $40 a pound.
Chemical rocket and airbreathing mixed craft maybe under $10 a pound. Past that you need something more exotic. Laser launcher or fusion/steam like the Bussard Polywell designs.
Course as you said, the demand needs to be huge.
One other way to drop the costs though would be for a anchor tenant to simply eat the capital costs since they need the ships (sort of what NASA was suggesting with shuttle) and letting the craft charge only the margin costs per flight to customers past that. That way you could jump down a couple orders of magnitude in cost per pound.
…course then you need that rich anchor tenat.
😉
there are alternatives to rockets
Of course there are. I’m assuming rockets (which will continue to get more efficient… and nuclear) will continue to be competitive for quite a while.
what is the economic basis for the Colony? Its cost of operation would dwarf the depot.
A self sufficient colony has zero external cost of operation by definition. Trade is an economic addition to this. If your question is what is the one magic economic bullet? My answer is magic is not required. It is possible and that’s sufficient justification to do it. Justification is not limited to that.
…no one will invest in starting unless there is a strong argument and plan for payback
This may or may not be true and only will time will give an answer. A ROI is always nice. Some think backing up humanity is the ROI. But in fact, the ROI is probably several orders of magnitude greater than the Earths current economy because that which drives an economy is several orders of magnitude greater in the solar system as a whole than in the Earth alone.
…both moon and Mars don’t have enough gravity for long term health
Overstated, there will be some health issues. We’re not talking about zero g. We’re also not talking about one g here on Earth. G is close to the max number on Earth. People on Earth are already living at less than a g in many locations on Earth. They seem healthy. Humans are quite adaptable. We just don’t know, but I’m confident we will find whatever solutions we need to adapt.
…no technological culture on Earth is having enough kids to even maintain their population – much less grow a colony.
Not because of technology, but because of concentration of life and lifestyle decisions. Colonists are likely to understand the need and have more inclination for having children.
Unless you can show some way to payback investment, and make a profit by trade, you’re not going to sell the colony.
Many are already sold on colonies, it’s just a question of encouraging more. Once a colony is actually established, many on the fence will be added to those sold. I do agree that having a specific short term easy to explain economic incentive would be useful in promoting the idea.
There seems to be the idea we need a magic economic justification. I reject this. The question should be, can we do it and will it have long term benefits for humanity. I strongly believe the answer is yes and yes. Beyond that, I think the economic benefits are unimaginable and huge. Time will tell.
You, snarky, never. You need to collaborate more, because the results are fantastic.
Hey I was there and made this remark…
there are oceans of hydrogen to extract right on Mars
…so am I psychic or just psychotic?
>> what is the economic basis for the Colony? Its cost of operation would dwarf the depot.
> A self sufficient colony has zero external cost of operation by definition.
We can’t manage self sufficient nations on Earth – a high tech colony on Mars?
>== It is possible and that’s sufficient justification to do it. ==
Its possible to do lots of cool things (floating cities on the sea, or arctic ice, of floating, or in lots of other places) – but we don’t do them unless they can pay their way.
..Because we can never got us to space – itsnot going to get us to Mars to stay.
…no one will invest in starting unless there is a strong argument and plan for payback
>== Some think backing up humanity is the ROI. ==
Which a Mars colony can’t do since it can’t be made self sufficient.
==
>>…both moon and Mars don’t have enough gravity for long term health
> Overstated, there will be some health issues.
Like higher heart desease rates, lower immune responce, etc?
> We’re not talking about zero g. We’re also not talking about one g
> here on Earth. G is close to the max number on Earth. People on
> Earth are already living at less than a g in many locations on Earth. ==
??
Not really.
==
> …no technological culture on Earth is having enough kids to even
> maintain their population – much less grow a colony.
> Not because of technology, but because of concentration of life and
> lifestyle decisions. Colonists are likely to understand the need and
> have more inclination for having children.
If they wanted to have kids – they’ld have them here.
We have nations on Earth where the schools oin whole counties are closed because theyr are no kids – where laders have tried draconia laws to up birthrates as their populations decline. –If that didn’t motivate them, good luck for you’re colony.
>> Unless you can show some way to payback investment, and make
>> a profit by trade, you’re not going to sell the colony.
> Many are already sold on colonies, ==
Can any of them pay for it?
>== There seems to be the idea we need a magic economic justification.
> I reject this. The question should be, can we do it and will it have long
> term benefits for humanity. ==
If you can’t show how it will even pay for itself in the short term — its presumptous to expect folks to shell out tens to hundreds of billions to let youdevelop something. Its more reasonable to wait until they find someone who does know how to make a go of it.
Interesting, but I do not agree with the conclusion. The cost of lifting material from the earth’s surface into LEO, or beyond, is prohibitive. NASA’s focus should be reducing this cost by order’s of magnitude. Until this is achieved, human space exploration will remain a stunt – a very expensive one. It is a waste of time and money, it proves nothing, and provides no return on investment.
NASA needs to focus on ‘simple’ tasks – like making single wall carbon nanotubes that are tens of thousands miles long. Why? Because these could be used to build sky-hooks, which would achieve the goal outlined above.
If NASA decides to not address the above goal, it should focus its efforts on robotic space exploration. Importantly, it needs to set truly challenging goals. For example, sending a probe to Proxima Centauri and getting data back from said probe. Yes, those who plan and launch the mission will not see its results, but neither does a person who plants a grove of trees from seedlings. However, the technologies needed to achieve such a goal would have a profound impact on mankind.
Rand, thanks for putting together a great read. I’m still digesting everything, but a big thumbs up.
My kids and I are off to see Buzz Aldrin tomorrow on a celebration aboard the USS Hornet museum. Hopefully they’ll be inspired by what they see and someday a space policy and architecture will arise that will continue to inspire them.
Rand,
There is a great deal of what you have written (nearly all of it) that I agree with. Most of the arguments that you have made in this piece are things that I have also mentioned when trying to defend spaceflight activities over the past several decades in conversations and when posting to on-line forums.
Well said.
A problem that is facing space faring activities is finding that “killer app” that by itself justifies a significant increase in space launches. What is the rationale for going out there and stepping on the surface of the Moon? There have been some applications that are head-smacking obvious, such as telecommunications, geosync satellite television broadcasters like Ted Turner, weather monitoring, orbital reconnaissance (both military and commercial), and navigation systems like the GPS system. Satellite phone systems like the Iridium system were a near miss that at a different time (and not competing against terrestrial cell-phone technology) might have worked out as a home run. With the exception of space tourism (just starting to go on-line), this accounts for nearly all of the commercial and frankly even most of the government launches that are being done.
What was the last SpaceX launch? A terrestrial photographing satellite that monitors equatorial nations.
He3 extraction may, and that is a big maybe, be something significant enough to justify not only a space program but even a manned program as well. Unfortunately, some unobtanium needs to be found for the fusion technology before that could happen, and it looks like Boron-Boron nuclear reactions are much safer as well, even if that happens. Again, a near miss and a sign of hope, but it isn’t quite what is needed.
What drove people to go westward in the USA during the 19th Century was two fold: The quest for land from those who were without (that may still be a minor rationale for some people going into space…. to tell the governments folks currently live under to take a hike and get lost), and in the case of California, Nevada, and the Yukon…. “Gold”. The drive for free land was useful, but it was the expectation of being able to gather in large quantities of gold that enabled California to go from being a backwater Spanish colony hardly worth trying to defend to becoming a territory worthy of U.S. statehood. Where is something like the California Gold Rush happening on the Moon or Mars?
All this said, it is also interesting to look at 19th Century America and see some enabling technologies that substantially reduced the transportation costs for travel between New York City and San Francisco. Travel by traditional galleon from San Francisco to New York via Argentina (Straights of Magellan) was incredibly costly and even the raw gold from California wasn’t enough to make it work. Enterprising individuals, the introduction of the steamship, and the start of the Panama canal (with the trans-Panamanian railroad filling the gap before Teddy Roosevelt finally finished the job) dropped the cost of transportation sufficiently to make the trip economical. None of these cost savings would have happened if there wasn’t a reason for making this route in the first place.
We are still at the equivalent task of traveling across North America via Argentina in terms of how we get into space. Even if we can substantially reduce costs of getting into space, what are we going to do when we get there? Flags and footprints are enough in terms of tourists who like to go places where nobody or few have gone before (something like Everest climbing expeditions), but it doesn’t provide the ability or incentive to establish a lasting presence.
I still believe that we need to become a multi-planet species, and to colonize the rest of the Solar System. The raw technology to be able to accomplish this once fantastic and previously fictional idea is now at our grasp. For the few dreamers who want to make it happen, it might just work. Still, beyond those trying to fulfill a childhood dream inspired by the works of Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and witnessing the reality of the Apollo missions, the case to move out into space hasn’t really been made very well. Most ordinary Americans know deep in their hearts that there needs to be something of a “space program” going, but there doesn’t seem to be that one huge reason to really push on.
Will that “killer app” be there? I’m not sure. I hope it becomes obvious at some point in the future.
tom cuddihy Says:
The wagon trains were able to feed themselves off the land around them, literally for free in the area around them. There is no comparison with anything or any planetary body in the solar system.
Solar-anything propulsion. Electric (Rand mentioned ion propulsion in the article), thermal, etc. Only thing you need to stop to pick up is reaction mass. Of course this only works after you are boosted out of the gravity well.
For boosting out of the gravity well, it should be possible to use beamed power propulsion sometime in the future (hopefully soon).
Robert Horning: He3 mining is a dud. We cannot even economically fuse easier fuels such as D-T. Try looking at the effort necessary for such a venture even if it made sense to get He3 in the first place: it basically requires excavating the entire lunar surface using giant mining dump trucks carrying dirt to get a pittance of the thing. Would be cheaper and easier to set up solar power generation in there.
Godzilla, thanks for bringing my attention to Tom’s statement.
The wagon trains were able to feed themselves off the land around them, literally for free in the area around them. There is no comparison with anything or any planetary body in the solar system.
If you didn’t know how to feed off the land nor have technology that could do so, then you’d be in the same state that we’re in with respect to space. It really doesn’t matter if you die in a week or in twenty seconds. Either is a failure of colonization. Once we have the technology and know-how, the two situations will become analogous.
In space, sure there isn’t readily available food supplies, but there are readily available mass, energy, and space. It just takes more work, technology, and knowledge to convert that into a viable colony.
As for economics, a colony will need something of value. Even an intangible benefit, like being able to practice a religion or other marginalized belief system (say like empiricism in a world dominated by zealous ideologues) without interference might be enough economic justification for one. And once you’ve established the colony, you need some sort of trade with the outside world for stuff you can’t make locally.
He3 mining is a dud. We cannot even economically fuse easier fuels such as D-T.
BTW, I openly acknowledge that He3 mining is something that, while profitable and could justify going to the Moon, isn’t something that is going to happen due to other factors like getting a successful nuclear fusion reactor going. On that note in particular, the Tokamak reactor is IMHO a dead end, and the only real hope I have is that eventually the team working on the Polywell reactor will get their act together and finally prove for once and all that particular approach will work. No disrespect to the Polywell researchers either, as they certainly are trying.
Still, assuming all of these very substantial issues could get resolved, mining exotic elements that are in comparatively short supply on the Earth like He3 could provide the economic rationale for going into space, and this is something that is concrete and can be pointed to. The raw economics here does indeed turn He3 mining into the modern equivalent of the gold rush to the new frontier…. but you have to get the fusion technology to work first. I don’t deny that at all.
As for the logistics of the lunar mining operations necessary to extract He3 in bulk, that is merely trying to get people to front the capital that would be necessary for such a trip. Unlike most other major space-related activities to date, sending up equipment and personnel to the Moon (lunar mining would be a real pain to be 100% teleoperated even if some activities could be done in that manner) this particular activity could be justified in small amounts with current (aka $20,000+ per pound) launch costs, but has scales of economy which benefit from dropping operational costs as well. The point is that extracting He3 (assuming sufficient demand for the stuff on the Earth) is so valuable compared to terrestrial processes of making the stuff that it is one of the “killer apps” to get spaceflight going in a big way.
This gets back to the issue of using the Moon as a source of fuel extraction in one form or another, and He3 is but one of many potential fuel sources. That people aren’t rushing right now to set up a mining operation on the Moon at the moment is due to the lack of a real need of the material. Economically going for this reason isn’t a valid idea…. *yet*, and I’m not entirely sure if it ever will be. One of the ways to get commercial spaceflight going is to provide some “stuff” that is either hard or impossible to get from the Earth but relatively easy to get on the Moon. He3 isn’t the only thing that can be extracted from the Moon either, but the need for anything from the Moon that is needed on the Earth still isn’t there… and that is what will be needed.
Using the Moon as source of supply for interplanetary missions (aka going to Mars) has its use, but that won’t be a “killer app” to justify going there in the first place. I don’t see using the Moon as a source for materials in the space-based solar power projects as realistic either… another technology that might work, but has yet to be realistically proven and likely to be a fiscal black hole until the right combination of materials, logistics, and methods to make it work come together. Space-based solar power is proven to be useful…. in space. But that is not a good enough rationale for going up there in the first place. There are also too many ways to cut the legs out of making space-based solar power profitable in terms of sending power back to the Earth in an economical fashion.
Pete – Two reasons for mining the sky rather than Earth:
1. Mines are extremely ugly and take heroic effort to prevent them causing massive pollution and environmental degradation, in many cases. Sulphide-based ores, for example, can cause rivers to become streams of toxic acid in which nothing can live. And the worse the ore the worse the problem. Of course, space mines wouldn’t be any prettier – but who cares, when you can’t see the thing in detail even with the Hubble?
2. If you don’t use a potential Earth-based mine site to mine from, nothing happens. For space mines, the result of inaction will probably be the same – but there is a small, non-zero, probability of consequences, with an explosive yield that needs scientific notation to fully appreciate, of that inaction.
NASA was founded in the Cold War, and it was an arm of the US effort in that war. It was formed for, IMHO, three purposes. 1. Beat the Russkies to the moon. 2. Create jobs and therefore electoral votes, in as many places as possible. These two are undeniable.
I personally think that there is a 3. Prevent, or postpone for as long as possible, mankind’s expansion into space. Why? Because as O’Neill showed us, once space colonisation starts, it will be exponential – and fifty years after the first orbital habitat, the USA (and even more so the rest of Earth) will be utterly insignificant compared with the wealth and power of the space dwellers.
And there are some in power who would do literally anything to prevent that, no matter how many people have to die – or never be born.
Great article Rand (and Adam Keiper). I agree, the last paragraph is one of the best of the piece. Look forward to seeing the director’s cut.
>== NASA was founded == three purposes
> 3. Prevent, or postpone for as long as possible, mankind’s expansion
> into space. Why? Because as O’Neill showed us, once space colonisation
> starts, it will be exponential – and fifty years after the first orbital
> habitat, the USA (and even more so the rest of Earth) will be utterly
> insignificant compared with the wealth and power of the space dwellers.
That’s pretty nonsensical.
We can’t find any economic justification to send more then a handfull of flights into space a year – but theres a vast conspiracy that all nations are cooperating in to stop development of space? And they are al cooperating because the potential of space is so explosive those that access it would dominate human civilization??
If there was such a obvious and convincing argument for space, everyone would be talking about it and struggling to get at it. No nation or conspiracy could drown it out.
I’ll agree NASA certainly has no incentive to promote expanded access to space; and their ridiculously expensive and tepid space activities, strongly suggest even to space advocates that space must be nearly impossible. But thats hardly a global conspiracy, and even in NASA they do not work to conceal some spectacular potential.
??
Actually Rand i did not thing the last paragraph was that good. Seemed forced and preachy.
I would not say it outshone your paragraphs.
Which a Mars colony can’t do since it can’t be made self sufficient.
Says you. Name one showstopper. Just one.
NASA’s focus should be reducing this cost by order’s of magnitude.
Yeah, that’ll happen.
Gerald, you say NASA should focus on simple tasks and not go to Mars, then say sending a probe to Proxima Centauri
Wow. I’ll bet you the Martians send a probe to Proxima Centauri before we do.
Robert, what “killer app” caused people to live in the western deserts? Not gold. There isn’t any in those deserts to speak of. So you would be right to conclude the land itself and having a bit more freedom is the motivation. Once we make it possible to live in space we open the possibility that people will live there for that reason alone. By definition they will be part of the economy.
We can’t find any economic justification
Only by those that refuse to see it. Creating new worlds is not justification? There seems to be a failure to realize that once established normal people with average jobs will live in space. I may not be able to go to a Moon base today, but if I could get there (Leo got his ticket to the new world in a poker game if I remember correctly …waiting for the cheap shots) the means of survival would not cost me more than my pitiful salary. I need food, shelter and air. With cheap energy which is abundant, I can have it. So a poor fool like me could be part of that economy.
If there was such a obvious and convincing argument for space, everyone would be talking about it and struggling to get at it.
We are, it’s called the new world… literally. Not everybody may be able to participate directly. So that means nobody should go, right?
What small minds, to think humanity should only live in this one solar system on this one planet.
>> Which a Mars colony can’t do since it can’t be made self sufficient.
> Says you. Name one showstopper. Just one.
Space ships, IC chips, complex technology needing serious infastructure, complex chemical compounds needing refineries. As I said even nations on Earth can’t be sufficient anymore. It takes tomany people, factory, resources, etc.
>> NASA’s focus should be reducing this cost by order’s of magnitude.
> Yeah, that’ll happen.
Likely true – its to bad since thats what a NASA should be for.
> Robert, what “killer app” caused people to live in the western deserts? ==
??
Generally the western deserts were empty until recent times. Some tribes driven there to avoid predation by richer tribes, or remenants of older tribes that settled there before their areas became so decimated.
Still pretty much abandoned today and owned by the federal gov. In lots of western states well over half the land is in federal hands.
So unless there was mining, or they are near enough to more lush area to be a bedroom community….
>> We can’t find any economic justification
> Only by those that refuse to see it. Creating new worlds is not justification?
And you can pay bills with that? Interest investors?
==
>> If there was such a obvious and convincing argument for space,
>> everyone would be talking about it and struggling to get at it.
> We are, it’s called the new world… ==
You arn’t an “Everyone” — not even a large minority. Thats why there is no political force for space.
Space is better provisioned with energy and raw materials than Earth, and mining, transportation and production can be far less scale and labor intensive. Autonomous spacecraft flew across the solar system many decades ago, autonomous cars on Earth are still not fully there yet… An oil tanker is a matchbox toy compared to what is possible in space.
Ultimately the cost of a product largely comes down to material costs, which largely come down to material weight. Also, the mass of a product can largely come down to structural requirements, which are a strong function of the force of gravity (and wind loadings on Earth). Point being, in the low gravity of space mass produced products can ultimately be far cheaper, less scale limited and less labor intensive. By the laws of evolution and competitive advantage this necessarily translates into far higher standards of living in space and the exponential growth people talk about – if we can only get the necessary critical mass of people, economics and technology to get from here to there.
The cost of getting up and down the gravity well is what prevents a conventional tradable economy with space now. One can either greatly reduce that cost (even the energy cost/kg is above the value of many goods) or achieve a critical mass where that component can be small (self sufficiency).
Some of the smallest viable countries, Luxemburg and Iceland, have populations of three to four hundred thousand, GDPs of 12-40 billion and exports/imports of about half GDP. Lets say a viable initial space settlement needs 10 billion a year in exports (similar to the current global space budget?). This is perhaps possible based on communications, Earth sensing, tourism and science services. The first step is probably to go after these markets from orbit instead of from Earth. That is, create and staff LEO hangers that can develop, install and service the space industry directly. From this point exponential growth should become possible.
But making this happen would probably require a well focused initial investment of at least a billion dollars. Launch costs need to come down dramatically, and tugs and space station hanger/workshops need to be developed (their construction perhaps providing the initial market for new space launch vehicles). Earth built orbital greenhouses will also want to be mass-produced, though this is not actually that hard – solar mirror plus hanger with a window, also much easier to automate than on Earth. After this a solar/nuclear tug that can go retrieve raw material from the moon of NEOs might be highly desirable. With such raw material transport to LEO exponential growth should become rapid (otherwise one has to carry your entire civilization on your back to the moon, mars or the asteroid belt from the outset).
>>>Ultimately the cost of a product largely comes down to material costs, which largely come down to material weight. <<<
No, the cost of a product comes down to labor invested.
ken anthony wrote:
Robert, what “killer app” caused people to live in the western deserts? Not gold. There isn’t any in those deserts to speak of. So you would be right to conclude the land itself and having a bit more freedom is the motivation. Once we make it possible to live in space we open the possibility that people will live there for that reason alone. By definition they will be part of the economy.
The value of the mineral wealth contained in the Western USA is something that must actually be seen to be comprehended. More gold poured out of California during the 1850’s and 1860’s than all of the Spanish galleon fleets of the 15th-17th Centuries combined. It capitalized the USA to pay for the Industrial Revolution, and financed a great part of the American Civil War (especially for the North). To call this insignificant and not really there is to ignore and be ignorant of a rather important part of American history.
California had the gold, Nevada silver, and other significant mineral resources including copper, iron, coal, nickle, and almost any other metalic resource you can think of. The western USA is littered with tens of thousands of mine… some active and a few closed down. Often the mines are literally forgotten about by residents who live within a few miles of these places and are considered common place. And yes, the deserts of the west not to mention the Rocky Mountains themselves are where these mines are located at. Mining operations are so common as to be a cliche found in stories about the west, both in books and in cinema. This cliche is justified by anybody who has done even a little bit of hiking around western states.
It was the miners, not the farmers that brought people to the western USA. Prior to 1850, the frontier started at Kansas City, Missouri, and it was Nebraska, not Nevada that was called “The Great American Desert”. Yeah, the Sonora Desert of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and southern Utah make Nebraska seem like the Garden of Eden, but even this was considered hostile to human life back in the day.
Sure, there were folks that poked out into the wilderness from time to time and tried to head west for various reasons in the early 19th Century. But those were explorers and folks like Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith who were the early explorers and filled marginal niches. Certainly the great cities of the western USA like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle could not have been built or would have thrived without some compelling reason for the millions of people who live there now to want to come out. It was California gold that brought them out there initially, and the other resources that were found to keep them there.
I argue that spaceflight is filled with these early explorers. Folks like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and the other couple dozen lunar explorers and other early pioneers in spaceflight have performed this duty. Their names legitimately will go into history books, and these early incursions into this new frontier. But what is going to get people to come out and settle the frontier.
Dreamers and ideologue have built colonies in the past, but they tend to be anemic at best and largely ignored. If history is a measure of what can happen in space, it must be economics that will drive this frontier just like it has driven every other frontier. Or to make another cliche quote about this… “if there are no bucks, there is no Buck Rodgers”. Without the compelling interest for going into space and making it pay, any efforts to go into space will be met with half enthusiasm and will forever be mired in the politics that have kept us from returning to the Moon.
>> Ultimately the cost of a product largely comes down to material costs, which largely come down to material weight.
> No, the cost of a product comes down to labor invested.
Yes that is true – but it is not always the most convenient of metrics.
Within specific categories, there can be a strong correlation between product mass and labor invested. For example, raw material costs or when transport and distribution costs dominate.
For two mass produced cars of similar quality but different mass, the cost difference will largely correlate with mass (which is much easier to measure than the more accurate labor content).
Robert, I didn’t argue that there wasn’t gold in them there hills. I lived in both Sonora, CA and the high desert outside Mojave. You’ve completely ignored my point, which is that while gold and profit are motivators they aren’t the only reason people do what they do. I promise you, the people I’ve known that live in desert didn’t go for the gold.
Kelly, I asked for just one showstopper and this is your response…
Space ships, IC chips, complex technology needing serious infastructure, complex chemical compounds needing refineries. As I said even nations on Earth can’t be sufficient anymore. It takes tomany people, factory, resources, etc.
So your answer is that we can’t live on Earth? Is that what you’re trying to tell me???
You don’t need spaceships to live on Mars. IC chips will be one of the least expensive things to import, but you don’t need them to live on Mars either (you may find that astonishing, yet it’s true.) Infrastructure Martians will have, starting small and growing over time which is a universal truth. Complex chemical compounds need chemists (see infrastructure.)
So instead of giving me a laundry list, could you answer the question. Name one showstopper?
Sure, there were folks that poked out into the wilderness from time to time and tried to head west for various reasons in the early 19th Century. But those were explorers and folks like Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith who were the early explorers and filled marginal niches. Certainly the great cities of the western USA like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle could not have been built or would have thrived without some compelling reason for the millions of people who live there now to want to come out. It was California gold that brought them out there initially, and the other resources that were found to keep them there.
Ever heard of the Latter-Day Saints?
it must be economics that will drive this frontier just like it has driven every other frontier
No denying the facts of economics. It’s also easy to be blind to them. Even the gold rush wasn’t all about gold. Focusing on the gold means missing the bigger picture.
Rand Simberg:
Greetings. Over the years I have caught some of your posts and conference presentations and have appreciated your insights and zingers on space policy issues. I heard about your piece for New Atlantis through the AIAA news digest, sought it out and just read it…. I think you have done an excellent survey. Where previously you left me with a notion of what you simply didn’t like, now I see a coherent picture and some definite directions where you think we ( those of us interested or involved with space) ought to go or what we should be doing ( vs. what’s been done in the past). Many of the things you say resonate with me – and I have already alerted several friends and colleagues about your article. I make the distinction because there are some people who are working in the field and some people simply want to know why their tax money is used in the way it is. Your answers are a good reply, an excellent point from which to launch continued debate.
I am not exactly a recovering aerospace engineer, but one that remains interested and involved in commercial space. It is encouraging to hear a coherent argument in its behalf and I would love to tell you and some of the readers of this blog about our ideas for making space accessible. Hope that there will be opportunity in the future.
Best regards,
Wes Kelly
for Triton Systems, LLC & colleagues working on the “Stellar-J”
> Pete Says:
>
> Space is better provisioned with energy and raw materials than Earth, ==
True.
>== and mining, transportation and production can be far less scale and
> labor intensive.==
??
don’t follow this?
>== Ultimately the cost of a product largely comes down to material
> costs, which largely come down to material weight.==
If that was true, IC chips would cost about asmuch as sand?
>== Also, the mass of a product can largely come down to structural
> requirements, which are a strong function of the force of gravity
> (and wind loadings on Earth). Point being, in the low gravity of
> space mass produced products can ultimately be far cheaper, less
> scale limited and less labor intensive. ===
This doesn’t follow. A computer or space craft isn’t lighter because your in zero G (and of course the people wouldn’t be since they’ed be in a station or something.
===
> The cost of getting up and down the gravity well is what prevents
> a conventional tradable economy with space now. ==
>== (even the energy cost/kg is above the value of many goods) ==
The energy cost per kg is about ten – twenty cents a kilo if you are using electricity as your energy cost source. Even fuel and LOx per pound of cargo (including the fuel and LOx needed to lift the ship) to orbit is about $8 a pound — give or take the price of Kerosene. Trivial compared to the actual cost per pound which is often in the tens of thousands of dollars a pound.Only about 5-10 times the cost of jet fuel per pound of cargo, of a jet liner traveling a similar energy distance.
Really its not energy – its just the ships cost about as much as a similar weight really good airplane – with a similar production cost and infrastructure cost — but now there is virtually no market to absorb the costs.
>==Some of the smallest viable countries, Luxemburg and Iceland,
> have populations of three to four hundred thousand, GDPs of
> 12-40 billion and exports/imports of about half GDP. Lets say a
> viable initial space settlement needs 10 billion a year in exports ==
>== is, create and staff LEO hangers that can develop, install and
> service the space industry directly. ==
These are extreamly high tech products only a few places in the world can make — and they do pretty well making them here and shipping them up. Build a big space colony and the trafic to lift the materials to build it drives launch costs way way down – further under cuting the viability of your sat market — but it could lower costs enough to make the tourist market much ore viable.
>== After this a solar/nuclear tug that can go retrieve raw material
> from the moon of NEOs might be highly desirable. ==
Agree about the NEO’s. The are rich in everything from ore to oil and water.
> Kelly, I asked for just one showstopper and this is your response…
>> Space ships, IC chips, complex technology needing serious
>> infastructure, complex chemical compounds needing refineries.
>> As I said even nations on Earth can’t be sufficient anymore. It
>> takes to many people, factory, resources, etc.
> So your answer is that we can’t live on Earth? Is that what you’re trying to tell me???
We have all those here. Most countries can’t make them – but they trade with others to get them.
> You don’t need spaceships to live on Mars. ==
You need them to run and control everything from your machine tools to your life support systems, com systems, data, etc.
Mars isn’t little house on the prairie. Its atoxic waste site, with soil that disolves organic material, radiation, pretty useless air, etc.
==
> So instead of giving me a laundry list, could you answer the question. Name one showstopper?
I gave several. They are things a small isolated group here or in space can’t make for themselves. So your colony can’t be self sufficient and sustain itself without supplies and support from Earth.
>> So instead of giving me a laundry list, could you answer the question. Name one showstopper?
> I gave several. They are things a small isolated group here or in space can’t make for themselves. So your colony can’t be self sufficient and sustain itself without supplies and support from Earth.
You gave none. By your reasoning we couldn’t live on Earth before the 20th century. One of the reasons for choosing Mars is that survival requires gaslight technology. Self sufficient means colonists can survive, it doesn’t mean no trade.
> Mars isn’t little house on the prairie. Its a toxic waste site, with soil that dissolves organic material, radiation, pretty useless air, etc.
You’ve just listed it’s advantages, a diverse source of raw materials needed for a successful colony. Nobody is claiming it’s easy, just doable. I’m asking you to provide me with just one reason it’s not doable and so far you have not.
Kelly Starks Says:
> A computer or space craft isn’t lighter because your in zero G (and of course the people wouldn’t be since they’ed be in a station or something.
A spacecraft is much lighter in zero G than on Earth (by definition 🙂 and can mass far less than an equivalent vehicle on Earth due to much lower structural loadings. Compare the mass of a solar concentrating mirror in space verse one on Earth, or a 20 mile long by 10 mile diameter O’Neil transport in space verse on Earth, a skyscraper, a set of shelves, a transport system, an automated factory, a hundred kilometer long robot arm, etc. Space equipment can be designed very differently to Earth equipment – the loadings can be much less – this is one of the major competitive advantages of space and enables all sorts of amazing structures and machines not possible on Earth. This is also one of the reasons for hands on orbital assembly – satellites no longer need to be designed to survive launch loadings and can be much lighter.
> The energy cost per kg is about ten – twenty cents a kilo if you are using electricity as your energy cost source. Even fuel and LOx per pound of cargo (including the fuel and LOx needed to lift the ship) to orbit is about $8 a pound — give or take the price of Kerosene. Trivial compared to the actual cost per pound which is often in the tens of thousands of dollars a pound.Only about 5-10 times the cost of jet fuel per pound of cargo, of a jet liner traveling a similar energy distance.
The energy cost to LEO is around 10-15 kWhrs/kg, say ~$1.50/kg in electricity (energy costs are typically around a third of total transport costs for a mature industry). This is far from insignificant for most goods. And probably as you say around ten times this for chemical propellants. A launch vehicle requires around ten times the fuel of intercontinental airfreight, and would be around ten times the cost of airfreight. Few internationally traded products could sustain such delivery costs. Now maybe there are some ways of reducing the cost of down mass using extra terrestrial resources or spare down mass capacity, but… Suffice it to say I currently see no substantial practical physical products worth producing in space and exporting to Earth in the short term.
I don’t get the folks who say we must have one gee for “health” reasons. We know nothing about life in low gravity situations, save the Apollo Moon visitors. Heinlein suggested in TMIAHM that after a few months living on the Moon one would be unable to re-adapt to Earth. He also suggested that those who stayed (and lived through the first year’s learning curve) would live longer than their Earth counterparts. I suspect that many of the first settlers will be those who’ve reached “retirement” age on Earth and wish for a longer, healthier life in a place where heart stress, falls, spinal disk degeneration, etc., are not the perils and pains of full gee living; some of them may devote their time to puttering in their gardens (providing oxygen and nutrition) while others find fulfillment in second careers in infrastructure development, and so on. We won’t know for sure until we have people there for substantial lengths of time.
I like your vision of what amounts to a bunch of orbiting (and probably other places like Lagrange points?) gas stations, fueled by launchers that don’t have to be human-capable.
Until we can build a space elevator, we’ll need something like this to give us what could be thought of as a “space ladder” or “space scaffold” to get us out of Earth orbit without ginormous rockets. One could even imagine Space Ship 1-sized things that hop to low earth orbit, refuel, and keep going to the moon or wherever.
The odd thing is this approach was used in the otherwise truly awful (at least science-wise) movie Armageddon.
Since you don’t have to worry about humans or delicate components, you could even do silly things like shoot the fuel bladder thingies out of the atmosphere using space guns, where some sort of device could collect them and load the orbital gas stations.
One could even imagine Space Ship 1-sized things that hop to low earth orbit, refuel, and keep going to the moon or wherever.
You can and we probably will but generally I think we should be thinking of ships designed for specific activities where passengers transfer to a more appropriate vehicle for various legs of a journey.
For example you might have an ocean cruise ship that is also a submarine, but it’s probably better to have two ships specific to each environment. I used to take a bus or taxi to the subway when I worked in NY although I could take either all the way from Brooklyn to Manhattan (at a cost.)
For space you have spaceships who’s only purpose is long duration flights from orbit to orbit.
You need a ship to launch you into Earth orbit where you would either transfer to a spaceship or a habitat until the spaceship arrives. Earth reentry might be a third ship for bringing you safely back, but being that this is a cycle a single RLV would make sense when available (we need not wait for it’s development.)
The name shuttle has been tainted, but that’s what I would call an RLV moon lander. It should be able to go from Earth orbit to the Moon and back.
Other places might have shuttles specific to their needs. Then again, since most places of interest are low gravity, perhaps a single ship does make sense?
Aw what the hell, let’s build them all.
ken anthony Says:
> July 25th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
>>> So instead of giving me a laundry list, could you answer the question. Name one showstopper?
>> I gave several. They are things a small isolated group here or in
>> space can’t make for themselves. So your colony can’t be self
>>sufficient and sustain itself without supplies and support from Earth.
> You gave none. By your reasoning we couldn’t live on Earth before the 20th century.
Mars isn’t Earth. On earth you can live off the land, feed off the biosphere, breath the air. None of those are possible on Mars. Your effectivly living in something as complex as a nuclear submarine, in a poisoned land, with no real air, and high radiation.
==
> = A spacecraft is much lighter in zero G than on Earth (by definition 🙂
> and can mass far less than an equivalent vehicle on Earth due to much
> lower structural loadings. ==
Actually not. the weights similar. It was assumd ther would be gosomer light – but those just proved to flimsily and unstable.
>> The energy cost per kg is about ten – twenty cents a kilo if you are
>> using electricity as your energy cost source. Even fuel and LOx
>> per pound of cargo (including the fuel and LOx needed to lift the
>> ship) to orbit is about $8 a pound — give or take the price of
>> Kerosene. Trivial compared to the actual cost per pound which is
>> often in the tens of thousands of dollars a pound. Only about
>> 5-10 times the cost of jet fuel per pound of cargo, of a jet liner
>> traveling a similar energy distance.
> == energy costs are typically around a third of total transport costs for a mature industry). ==
Yup, in a matre space launch industry cost perpound to orbit would be in the dollars to tens of dollars a pound. But we’re a long way from there. Current launch costs are tens of thousands of dollars a pound.
= A launch vehicle requires around ten times the fuel of intercontinental
> airfreight, and would be around ten times the cost of airfreight. Few
> internationally traded products could sustain such delivery costs.
> Now maybe there are some ways of reducing the cost of down mass
> using extra terrestrial resources or spare down mass capacity, ==
You missing something. the cost to LIFT cargo is tens of dollars a pound. But landing mass is cheaper since you lifting a empty ship, to land cargo.
>.. Suffice it to say I currently see no substantial practical physical
> products worth producing in space and exporting to Earth in the short term.
Agreed.
> Stewart Says:
> July 26th, 2009 at 9:11 am
>
> I don’t get the folks who say we must have one gee for “health” reasons.
> We know nothing about life in low gravity situations, ==
Actually we do. Its efectivlly like enforced bed rest. The lower load on the body systems have similar systemic effects as enforced bed rest. Causing deterioration of cardi vascular, immune adn other functions — and of course bone deterioration. Low G will shorten life just like being a extream couch potato does.
Everyone wants a miracle drug where you can lose weight, stay in great shape, and never exercise. Don’t hold your breath.
“A Space Program for the Rest of Us” is very complete article and I agree with Rnad’s ideas as presented in the article. However, reusable launch equipment is still THE BIG PROBLEM (they like to burn up on the way back). Given current technology I feel that SpaceX’s methodology, as I see it (build a lot and work the learning curve for cost reduction), is our best near term strategy for us to become a “space faring race.” As for the future, we must also develop “cost effective, reliable and reusable” launcher technology. This is critical for lowering the marginal costs of delivering anything to any destination in space.