…and the day of public/private partnerships in space has arrived. See also Sam Dinkin’s article on individuals and individualists picking up the slack. Like some of the Japanese soldiers holed up on remote Pacific islands after the war, though, Apollo Cargo Cultists will continue to fight a rear-guard action.
43 thoughts on “Apollo Is Over”
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I don’t see how commercial space will thrive if their dominant/only customer is the USG, though. They’ll just get enveloped in the government death hug, living from year to year waiting for NASA to get appropriated to buy their services.
Ultimately for commercial to work, you need the bulk of demand to come from the private sector, no? I wish someone could convince me that was imminent.
Ultimately for commercial to work, you need the bulk of demand to come from the private sector, no? I wish someone could convince me that was imminent.
A Vision of The Future?
txhsdad and Bill,
I don’t think anyone looking at this seriously disagrees with you that commercial markets are critical for getting to a truly vibrant private spaceflight industry. That said, some of the best potential private customers for spaceflight are hamstrung by the lack of actual spaceflight solutions (not just launch but the rest of the prox-ops, etc). By the government taking its existing needs and having the private sector service those instead of building a much more expensive in-house solution, it helps create that initial supply, which can enable actors like Bigelow to start providing extra demand.
~Jon
Jon,
One deadly alternative could be that NASA’s culture will infect the best of NewSpace with its NASA-zombie DNA.
Only time will tell, on that question.
Ultimately for commercial to work, you need the bulk of demand to come from the private sector, no? I wish someone could convince me that was imminent.
For unmanned space services, we can look at last weeks announcement of SpaceX winning a $492 million launch contract from Iridium as a step in the right direction. For manned operations, Bigelow is working to create a market that may surpass NASA’s need to send humans into LEO. I guess part of the answer is that it depends on your definition of “imminent.” If by imminent you mean in the next year or two, I don’t see it happening. If you allow imminent to reach out to the next 5 years or so, then the chances look a lot better.
Watching the struggle of many NASA contractors against new technology initiatives and the introduction of market forces into their way of life reminds me quite a bit of a certain 1800s social movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
@larry — So you think that in five years from now there will be private-sector customers for LEO and/or BEO human flight? Why?
I wish someone could convince me that was imminent.
This statement says you’d like to see it happen. It’s because others also want to see it happen, it will.
Elon didn’t build SpaceX to launch satellites. It just happens to be a way to finance a ‘multi use’ vehicle. It’s just one rung on the ladder (a very solid rung thanks to their latest contract.)
He didn’t build SpaceX to supply the I.S.S. That just happens to be a way to accelerate the development of Dragon, which had a window from the beginning. The next rung on the ladder.
DragonLab? That just came along because customers showed an interest. Perhaps another rung. Tour around the moon? Why not?
The PC took off when IBM licensed it for others to copy. Not sure that would work for SpaceX, because their egg still needs a chicken.
We may need a government exploration program to bootstrap things BEO until national geographic takes over.
As long as their in business we’ve got a ladder. Ladders will also be built by others (orbital habitats, anyone?)
@ken — But just becase a bunch of space-heads like us want to see it happen doesn’t mean it makes economic sense. Demand comes from supplying a need. Who really needs to fly people into space besides governments that want to run space programs? I just don’t see any companies out there yearning for someone to give them a way to send employees into space. Why would they?
“But just becase a bunch of space-heads like us want to see it happen doesn’t mean it makes economic sense. Demand comes from supplying a need. Who really needs to fly people into space besides governments that want to run space programs?”
Demand can also come from supplying a “want.” It has now been proven empirically that there are people who want to fly into space, can afford to pay for it, and have actually done it. There are scads more who meet the first criterion, but not the second. Several firms are trying to bring the cost point down to where more of the people who want to go can do so.
Short of planetary catastrophe, I’m not sure that there will ever be a “need,” in the sense of having no alternative to human spaceflight. I’m not sure there was ever a “need” for us to venture out of Olduvai Gorge, or spread out over the world the way we have. But the relentlessness of it certainly has all of the earmarks of a “need.”
So you think that in five years from now there will be private-sector customers for LEO and/or BEO human flight? Why?
Because there have been private customers for the last nine years. Do you think that people will suddenly stop wanting to go into space in the next five years? Why?
So you think that in five years from now there will be private-sector customers for LEO and/or BEO human flight? Why?
Because they already exist. Space Adventures has more customers lined up than there are Soyuz flights, and Bigelow is just waiting for a crewed launcher before he puts up his facilities.
Ken Anthony,
I understand your point, but IBM never “licensed” the PC to competitors (unless you count PS2 machines). IBM PC clones were built of commodity parts with a “Clean-Room Design”(reverse engineered) BIOS. IBM couldn’t make PCs fast enough and the competitors sprang up. When Columbia Data Products won the “Clean-Room Design” lawsuit, IBM lost control of the market.
Regarding the “comments” section in Sam Dinkins’ article — I really wanna party with Gary Church! Wow, what a funster!
> Regarding the “comments” section
Yes, recent events have sure brought a whole new kind of clue-resistant troll to the space discussion boards. I suspect these are people facing unemployment and thrashing about in a state of wounded entitlement.
Okay, I take your point(s). I guess tourism just doesn’t impress me. People didn’t climb onto boats west across the Atlantic for luxury cruises, they got on to go somewhere to do something. What I’m trying to gauge is private-sector demand for real human exploration and exploitation capabilities: lunar bases, asteroid missions, that sort of thing. Are there companies out there just itching for someone to give them a way to put people on Mars, Titan, Europa, Ceres, etc? Because until there is, only NASA will be wanting to do these kind of things, and so they’ll be the sole/dominant customer for those efforts.
Yes, it’s gotten pretty bad over at Space Politics, between the loons Gary Church and “amightywind” and DCSCA. Not to mention Oler, and the people saying “teabagger” this, and “right winger” that.
I wish that these people would check their politics at the door, but apparently, lacking understanding of space policy, technology or economics, it’s all they have.
I guess tourism just doesn’t impress me.
With all due respect (and Bigelow is about a lot more than tourism), who cares?
Seriously, what difference does it make whether or not “txhsdad” is “impressed”? It’s not going to have any effect whatsoever on their revenues, or the fact that they’ll have hundreds and thousands of people living and working in space, with many of them headed off beyond LEO. And why is wanting to visit LEO “tourism” and wanting to go to the moon or Mars something else?
But just becase a bunch of space-heads like us want to see it happen doesn’t mean it makes economic sense. Demand comes from supplying a need.
No, in the private sector, demand comes from supplying what people *want*. Only government tries to give people what they “need.”
Who really needs to fly people into space besides governments that want to run space programs? I just don’t see any companies out there yearning for someone to give them a way to send employees into space. Why would they?
No one “needs” to fly anywhere, unless they have a medical condition that requires immediate evacuation. For everyone else, it’s optional. Peopl don’t need to fly to Las Vegas or Orlando for vacation. They don’t need to fly crosscountry on a business trip, instead of driving for five days — but they *want* to.
Freedom to travel has been a basic American right since the founding of the Republic. Do you own a car? Are you able to drive it to a restaurant, a movie theater, or wherever you want? Or do you need to prove you “need” to go somewhere? Why should space travel be any different?
Okay, I take your point(s). I guess tourism just doesn’t impress me. People didn’t climb onto boats west across the Atlantic for luxury cruises, they got on to go somewhere to do something.
You’re misusing language. Commercial spaceflight opponents equate spaceflight with “tourism” and tourism with “luxury cruises,” but that is a distortion. It’s not the way the tourism industry uses the word. They speak of leisure tourism, business tourism, even medical tourism. When Steve Jobs flew to Kentucky to get a liver transplant, that wasn’t a luxury cruise in any sense of the word. Nor is the Suborbital Application Researchers Group looking for “luxury cruises.”
What I’m trying to gauge is private-sector demand for real human exploration and exploitation capabilities: lunar bases, asteroid missions, that sort of thing. Are there companies out there just itching for someone to give them a way to put people on Mars, Titan, Europa, Ceres, etc?
Leaving aside the curious belief that human exploration isn’t “real” unless it involves the Moon, Mars, and beyond, the answer is — Yes. Space Exploration Technologies was founded because Elon Musk wanted to go to Mars.
Because until there is, only NASA will be wanting to do these kind of things, and so they’ll be the sole/dominant customer for those efforts.
You’re attacking a strawman. No one said NASA shouldn’t be a customer for spaceflight services. But there’s a difference between being a customer and being a monpolist. NOAA does ocean exploration. That doesn’t mean it needs to run all of the nation’s shipyards. Or any shipyard, for that matter.
Well, sports is a multibillion dollar industry, primarily because people want to see sporting events. I don’t think there is much of a need for sports, just lots of wanting. Likewise the multibillion dollar movie and video game industries.
There is one heck of a lot of money to be made by giving people an opportunity to do what they want to do, for whatever reason they want to do it. I think it makes more sense to think of products and supply/demand rather than trying to define need vs. want. Can space-related industries ultimately supply products (tourism, research, manufacturing, power, a new and interesting place to live) which can be created so that the point at which the supply curve meets the demand curve is a point where the price is sufficient to cover the costs (both initial investment and ongoing operating)? If it can be done without ‘government subsidies’ or too much government interference, then utilization of space should eventually take off. That initial investment is definitely an issue (we could easily get the ‘second person in wins’ phenomenon), and the ongoing costs are definitely an issue (operational costs, vehicle reuse, flight rate).
I think it is possible for space industry to give us such products, and I think the main reason it hasn’t happened already is because of the way governments have interfered in space development up to the current point in time. When I was 12 I thought I would be able to buy a ticket to a space station when I was 30. I hope I can do it when I’m 60.
Space Adventures has more customers lined up than there are Soyuz flights, and Bigelow is just waiting for a crewed launcher before he puts up his facilities.
And it was announced the other day that Russia would be building one additional Soyuz a year to help satisfy this demand.
I’m not sure that there will ever be a “need”
Nobody really can be until after the fact. The thing about economic justification is it’s generally not some master plan. It’s usually filling a niche that leads to other niches for others to fill.
The old world got along (I was going to add fine, but too many people here know their history) before they ever knew the new world existed. It would be a bewildering question to ask if there were an economic justification for sailing into the vast ocean and perhaps off the edge of the world. That Italian crackpot had to go to Spain to grab a little of that peace dividend (and we’re still fighting that war today) to fund his little expedition.
Now assume we have a thriving growing colony BEO. Do you imagine there would be zero trade? Do I know what that trade will be? Nope. But people will.
Soon my retarded trollbot minions like amightywind, gary church, and DCSCA at Space Politics will flood into your blog, oh Rand Simberg.
Muwahahahahaha!!!!!!1111one11!!!11!!one
Okay, apparently I’m not being clear enough. Maybe my perspective as more of an armchair-enthusiast and not someone with intimate ties to the industry is a little different than what you’re used to on these blogs, so let me explain where I’m coming from:
I want to see commercial companies like SpaceX, Bigelow, etc. succeed.
I’m 90% of the way to agreeing with you guys that remodeling NASA and buying commercial launch services for its manned missions is a good thing.
I’m not here to defend or apologize for Apollo and its legacy; I’ve got no skin in that fight beyond the sentimental aspects of growing up in the shadow of Apollo and the STS program and wanting to see the USA do more awesome stuff in space. The Apollo/STS-style program is all I’ve ever known, so naturally it’s taken a while for me to shake the notion that that’s the only way to do space. But I’m coming around, so stay with me…
LEO/ISS is boring as hell, okay? VSE got me pumped up — we were finally growing a pair and going to do big things again. But NASA let me down by botching Constellation. I get it, okay? So what is there to be excited about? Commercial space is the way to go, right? Except I don’t want to get my hopes up like I did for VSE unless there’s really something to it. So I’m poking around trying to figure out if NewSpace is something I can believe in.
I’m concerned that the commercial industry won’t flourish unless NASA is just one small wedge in the pie. If NASA is the only one buying a substantial share of the services of SpaceX et al, I’m afraid these companies will be too dependent upon NASA getting funding from Congress each year to buy their services, and they’ll wither on the vine.
But as I consider what people or corporations (NOT government) might be chomping at the bit to do in space, I can’t think of much that seems feasible except for maybe LEO tourism, and as an enthusiast, that bugs me. So school me up:People point to up-and-coming providers like SpaceX, Bigelow, etc but I haven’t seen anyone pointing to high-potential customers for what these companies hope to offer, and without customers there’s no business case. No business case == no business == no reason to get my hopes up.
So… Are there companies out there that have made credible noise about wanting to put people in space to do things they can’t do easier/cheaper here on Earth? Like establish off-world colonies to mine or do research, etc? Are there even any private entities that would know how to train their employees to be astronauts, how to live and work in outer space? Or are LEO hotels the sum of what’s on the horizon for private human space flight? As far as I can imagine, the future of commercial space depends upon (and its advocates seem to presume) the existence of this sort of private demand, but I haven’t discovered any evidence that it exists beyond a few quirky billionaires who’ve been to ISS.
LEO/ISS is boring as hell, okay?
Is it really, now??? Out of curiousity, how many times have you been to LEO/ISS? How long were you there before you started to get bored?
I ask that because everyone I know who’s been there says the exact opposite. Either you’ve spent a lot more time in LEO than they have, you have a low threshhold of boredom, or — most likely, I think — you’ve never been offplanet and simply have no idea what you’re talking about.
Of course, everyone’s tastes are different. Lots of people love cruise ships. I can’t think of a more boring way to spend a week than being stuck on a cruise ship. Of course, I’ve never actually been on a cruise, I’m willing to admit there’s a chance I could be wrong about that — and I don’t claim that my views are the unanimous opinion of mankind or that the cruise industry isn’t “real” because I have no interest in it.
So… Are there companies out there that have made credible noise about wanting to put people in space to do things they can’t do easier/cheaper here on Earth? Like establish off-world colonies to mine or do research, etc?
Were there companies making credible noise about building a gambling resort in Las Vegas when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock? Or even in 1903 when the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk?
They idea that you need to have a linear plan that starts with launching a man into orbit and ends with a colony on Alpha Centauri is an artifact of Wernher von Braun’s addiction to centralized planning. That pardigm didn’t even work with Five-Year Plans for Soviet agriculture. Why would you expect it to work with space development, which will be a hundred times more complex?
I haven’t discovered any evidence that it exists beyond a few quirky billionaires who’ve been to ISS.
Whose fault is that? Futron, Virgin Galactic, the Department of Commerce, etc. discovered plenty of evidence. It isn’t hard to find if you look in the right places. Do you believe that nothing exists unless you discovered it?
txhsdad,
Perhaps you mean it’s boring to you as a spectator, compared to the family sitting in front of the tv on July 20th of 1969?
With that perspective, what would fit for finally growing a pair and going to do big things again?
txhsdad – Your perspective is a common one for your generation. For someone whose first space-related memory was watching Challenger explode, I think it is a sad perspective. It’s chasing a high, and a vicarious one at that. We didn’t “grow a pair of balls” in 2004. As with the vast majority government pronouncements, those who confuse statements of intentions with execution are bound for disappointment. Or free health care and regular trips to the moon. One or the other.
Another thing to point out here is that business traditionally is boring. How many people here get excited about a reformulation of a deodorant that they never use? How sexy is the fee structure at a bank? The vast majority of business doesn’t do big picture. It’s just a little organization (even if it is often part of a much bigger business) doing a little niche. The thing that is common to all these groups is that they make money and collectively, the activity of these groups allows for profound changes in society and great works for mankind.
I don’t see any reason to expect most space oriented businesses to be exciting to the average person. They’re mostly there to make money not to entertain or do adventurous stuff. But every new business or market that starts up in space is another step towards a space faring race. They also will have wants and needs that will encourage further space-oriented business. We need these businesses in order to have this future.
Even saying that, I think space tourism will become a pretty big and exciting step for mankind. Among other things, it means that you no longer have to depend on a generous government to put you in space. That’s a huge difference over the past.
Let us not forget that most people were bored with Apollo by Apollo 13. Without a steady diet of new vicarious thrills, the American people just turn to something else.
Are there even any private entities that would know how to train their employees to be astronauts, how to live and work in outer space?
Yes.
Why do you imagine that this kind of knowledge and capability only resides at NASA? NASA does have many unique capabilities (e.g., the VAB) but few if any of them are necessary to open up space. Most of the knowledge, and much of the facilities, reside in private industry.
@larry — So you think that in five years from now there will be private-sector customers for LEO and/or BEO human flight? Why?
I didn’t say anything about BEO. As for LEO, Bigelow is working to market his privately owned space station concepts not only to tourists but to corporations and/or governments who want a space capability for far less cost than the ISS. Bigelow is no fool, so he may be able to do it. Tourism is happening now and as the capabilities expand, so can the market. The fact of the matter is that it wouldn’t take very much to exceed NASA’s needs for human transport to the ISS. How many flights do they need each year, 2-4? Bigelow alone is working to exceed that. He’s working with Boeing to build a human-carrying capsule and is also interested in what SpaceX is doing.
As for BEO, NASA should write the requirements and turn over the development to private industry like they did for all of their other programs.
@Edward Wright — Get over yerself, you know what I mean. I’m sure its a barrel of monkeys for the astronauts, but LEO doesn’t inspire or capture the imagination of the public the way lunar bases or a mission to Mars, etc. would. And I hope you know enough history to realize that the earliest colonists were sent here by companies to harvest the resources of the New World. Why would space be any different?
@ken — Close. It’s not just about good TV, though, it’s about doing things that capture the imagination of the public and inspire us, give us a sense of identity as a nation. Make us proud to be Americans. That sort of thing. NASA hasn’t done that in decades, and it shows in their congressional support and public indifference towards their mission.
@Roga — Don’t patronize. I disagree re “chasing a high”, this isn’t about adrenaline as much as its about patriotism and pride. From my “sad” perspective, from 1958 until the late 1970s, we were making steady progress from the metaphorical Model T to the advent of what amounts to a Corvette. Then in the 80’s we decided to start building school buses. We should be going for the land speed record instead. I do think that VSE represented a bolder vision to get up and get moving again.
@Rand — Sincere thanks for something concrete. As to “why would [I] imagine, well, gee — maybe bacause nobody else is doing it?
@larry — You’re getting to the heart of my point. It’s not vicarious thrills that I’m after with my original question, its the potential for future private development of space. Someone somewhere’s got to decide to go BEO or we’re gonna be stuck here forever.
Pontificate on my perspective all you want, fellas, but I’m still looking for an answer to my original question, which was: Can you give me the names of two or three companies that have proposed private BEO human-crewed ventures once launch services get cheaper? How do we know concretely that such demand exists?
As to “why would [I] imagine, well, gee — maybe bacause nobody else is doing it?
But other people are “doing it.” I just gave you an example. You just haven’t been paying attention.
Can you give me the names of two or three companies that have proposed private BEO human-crewed ventures once launch services get cheaper? How do we know concretely that such demand exists?
Bigelow Aerospace and Space Adventures both plan circumlunar expeditions, and have expressions of interest from customers.
txhsdad,
I founded Space Shot, Inc. and was able to get orbital deals with Rocketplane Kistler and the Russians through Constellation Services. It’s just a matter of money in my opinion that will guarantee that the Russians can restart their 1960s space program and send the Soyuz around the Moon. Since there haven’t been any billionaires who paid to see that happen, we’ll have to wait for a better business model–or for new billionaires.
To me it’s not about cojones, it’s about accountability–and will. We’ve got the cash to do new things, just not necessarily the political will or Puritan frugality. We don’t even need new technology to do new things, but new technology provides political cover for new higher expectations of value for the money.
Go back and read Heinlein. Space can be seized by the bold for an astonishingly small fraction of global GDP. What space needs is Madison Avenue. If funding space settlement became as chic as settlement was amongst the rich and royals of the 15th through 17th century, we might see things happen in a big as opposed to counter culture sort of way. We’re moving there. It’s not “alt Space” any more, it’s “new Space” and soon, it may just be “Space”.
@Rand — I have been “paying attention”, TYVM. My point was who else besides NASA/Russia (and once or twice China) is putting trained astronauts into space right now? Isn’t it natural to assume that therein must reside the necessary expertise, then? I am glad to hear that the training is available, though, and about Bigelow and Space Adventures, that’s the sort of thing I’ve been asking about. All I had heard previously was suborbital and LEO. Good luck to them both.
@Sam — Thank you, and best of luck with your enterprise as well.
I agree with Sam on the Madison Ave aspect; along those lines, apparently news coverage and PR for the industry is lacking as well; I haven’t exactly been living under a rock, y’know, and I had to ask four or five times to finally get an answer about the real demand for private HSF. I’ll say this — If the industry and its advocates want to spark the public’s interest and increase demand from among the general populace, maybe it would help if some of these conversations about the possibilities were a little, er… friendlier… towards the uninitiated. You know — don’t shoot the new converts for asking questions, that sort of thing. JMHO.
Oh, and btw, Sam — As you know, in those earlier centuries people weren’t as free and most of the people actually climbing on those boats and populating those colonies didn’t have a lot of alternatives. Today they do, so to make settlement attractive to investors you’ll first have to make it attractive to guys like me and my friends. Most of us will only ever look at space as a momentary destination for a thrill ride unless/until we can live there just as comfortably as we can down here. Our jobs and families are all terrestrial — it will take more than transportation, it will require communications infrastructure and massive logistics and the like to make space life workable as an alternative to terrestrial life. Do that, and settlement will be the natural result.
@txhsdad
You say things like: “I’m sure its a barrel of monkeys for the astronauts, but LEO doesn’t inspire or capture the imagination of the public the way lunar bases or a mission to Mars, etc. would.”
and
“it’s about doing things that capture the imagination of the public and inspire us, give us a sense of identity as a nation. Make us proud to be Americans. That sort of thing.”
What these statements are talking about is simple nationalist propaganda for the US. Now that is a good thing, in moderation, but it is not what a ‘Spacefaring Society’ is about. If you believe that the proper purpose of NASA was defined between 1961 and 1969, as a propaganda machine, then sya so. Many here will disagree with you. Most here believe that the use of NASA for a propaganda victory against “the socialist camp” was a necessary, laudable, but temporary change from what NASA should be doing.
IMHO, we must get away from ‘national enthusiasm’ as a reason for spaceflight if we are ever to gain the rest of the Solar System. The US Congress will not, and should not, pay for that, ever. Thus, having the US population be enthusiastic about it is at best a marginally good thing to have, but not at all comparable to other absolute necessities.
What is necessary to the human occupation of the Solar System is that resource allocations about spaceflight be made on the basis of which investments will gain the most return on investment, that can then be available to the general investment pool, of which some can be competed for by the next projects of spaceflight entrepreneurs. This is *not* the realm of enthusiasm!
This is the realm of investment bankers. Their stockholders do *not* want to be on the edge of their seats about whether the mission they funded will be a success or a failure. *They* want spaceflight to be boringly profitable!
Until spaceflight becomes boringly adult in its profitability, its dependence on the Senator Shelby types of politician will remain the single greatest chokehold on our progress in this field.
So forget enthusiasm! Look not to the singularly large projects, but to the day by day businesses that make up a real spaceflight industry. There are private companies who have opened training centers for space voyagers(where some NASA astronauts are attending, BTW), and companies who are producing spacesuits for many different uses in Space.
These are companies starting to provide the nuts and bolts of spaceflight, and have every chance to be profitable, because multiple small markets are opening up, from suborbital tourism, to suborbital research, to orbital nanosats, to Bigelow’s leased inflatables for other nations, and other businesses who want their own dedicated facilities, where they don’t have to wait 3 years to get on a flight manifest. There are even people planning to lift propellant to NASA orbiting Depots. These enterprises that have a good chance at profit are the proper present focus for Space Industry.
There exists no “killer app”, and that is good! That way if one market fails, it does not take down the entire industry with it. It seems to be this very small and profitable sort of enterprise that you are determined to overlook, in your search for some “great national goal”. Forget those. What we need to get private investment into Space is markets and technology to serve them. NASA can participate in the second. The first requirement will only be filled reliably by numerous markets.
To me it’s not about cojones, it’s about accountability–and will. We’ve got the cash to do new things, just not necessarily the political will or Puritan frugality. We don’t even need new technology to do new things, but new technology provides political cover for new higher expectations of value for the money.
If you’re talking about the federal government, then I have to disagree. We don’t have the cash. We’re running massive deficits year after year and the only way to make up for these shortfalls is to borrow more or to crank up the money supply. If these trends continue, then by 2020 (if not sooner), the amount of money required to service the entitlement programs, national health care and the debt will leave precious little for everything else. NASA will be a luxury that we as a nation can no longer afford.
I’m sure its a barrel of monkeys for the astronauts, but LEO doesn’t inspire or capture the imagination of the public the way lunar bases or a mission to Mars, etc. would.
You mean it doesn’t inspire YOU or capture YOUR imagination — once again, you do not speak for the entire human race.
When Mike Melvill flew SpaceShip One, it made the front page of every newspaper in the world. That wasn’t because it didn’t inspire anyone or capture anyone’s imagination.
Maybe it didn’t inspire you. It obviously didn’t inspire the Aldridge Commission (which didn’t even notice that it happened). So what? A large number of people obviously disagree with you. Should everyone give up their aspirations just because you’ve decided LEO is “boring as hell”?
And I hope you know enough history to realize that the earliest colonists were sent here by companies to harvest the resources of the New World. Why would space be any different?
I know enough history to know what you don’t know. The earliest colonists were not “sent by companies.” They were criminals who got run out Iceland because they kept killing their neighbors. Space will be different because it doesn’t have a lot of grazing land for cattle, as Greenland did.
What is your point? Have you fallen for Zubrin’s foolish claim that there are no resources in orbit? Raw materials are not the only resource. Energy, location, vacuum, weightlessness, etc. are also resources — and they are being harvested right now.
From my “sad” perspective, from 1958 until the late 1970s, we were making steady progress from the metaphorical Model T to the advent of what amounts to a Corvette. Then in the 80’s we decided to start building school buses. We should be going for the land speed record instead.
If the only thing that matters is to go really, really fast and don’t care how many people get to go, then all you need to do is send a radio signal into space. That will travel at the speed of light, which is the universal speed limit. And Marconi did it long ago.
I do think that VSE represented a bolder vision to get up and get moving again.
What is “bold” about NASA going back to the Moon in a space capsule, 50 years after it went to the Moon in a space capsule? What is “bold” about being afraid to try anything new, turning your back on innovation, and continuing to go around in circles for another 50 years?
When SpaceShip One flew, Sean O’Keefe said that NASA would never be permitted to take the same type of risk that Burt Rutan and Mike Melvill took. Is that “bold”?
@larry — You’re getting to the heart of my point. It’s not vicarious thrills that I’m after with my original question, its the potential for future private development of space. Someone somewhere’s got to decide to go BEO or we’re gonna be stuck here forever.
Someone somewhere’s got to decide to get *into* orbit first, or we’re all going to be stuck here forever. And that means getting into orbit *affordably*, not spending $100 billion so a tiny handful can go. You may not find that as exciting as colonizing the Moon or Mars or the Andromeda Galaxy, but we can’t skip that step just because it doesn’t excite you. Flying over the sand dunes at Kitty Hawk wasn’t as exciting as flying across the Pacific nonstop, either, but it was necessary.
Pontificate on my perspective all you want, fellas, but I’m still looking for an answer to my original question, which was: Can you give me the names of two or three companies that have proposed private BEO human-crewed ventures once launch services get cheaper? How do we know concretely that such demand exists?
By talking to people. You measure demand by talking to customers, not counting the number of competitors. Steve Jobs didn’t say, “No company is building personal computers, so obviously no one wants to buy them.” Orville and Wilbur didn’t say, “No one is building airplanes, so no one will ever want to fly in one.” Walt Disney didn’t say, “No studio is producing full-length animated features, so no one will ever want to watch one.”
One thing I feel very safe in saying is that the “killer app” for any given level of reduced cost of space access is almost certainly not going to be obvious in advance of the availability of said access.
I was a computer science undergrad in the late 60’s & early 70’s. The first digital watches and pocket calculators hit the market during this time. These developments seemed to surprise a lot of my professors. And even with these broad hints available in stores, not a one of them saw personal computers coming. The professionals in computing, as it existed at that time, simply couldn’t get their minds around the idea.
Even after personal computers became buyable realities, there were still a lot of people who wondered what the average schmuck would ever want one for. Not a few of these people were even in the PC industry. One of the earliest killer apps for PC’s turned out to be spreadsheets. Nobody saw VisiCalc coming except the guy who wrote it. It came totally out of left field.
When home VCR’s debuted around the same time, the appearance and explosive growth of the video rental business was a similar surprise.
Ditto, the Internet. HTML and the WorldWide Web were not what the sober pundits were expecting.
Then search engines showed up.
Two or three years after that, blogs came out of nowhere.
A few more years later, with the Internet now supposedly maturing, social networking apps and things like 2nd Life popped out of nowhere.
As someone who has lived through the advent of a number of disruptive technological innovations – and the sometimes even more disruptive, and nearly always unanticipated, killer apps that grew out of them – I have learned two things:
(1) I have no idea what the first killer app enabled by low-enough-cost space access – LEO or BEO – will be, let alone the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. I freely declare here, for all to see, that I acknowledge my own lack of sufficient personal brilliance to predict the detailed future in this respect.
(2) I know that almost as soon as said access is a live reality, that first killer app will be trotted out and take off like a prairie fire. I’m sure what it is will come as as much of a surprise to me as it will to everyone else with an interest in space, including “stars” of the present day like Rutan, Musk and Bigelow. Looking at the progenitors of past killer apps, it is quite likely that its creator is not, even now, much involved in, or perhaps even interested in, space-related matters, especially business. Two or three or five years from now, though, that person may well be as familiar a name as Tim Berners-Lee, Pierre Omidyar or Sergei Brin.
txhsdad, you seem to be my approximate contemporary. You’ve lived through these same developments. Why do you not see what I see?
@larry j
Well of course we don’t have the budget to do new things at NASA if we do all the old things at NASA (and everything else you’re talking about).
Sam,
[[[If funding space settlement became as chic as settlement was amongst the rich and royals of the 15th through 17th century, we might see things happen in a big as opposed to counter culture sort of way.]]]
What was chic was the promise of making money after seeing all the gold and silver Spain was hauling out of the New World. Profits and/or nationalism (i.e greed and power) will drive space settlement just as it did the settlement of the New World.
But so far the only major revenue stream for New Space seems to the same revenue source as old space, government contracts…
Tom
What was chic was the promise of making money after seeing all the gold and silver Spain was hauling out of the New World. Profits and/or nationalism (i.e greed and power) will drive space settlement just as it did the settlement of the New World.
I agree with the above statement.
But so far the only major revenue stream for New Space seems to the same revenue source as old space, government contracts…
What sort of governrment contract? Cost plus has a very different nature than fixed price. If you’re being paid to provide a service in or to space, then that’s different from being compensated to do R&D theater. For the former sort of contract, government is just another customer for your business and you can provide those services to anyone else with the money. The latter need never lead to any sort of progress.
Space tourism and satellite constellations are also obvious counters to the above claim. They are actual business done now. I gather they’re not in the volume you’d like, but I have yet to see why we shouldn’t wait a few years before making claims about these revenue streams.