While in general I think that the new space policy is a vast improvement over the previous one, it is marred by the disdain that the administration displays toward the moon as a useful goal. Paul Spudis (who else) defends the moon against the foolish arguments opposed to it. There may be good reasons not to go back to the moon, but I haven’t heard any, and “we’ve been there” certainly isn’t one. I know for sure that that I haven’t been there.
Paul also asks, why wait for heavy lift?
This new document indicates that work will proceed on development of a heavy lift launch vehicle, with a decision on what vehicle to build coming in 2015 (note well: not building a vehicle, but making a decision on what vehicle to build). How will our decision on heavy lift be more informed in five years than it is now?
If there’s anyone who doesn’t speak for this administration, it’s me, but my answer is: if we start doing the necessary tech demos for autonomous docking/mating, propellant storage and transfer, we may be informed enough to finally convince everyone except the die-hard Apollo cargo cultists and giant penis enviasts that we don’t need a heavy lift vehicle, at least any larger than natural growth versions of what currently exists.
While I agree high traffic beyond LEO will enable depots the trouble is that that is going to take ages.
But that’s not nearly as long as it’s going to take Martijn Meijering or someone who posts on the internet under the name “Godzilla” to convince the powers that be that they have special insight into the needs of the world decades in the future.
Well of course not Jim. The future is highly fluid and no one can predict it accurately. What I describe is but one of many possible futures. I even wish I am wrong, as orbital bombardment would be too horrible to contemplate.
As for the powers that be, well, I could care less at this point. In fact sometimes I would prefer not to go on my wild prognostications in public. However my animal spirits (hah!) often get the best of me.
As for depots Obama already mentioned those in his speech in a lopsided fashion. So the “powers that be” are actually interested in moving in that direction. Regardless of what I say or think.
Seems like the government should be scared of you doing a cut rate lunar mission then demanding the government paid you to do theirs since you are able to do it “better”.
Tom, as you should recall I am not a New New Spacer demanding that NASA pay after the real market fails to come through. You and I are both critics of that approach despite our differences on this issue.
You asked what my concerns were about your proposed government-funded lunar “infrastructure” and I gave some of them. You should try actually responding to my arguments next time instead of silly insults. The reason that parametric estimates of the lunar “mission” (really commercial extraction, processing, and transportation operation) are “cut rate” (i.e. sized and costed efficiently instead of the traditional “lunar base” which is orders of magnitude too large and too expensive) is just because I am counting real markets not “markets” artificially concocted from government funding.
Its just the business model doesn’t work out yet. That is why the Lunar X Prize is going to be a failure.
I hope I’m wrong but I can’t say I disagree with this. There’s probably not enough prize money plus market potential at this point to fund a small upper stage and lunar lander on top of rover and payload. The basic prize should have been $30 million instead of $20 million and the contest should have run over more years. Another possibility is to have a more limited contest, for example $25 million just for landing and transmitting back HD still photos of an Apollo site. It was silly for Google to insist on video for the moon. Not much is moving around up there.
Nevertheless there are several companies still seriously working on the GLXP, for example Astrobotics. They are charging $700,000 per pound to land cargo on the moon. Plus $250,000 just to play. Celestis has purchased 11 pounds to scatter remains amongst the lunar dust but Astrobotics is still trying to sell the other 229 pounds. Their prospects include scientists wanting to fly experiments and billionaires who just want to fly some googaw of theirs to the moon. I suspect that if Astrobotics can sell most of this space they will fly and if they can’t they won’t. But it’s too expensive so I share Tom’s pessimism.
For the life of me though I can’t see why Tom finds the small size of the current or reasonably extrapolated market a reason in favor of injecting massive government money into building stuff many orders of magnitude too large for such markets. What a great recipe for more preposterous economic distortions, more make-work, more white elephants and bridges to nowhere.
Nevertheless, I do think Astrobotics and its competitors are close to having business plans that close for rational investors even if they are not quite there yet. All you philanthrocapitalists out there, the best thing you can do with your money to help space development right now, besides investing in the real commerce of communications satellites, is to fly your stuff to the moon, on Astrobotics or one of its competitors, and see how far you can bargain them down. If you can’t think of anything to send here are some fun ideas. Send up a Gideon Bible and save the souls of those ETI visitors Bob Bigelow is looking for. Or buy your mother-in-law’s remains a one-way ticket to the heavens. Send a little ant farm and see if they can build a colony in lunar gravity. Those are just silly ideas off the top of my head — this is a great opportunity to put our imaginations to work. Or just buy a few pounds and challenge yourself to resell it.
(No, I have no association whatsoever with any of these lunar companies, I just think they’re quite cool).
Here are two prize ideas along more ambitious lines to move us towards a much bigger and much better characterized market, the market for boosting satellites from LEO to GEO. The market size may be estimated by starting with the c. $1 billion per year currently spent on taking satellites from LEO to GEO, plus the market growth between now and 2030 which, based on historical and especially recent subscriber growth rates, probably will have more than doubled and possibly will have quadrupled by that time.
The first big prize, $100 million to return a sample of lunar ice to earth for analysis, deadline 2020. The second, $200 million to extract some lunar ice, process it into the first thousand kilograms of propellant, and deliver said propellant to LEO. Deadline 2030.
I should add that in the satellite boosting market another potential solution is tethers, and tethers are another productive area for prizes and DARPA-style technology research.
Another payload idea: I understand the $250,000 buys you some power and a data port to downlink results. Buy two pounds, that’s $1.65 million total. One pound is for a tiny but high resolution close-up video camera. Sell for royalties the other pound to a famous artist (the kind who can get over a million dollars per work) who wants to make dynamic art that will do something unique in lunar gravity.
Frank: It’s not the next planet, but the next goal, and whether we can achieve it. It doesn’t have to be a planet, and probably shouldn’t be. Hubble gets plenty of people inspired about space. People understood what it was supposed to be (“a telescope in space”), they see what it does, and despite the cost/benefit of sending up a new one there’s plenty of sentiment in favor of keeping it going. Figure out the manned flight equivalent of Hubble and there won’t be any issues with political changeovers or Congressional budgeting.
My old favorite goal is “a permanently staffed lunar base.” One of my new favorites is from someone around here who suggested “one hundred Americans working in space.” Whatever it is, it should give ordinary taxpayers – not just those who get jobs from it – a reason to support it. It should work within the budget Congress is willing to allocate. It should be achievable within the term limits of the President, if only to avoid political issues. (Twenty-year plans run into project management problems, as well.) These parameters also help it to be credible – a goal that might work and might not is a goal that people don’t want to get behind.
In my opinion – I don’t know if this was the President’s intent – “We’ve been there” encapsulates all this.
One of my new favorites is from someone around here who suggested “one hundred Americans working in space.”
Splendid! Let’s put a little slice of the make-work culture of NASA and its contractors right up there in space. The goal, create 100 jobs in space. As with the Constellation builders and the Shuttle launching army, it doesn’t matter whether they actually accomplish anything remotely close to being worth the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars it would cost to do this. Just make them look busy!
Apparently there’s nothing quite so fun among astronaut fans as doubling down on the economic fantasy.
Ed Minchau,
And I could match you with a list of predictions for flying cars, commuting to work on jet belts and lunar hotels by 2000 that didn’t turn out.
But to be more specific regarding the Lunar X prize.
Any evidence any of the Lunar X Prize teams have moved beyond viewgraphs? Have any signed a contract and paid a deposit on a launch vehicle yet? Purchased a lander? Or started the regulatory paper work for a lunar mission? All of these things take a minimum of 18 months to 2 years to do if things go smoothly. December 31, 2012 is coming up fast so if any of the teams are serious you would see press releases on these items instead of just viewgraphs.
googaw,
But for the level of lunar commerce possible the government has not been and is not a threat. I know when I was part of a firm that was looking at doing a lunar commercial mission a few years back NASA was not the problem. In fact they were interested in being a customer. That is why I find it so odd that people somehow see the government’s presence in space as hindering private efforts.
Also as I noted, the risk of a government getting the best sites for lunar water is based on the old view of the Moon. The recent data shows there is far more water then anyone imagined. And its scattered out nicely in multiple location in what appears to be an easy to recover form.
And lunar water has every appearance of being a sustainable resource for rocket fuel since it appears water in the lunar gravity field migrates back to the cold traps. And since most of the exhaust of a rocket launching or landing on the Moon stays in the Moon’s gravity field its possible that humans will even add to the supply with every landing if they use an Hydrogen/LOX lander. 🙂
The Moon is a much different world then we imagined even a year ago and looks much better as a location for human settlement.
googaw,
One killer for commercial lunar missions is communications. I suspect most of the firms have not priced it out yet. When they do they may well get a shock. That is why one of the early projects, indeed the first one, for a Lunar Development Corporation is a lunar communication system. Imagine the value of the HD image from the Moon if its on the far side 🙂
And BTW under my vision for a LDC, the satellites from be built and run by a private firm under contract to the LDC, so you have a lunar market right there for New Space firms to go after.
Then you have the need of lunar navigation which is another problem the current generation of lunar firms are taking for granted. Its nice to know where you are landing and even nicer to know where you are going. Finding your way around on the lunar surface is a lot harder then it looks. The lack of a good lunar navigation infrastructure is one reason the odds of going to any of the Apollo or robotic landing sites is about zero. Again this is something that a LDC could build. Again it creates a New Space market. And no you don’t need 24 satellites to build it. 6 satellites combined with the lunar comsats would work fine. You might even get it down to 3 satellites. Remember the 24 required for GPS are to fulfill a number of applications that would not be needed on the Moon at this early stage.
Again, its about building infrastructure to reduce the cost of all missions to the Moon, public, private and foreign.
the first one, for a Lunar Development Corporation is a lunar communication system
Splendid! You’ve just invented a brand new kind of infrastructural boondoggle, the Network to Nowhere.
But for the level of lunar commerce possible the government has not been and is not a threat.
Sure, if you skip right by all six problems I listed above (not to mention several others I didn’t include).
Imagine the value of the HD image from the Moon if its on the far side
Not much, actually. But since the taxpayer is footing your bill you can make up whatever value you want and the chances that you will ever be held accountable are slim.
For the dominant real market we can foresee at this point, lunar-derived propellant, the main comm need will quite likely be getting data quickly to and from the lunar poles for teleoperation. Nothing you or Bill have proposed has addressed this need in anything close to a reasonable manner. Typical: the central planner does not understand the needs of the people who might most want to use his system, but rather imposes some grandiose useless architecture. Let me help you out: the two best alternatives I’ve seen are (1) direct line-of-site to earth, renting out a network dishes like the DSN space around the earth such that one of the dishes is always in view, plus occasional relays through Molniya orbit communications satellites, or (2) is my own invention, relay through a small constellation of satellites in a Molniya orbit around the moon, with two always in view of the given pole (one a spare). (1) allows line-of-site communications straight to big dishes on earth which increases bandwidth and reduces communications delay, which will be crucial. But dealing with the earth occasionally bobbing below the horizon may be a problem. That’s where the Molniya orbit comsats come in, but there will be reduced bandwidth and response time in those periods from having to use an expensive relay.
A lunar communications network is a very good example of a novel kind of infrastructure that requires engineers made economically accountable by a real market to get it right. Governments-funded entities designing novel civilian infrastructures, lacking not only market accountability but lacking even the second-best economic accountability that New Deal and Soviet enterprises had, namely that of having past performance to compare to, or the accountability of death and defeat that militaries have, will get it grotesquely wrong.
it appears water in the lunar gravity field migrates back to the cold traps. And since most of the exhaust of a rocket launching or landing on the Moon stays in the Moon’s gravity field
Call me highly skeptical of this claim. The exhaust velocity of a reasonable LH/LOX engine is 4.4 km/s which is quite a bit faster than the lunar escape velocity of 2.38 km/s. Even for exhaust pointed straight down at the moon, so that it actually hits the moon, it could take millions of years to migrate back to a polar ice cold trap.
Call me highly skeptical of this claim. The exhaust velocity of a reasonable LH/LOX engine is 4.4 km/s which is quite a bit faster than the lunar escape velocity of 2.38 km/s. Even for exhaust pointed straight down at the moon, so that it actually hits the moon, it could take millions of years to migrate back to a polar ice cold trap.
Where do you get this “millions of years” figure? The time scale of (time for a single hop)/(fraction of moon’s surface that is a cold trap) is much shorter.
The more interesting question would be what fraction of water molecules are ionized and swept away by the solar wind before they can reach a cold trap.
Sell for royalties the other pound to a famous artist (the kind who can get over a million dollars per work) who wants to make dynamic art that will do something unique in lunar gravity.
Then, turn that work of art in a logo and sell into the mass market.
@ googaw
I foresee two types of lunar communications infrastructure:
(1) The real systems that actually address the needs of astronauts (and I am not qualified to design those); and
(2) Lunar cell towers and com sats (for example) that are proprietary to terrestrial telecom companies and are used in a symbolic fashion for many of the same reason the Washington Capitals hockey team plays in the Verizon Center.
Thomas Matula,
Why would he retrench HSF? If no one is screaming about astronauts riding on foreign vehicles just leave it that way and use the money saved for education or something he is more interested? I seem to recall that was his original promise on space 🙂
I’ve said this before: his plan is to kick the can down the road and part of that plan relies on exactly what you’re saying. As long as people keep pretending that paying the Russians for launch services is “commercial” (and it is, but OTOH, it isn’t), then he doesn’t have to bother having a new manned launch system with his name on it whether it comes from NASA or NewSpace.
If NewSpace manages to come up with something during his term (that is, they get past all of the regulatory hurdles and federal contractual requirements, and somehow manage to get a man-rating) and it doesn’t work, then he can kick the can even farther down the road (the aforementioned re-retrenchment). That allows him to stick with off-shoring manned launch services. IOW, no change whatsoever from the status quo. In the meantime, commercial manned space is pushed two steps back from the one baby step they were allowed to take forward. That’s the danger commercial space faces with this Faustian pact they’re so enthusiastic about.
And as you allude to, maybe people shouldn’t be so easily convinced that this new plan changes his original plan, which put “education” (i.e. funneling more NASA money through the NEA) and Earth science before anything else.
Obama could of called the new HLV Ares V or Ares IV Lite or whatever. Has anyone really seen an Ares V? How do we know it doesn’t look like Obama’s new fictional HLV? A name is just a name.
Obama could of kept the name Constellation too. He could of said we are cutting Ares I and moving straight into the space exploration phase of Constellation and then gone onto change the methods, goals, and destinations.
It would totally make sense to not use the name Constellation if Obama had a cooler name for his program. What is the name of the new program again?
> Martijn Meijering Says:
> April 18th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
The need for fuel depots is just logistics.
>== I believe that the strongest argument for depots (much
> less than full depots actually) is that it can make the launch
> volume required for exploration available to multiple freely
> competing launchers. The theory is that this would make
> the sort of R&D that would lead to RLVs and thus much
> reduced launch costs profitable. ==
Ok, so the point of depots is to have a excuse to contract lots of tonage of list, to foster a launcher industry?
Pork as a way to open teh high frounteer?
Why no just give launcher development grants? Or have them list something useful rather then fuel you don’t need for anything?
Or if you want to demostrate fuel depots on the cheep. Have the astrounauts take photos of the next progress tanker refueling the ISS. Declare the ISS or the Progress the depot as you prefer.
Ok, so the point of depots is to have a excuse to contract lots of tonage of list, to foster a launcher industry?
It’s not the point, but it’s a point.
Pork as a way to open teh high frounteer?
Yes. Pork is going to happen. It’s a government program. We’re just trying to make it more nutritious.
Why no just give launcher development grants? Or have them list something useful rather then fuel you don’t need for anything?
We don’t need fuel for anything? Who knew? What do you use to propel rockets with?
Or if you want to demostrate fuel depots on the cheep. Have the astrounauts take photos of the next progress tanker refueling the ISS. Declare the ISS or the Progress the depot as you prefer.
That doesn’t tell us anything about cryos.
That doesn’t tell us anything about cryos.
More relevantly, a picture of a depot is about as useful to development of cheap and reliable access to space as a picture of a juicy steak is to someone who is starving. The point is not to prove it can be done (that has been proven for almost as long as I have been alive), but to open up space with it. For that, you have to use it, and the sooner the better. If we do that, we might see humans on the moon again, something that hasn’t happened since before I was born.
What do you use to propel rockets with?
Will power and rocket porn Rand. And a little bit of unicorn poo. Everybody knows that HLVs solve all problems. After all, who needs a lander to go to the moon if you have an HLV?
Googaw,
[[[Sure, if you skip right by all six problems I listed above (not to mention several others I didn’t include).]]]
You mean the all ones based on conspiracy paranoia and beliefs rather the evidence, like the belief the government will somehow seize your business if you show them up or that government agencies will conspire to make you fail. Why would I waste my time? Its like arguing with someone who believes in the government conspiracy to hide the UFO’s that make regular trips to the Moon from Area 51. No matter the amount of evidence you present they are wrong they will still believe in them.
Those arguments are no different then the New Space myth that NASA’s “monopoly” on HSF has kept private firms form developing it years ago.
You mean the all ones based on conspiracy paranoia and beliefs rather the evidence, like the belief the government will somehow seize your business if you show them up or that government agencies will conspire to make you fail.
More straw men. This question makes you look like a conspiracy theorist.
Googaw,
Its clear you have not priced out any of those lunar communication options. When you do be prepared for sticker shock, especially if you want the bandwidth needed for HD 🙂
Rand,
Do you have any evidence that the government has conspired to hold back private spaceflight? Or seized a private firm because it showed the government up as googaw is claiming? If so I would be interested to see it and to see if those New Space urban myths have any basis in fact.
Do you have any evidence that the government has conspired to hold back private spaceflight? Or seized a private firm because it showed the government up as googaw is claiming?
Why would I have any such evidence, when I’ve never made such a claim?
Ask me if the government and specifically NASA has prevented private ventures from getting funded, or made it more difficult, though. That’s a different story.
Destination is not important for a lot of decisions going forward. Much of the equipment can be the same regardless.
Going to the moon would become incidental if we target mars. While fuel depots seems a no brainer (to me) they fall into the nice to have category. We can get pretty far without them (although much farther with them.) What we need is to make fuel transfer routine. A tanker craft makes more sense with fuel depots but is actually useful even before they exist. Essentially it’s a mobile fuel depot. Once fuel depots are in place, tankers supply them as they do here on the ground (the tanker is an in space assets… other means of getting fuel to orbit is assumed.) For flexibility and added safety most if not all ships should be able to routinely exchange fuel.
I say we go everywhere, but still feel very strongly that making mars the target (for settlement) gets us to spacefaring faster than any other choice.
Rand,
[[[Ask me if the government and specifically NASA has prevented private ventures from getting funded, or made it more difficult, though. That’s a different story.]]]
OK, let’s hear it…
What’s to hear? Many investors, by way of due diligence, go to NASA (because they’re the experts on space technology, right?) for an opinion as to whether or not a concept makes sense…
That’s not a “conspiracy theory.” It’s a simple fact. And until the last few years, a devastating one for people trying to set up private space businesses.
Googaw, Rand,
OK, to be more specific in my reply here is googaw’s list and my response to each.
[[[No, the problems would be at least some of the following:
(1) NASA (or your government corporation) would squander scarce lunar resources — the water, strategic locations, etc. which leaves less or second best for real commerce.]]]
The more evidence that comes in the more likely water is not concentrated in any single locality but is found in many. It’s unlikely that NASA or a LDC missions will monopolize the best location.
[[[(2) Following the lead of popular traditional ideas, as the Soviet Union and NASA have done with space “infrastructure” many times already, it would preposterously misscale and otherwise misdesign its architecture, misleading those considering real commerce in the area about what is appropriate cost and scale. Current lunar plans are typically three orders of magnitude or more too large and too costly for real markets. It will be hogging the headlines with Wonders Beyond the World and grand astronaut heroics at taxpayer expense while real commerce would be fielding small robots. So much divergence between economic reality and the dominant paradigm could scare investors away from the properly scaled projects.]]]
NASA designs to NASA’s needs. LDC will design basic infrastructure that will lower everyone’s cost of doing business. So what has that to do with your commercial lunar operations? And why lowering the cost of doing business on the Moon by providing basic communication/navigation infrastructure scare investors away if your business plan is well thought out? If anything it would give creditability to your business plan…
[[[(3) It will have political clout to shut down any business project that makes it look bad or competes with it.]]]
Pure paranoia with no evidence to support this belief.
[[[(4) Laws might be passed, a la the Shuttle era, forcing real commerce to cooperate with this monstrosity: to use its communications links, or its fuel depots, or its choices of propellants or orbits, etc., when real commerce needs different solutions. There is a vast design space in the choice of propellants, orbits, etc. etc. and the odds of anybody, public or private, getting it right the first time are minuscule, though the odds for a company that a real market makes economically accountable are much higher than for an economically unaccountable government entity.]]]
What Shuttle Ear laws? I will guess you are referring to NASA’s policy of launching payloads for private firms before a private launch industry emerged. The firms were simply told the government was phasing out the ELVs the government was using and replacing them with the Shuttle. No different than Boeing phasing out the b767 for the b787. And nothing preventing the firms building Titian/ Delta/Atlas from offering them to private satellite providers except that it wasn’t worth their time to do so. Nor nothing preventing the private firms launching payloads from going to Arianespace if they wanted to stay on ELVs with their payload. They were not forced to do anything. You wouldn’t be forced to use the LDC communication or navigation system. You would be free to build your own. A stupid decision perhaps, like a trucking firm building its own highways to avoid using the government’s interstate, but nothing would prevent you from doing it.
[[[(5) If regulators cooperate with the government entity, it creates a conflict of interest between that combination and their contractors against the real commerce entities being regulated. ]]]
Yes, the old conspiracy argument that the government is always out to get private space firms. After all look at how government agencies conspired against sub-orbital vehicles. Oh, wait they didn’t.
[[[(6) Such a large taxpayer-funded entity could potentially create many other political risks along similar lines.]]]
Sign… sounds like just a good “catch all” representing a general paranoia of the government. Yes, the government is out to get you and will somehow find a way to stop you somehow.
Rand,
[[[What’s to hear? Many investors, by way of due diligence, go to NASA (because they’re the experts on space technology, right?) for an opinion as to whether or not a concept makes sense…
That’s not a “conspiracy theory.” It’s a simple fact. And until the last few years, a devastating one for people trying to set up private space businesses.]]]
Ah, the old “brother-in-law” from NASA argument.
Sounds like you just need to make your concept clearer in your business plan and do a little inoculation by pointing out why NASA is not the expert in your particular area. In short its more a communication problem then one NASA is causing. Assuming of course the technology in the business plan is sound. I know I have seen some pretty dumb technology in a lot of New Space business models. And a lot of low balling of technology costs combined with highballing the market estimate.
The X Prize competitors are a good example. Only a few were component and the winner ended up requiring a lot more then $10 million to win. And is not looking at the high side of $300 million to get the business started. So maybe investors had a right to be wary of New Space start-ups.
But in any case, if you get rid of NASA they will just look elsewhere, say the local aerospace engineering department or retired USAF missile command officer for advice. So that wouldn’t solve the problem anyway.
That should be “Competent”. The auto spell checker picked wrong 🙂
[[[(3) It will have political clout to shut down any business project that makes it look bad or competes with it.]]]
Pure paranoia with no evidence to support this belief.
There’s plenty of times when NASA, Congress, or helpful aerospace competitors have obstructed business projects. Here’s a list just of NASA offenses. We also need to consider the recent example of Ares I. It’s adoption by NASA lead to the creation of the ULA, reducing US competitivity in space launch.
Karl,
Yep, classic paranoia, assigning motives to random events to “prove” that NASA has spent the last 30 years trying to wipe out New Space.
Sheeesh…
Yep, classic paranoia, assigning motives to random events to “prove” that NASA has spent the last 30 years trying to wipe out New Space.
The paranoia at work here is you thinking we are attributing malicious motives to people at NASA and its contractors just because we are attributing damages to them. We are only observing good old self-interest and the clumsiness of gigantism. The problems are far more due to institutional incentives and the clumsiness of bumbling giants than due to purposeful malice. The problem is the damages, not the states of mind, which are just normal human states of mind.
> Rand Simberg Says:
> April 19th, 2010 at 10:51 am
>> Ok, so the point of depots is to have a excuse to
>> contract lots of tonage of list, to foster a launcher industry?
> It’s not the point, but it’s a point.
Then if you don’t actually need that much fuel for anything in orbit (I.E. as I said your just lifting it to give LVs so busness.
>> Why not just give launcher development grants? Or
>> have them list something useful rather then fuel you
>> don’t need for anything?
> We don’t need fuel for anything? Who knew? ==
You knew – you said. The point of the heavy fuel lift is make work for LV “nutricious pork” rather then you need that much fuel in orbit. Which was the point of my statement.
>> if you want to demostrate fuel depots on the cheep.
>> Have the astrounauts take photos of the next progress
>> tanker refueling the ISS. Declare the ISS or the Progress
>> the depot as you prefer.
> That doesn’t tell us anything about cryos.
Oh yeah we really need more xeperence pumping croy around in zero-G or storing it for klong periods. Thats less beleavable then we need to test auto docking and fuel coupling.
> Martijn Meijering Says:
> April 19th, 2010 at 11:42 am
>== a picture of a depot is about as useful to development
> of cheap and reliable access to space as a picture of a
> juicy steak is to someone who is starving. The point is
> not to prove it can be done (that has been proven for
> almost as long as I have been alive), but to open up
> space with it.==
I’ld agree, but thats not tehe proposed idea. The statments are NASA donig on orbit fuel transfer demonstrators, not tests of baseline configurations.
Frankly they should just contract for X tons of fuel adn LOx delivered from a on orbit depot at X dates, rather tehn talkjing abuot it like it was some research project.
> Thomas Matula Says:
> April 19th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
> Ah, the old “brother-in-law” from NASA argument.
Well more then that (though thats a big point.). In early shuttle days it was NASA policy to charge whatever the market charged. So if (Like Beal(?) aero realized) if your launcher will halve cost to orbit, NASA will just halve their rates to “compete” so the shuttle looks more important. It was their policy to make shuttle “the” western worlds launch system.
Launch customers opf course give the alternative of flying on the state of the art shuttles, with the option of them returnnig the sat (or whatever) if it didn’t check out in LEO – for the same price – they go with the shuttle. So competing launchers found their busness disapearing.
In other cases NASA for political reasons would be hostile to commercial competitors. The story of the industrial space facility is a case in point.
Or commercial working with them cuold find themselves crushed in a policy change. Like the “SPAR”(?) ultra high res delpoy and recover, Earth resources photo sat. preoject in the erly ’80’s. After the flight, NASA ordered tehm to noly charge a nominal fee for copies of teh photo’s. The company protested their busness plan adn contract with NASA said otherwise — NASA agreed, but the order stood. Company went broke.
Bottom line. A thriving commercial space industry generally is a big threat to NASA, so they are not going to help – and certainly will use political tricks to stop it for their benifit if practical.
assigning motives to random events
Thomas, the list is composed of decisions that NASA and related parties made. Motive is inherent when you speak of choice.
googaw.
[[[We are only observing good old self-interest and the clumsiness of gigantism. The problems are far more due to institutional incentives and the clumsiness of bumbling giants than due to purposeful malice. The problem is the damages, not the states of mind, which are just normal human states of mind.]]]
What you are talking about is what is considered the Political-Legal Macro-environment in strategic management and is simply one of the factors you take into account when developing your business plan. So if there are damages resulting its simply because the entrepreneurs developing their business plans failed to take the Political-Legal environment into account in their business plan which unfortunately is very common.
For example in that business plan you mentioned for Astrobotics You indicated that Celestis purchased 11 lbs to send multiple human remains to the Moon. A little research would have shown the major cultural issue that NASA ran across when Dr. Gene Shoemaker’s remains were set to the Moon.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19980114&id=3KgpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=q_EDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6482,3377449
Yes, if the Navajo hear about it they will probably seek a legal injection when they file a lawsuit against Astrobotics that will set them back for years. That 11 lbs may well kill the mission by wrapping it up in unnecessary legal issues as well as creating a bad image for it in the eyes of the public.
Worst still, for future lunar commerce, if the Navajos win the lawsuit it would set a precedent for lunar protection that may well handicap all future lunar missions. And the Navajo will likely have willing allies in any fight from the environmentalists that have had both California and New Mexico add the Apollo 11 to their respective state’s list of historical sites.
This is the classic example where New Space firms need to think beyond the technology when developing business plans, just as normal firms do.
But shifting the blame to NASA instead of focusing it on the lack of experience of the entrepreneurs crafting their business plan just makes New Space advocates look like conspiracy bluffs in the eyes of folks outside the movement.
Kelly,
[[[So competing launchers found their busness disapearing.]]]
Who were these commercial competitors? At the time the Ariane was the only launch system. Atlas, Delta and Titian were all under contact to NASA for their commercial launches. The only other one I could think of was Space Services, but they had major funding challenges after their main investor died. But then they never had an operational system doing only a single test launch.
Karl,
[[[Thomas, the list is composed of decisions that NASA and related parties made. Motive is inherent when you speak of choice.]]]
Nope, more often its just indifference.
That should be Injunction not injection.
I’ld agree, but thats not tehe proposed idea. The statments are NASA donig on orbit fuel transfer demonstrators, not tests of baseline configurations.
Well, one can grow into the other. On the other hand, all of this has been demonstrated before with Orbital Express and supposedly the cancelled Propulsion Module would have been capable of this too.
Martin,
And the Centaur upper stage was designed with orbital refueling in mind back in the early 1960’s.
The question is at what point the cost of refueling in orbit it greater then the cost of simply launching another upper stage. That will be the driver of this technology.
> Thomas Matula Says:
> April 20th, 2010 at 8:38 am
>> [[[So competing launchers found their busness disapearing.]]]
> Who were these commercial competitors? At the time the
> Ariane was the only launch system. Atlas, Delta and Titian
> were all under contact to NASA for their commercial launches.
I mentioned Beal (sp) Atlas/Delta/Titan were all to be phased out! If you remember congress adn NASA weer pushing to have them eliminaetd as unnessisary adn redundant with Shuttle, adn the mil was arguing they liked having their own launchers and back up capabilities was a good thing. (After chalenger that logic carried a lot more weight.)
> == The only other one I could think of was Space Services, ==
Can’t remember them?
> Thomas Matula Says:
> April 20th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Martin,
> The question is at what point the cost of refueling in orbit is
> greater then the cost of simply launching another upper
> stage. That will be the driver of this technology.
A good point. Arguably a reusable upper stage tug, makes as much sence as a refueling tanker launch – unless your refueling a much larger upper stage in orbit. Say lots of 10 ton fuel lifts to fuel a big craft with tanks needing 200 tons to fill. I.E. the HLV launching a fully fueld craft, vers a MLV launching a really big but unfueled craft; that you couldn’t possibly lift intact fueled – argument.
Course then as you suggest you could launch and stack in orbit a huge numbers of expendable upper stages on whatever it is.
Or we could discus NERVA’s or something adn get way off target.
And the Centaur upper stage was designed with orbital refueling in mind back in the early 1960’s.
Really? First time I’ve heard that.
The question is at what point the cost of refueling in orbit it greater then the cost of simply launching another upper stage. That will be the driver of this technology.
The reason I want refueling (or even one-time fueling) in orbit is a different one: not to save on upper stage production costs but to reduce launch cost/kg for small payloads (<5mT, perhaps as low as 2mT) through economies of scale. The former is relatively unimportant, the latter would be a strategic breakthrough that would open up space.
Kelly Starks: “Then if you don’t actually need that much fuel for anything in orbit (I.E. as I said your just lifting it to give LVs so busness. ”
The ISS needs its orbit periodically reboosted. They have been using the shuttle to do that so far, but that’s obviously coming to an end soon. Other valuable satellites need their orbits reboosted from time to time, and when they’re out of fuel they are dead. A vehicle that refills at a depot and then reboosts various orbital assets makes a lot of sense. The technology to do this needs to be developed, but would make a big difference in the lifespan of expensive satellites.
That’s just one of a half dozen ideas right off the top of my head that would make a fuel depot in orbit useful.
Martijn,
Yes, that is why ULA is using it as the basis for it proposed orbital fuel depot.
http://lunarnetworks.blogspot.com/2009/08/ula-proposed-on-orbit-re-fueling.html