I’ve been reluctant to weigh in on the latest back and forth between Paul Spudis and Clark Lindsey.
I have a couple quick points. First, in his lead sentence:
The space community has fractured since the disastrous roll out of NASA’s “new direction.”
The community has been fractured since 2005, when Mike Griffin and Scott Horowitz ignored all of the recommendations of the CE&I contractors, and foisted the Scotty rocket on it. It’s not something that happened in February. What happened in February was that people who wanted a more sane approach became ascendant, and there has been understandable resistance to it from those whose rice bowls are being broken.
Second, I was slightly astonished to read this in one of his follow-up comments:
As for propellant depots, I think that they make sense if we can supply them with propellant made from space resources, in this case, propellant derived from lunar water. If we end up launching all the propellant from Earth, then nothing is fundamentally changed, except to eliminate the need for a heavy lift launch vehicle.
Oh, really? Is that all it does? It merely eliminates the waste of tens of billions of dollars on an unnecessary vehicle that could instead be invested in a few dozen lander programs from the likes of Masten and Armadillo? Yeah, I guess that’s no big deal.
Look, I feel Paul’s pain, and as I’ve said, my biggest disagreement with the new policy direction is that it is so dismissive of the moon as a goal. But as I’ve also said, specific destinations, other than BEO, are irrelevant right now, and as the Augustine panel pointed out, descending into gravity wells wasn’t affordable any time soon with any of the plans on the table. Paul is concerned about the lack of an explicit goal (indeed, a seeming contempt of such a goal on the part of both the president and the administrator) of establishing any sort of lunar surface capability, but the reality is that it was never a realistic or affordable goal with the trajectory the agency was on. This president (at least given the trajectory he’s on) will no longer be president three years from now, and we’ll almost certainly have a new NASA administrator as well. There was no plan for serious money being put into a lander prior to 2013, so realistically, I don’t understand what Paul thinks that he has lost, at least in any irretrievable way. From the standpoint of getting back to the moon, we won’t even have slipped the schedule. And that point remains even if the nation is unfortunate enough to have to put up with this administration until 2017. He has plenty of time to persuade people in a new administration that the moon remains a worthy goal, and to identify more practical ways to make it happen. And at least with the new direction, we’ll be a lot closer to doing it affordably, having stopped wasting so many billions on vehicles that weren’t going to get us there, and started spending money on a more robust ETO infrastructure that will get us much closer to everywhere.
Has any comsat customer expressed interst in contracting for this service?
Not to my knowledge, but from the point of view of the customer it would mean a cheaper way to get its comsat to GEO. OTVs have long been discussed, but so far they have not been economical.
Is there any evidence it would be cheaper?
Depends on the launch costs per kg of the RLV, the propellant requirements of the OTV and the required investment to develop both the RLV and the OTV. Get all of these down by enough and the answer will be yes. Unfortunately, lowering one variable may increase the others.
Next you need to read some academic level books on macroeconomic theory that use it to understand the arguments for and against each of those issues.
Having done that, I came away thoroughly unimpressed with academic economics. Every political faction has its paid shills masquerading as men and women of science. The scientific credentials of von Neumann and the scientific content of game theory make me think econometrics may be different, but I haven’t studied it in any detail.
Martijn Meijering,
I am not surprised. Its easier to continue to accept “faith based” economic theories then to try to understand how the economy actually works.
You need to wonder where we would be today if Dr. Greenspan wasn’t influenced by Ayn Rand and had stopped both the dot.com and mortgage bubbles earlier with more oversight of the markets instead of letting them run wild.
Let me give you an example. One of my economics textbooks tries to explain the curious phenomenon of inflation. It lists a whole list of possible causes, including things like rising input prices. The trouble with these explanations is that they are symmetrical, i.e. they would also apply to deflation. Why then do we typically see inflation, what causes the asymmetry?
The economists trip over themselves to find explanations and to avoid stating the bleepingly obvious: inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Keynesians invoke mysterious animal spirits to justify what is essentially theft. Monetarists have invented a whole range of crazy transactions (repos etc) to hide the fact that the government finances its deficits by printing money. This way much of the gains due to economic growth can be confiscated without the citizenry being aware of it.
Greenspan caused the bubbles by following policies that were at odds with what Ayn Rand would have wanted. Not that her opinion should be decisive, but you misrepresented it.
As Milton Friedman pointed out inflation is caused by an excessive supply of money. You tighten the money supply and you reduce inflation. His book, Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960, provided the evidence to support it based on the foundation of Keynes monetary theories.
Ayn Rand view was that markets should be allowed to correct themselves, which always leads to increasing boom and bust cycles. To prevent crashes you need to keep the booms in check. The Fed under Greenspan failed to do so.
Also the asymmetry is caused by a bias towards making too much money available by keep interest rates lower then they should be.
BTW – what is the title of your textbook?
Thomas, since I don’t want to continue OT I’ve blogged a response (Economic Literacy.)
Ken’s right, we’re getting off topic and this thread is nearing the end of its life too. But the topic comes up frequently on this blog, so let’s continue the conversation in the next libertarian leaning thread.
P.S. My textbooks are at the office, so I can’t give you a title right now.
1. > Thomas Matula Says: June 28th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
>> Kelly,
>> Has any comsat customer expressed interst in contracting
>> for this service? Is there any evidence it would be cheaper?
> The short answer is no. ==
So much for the vaunted economic opportunity for commercial orbital refueling.
🙁
I thought I heard someone was trying to start up a refueling tug service that would fly up to a sat and punch into its tanks – refuel and reseal them, and fly off?
I thought that sounded kind of crazy frankly. “Yes Mr CEO, first we harpoon you’re multibillion dollar satellite….”
>== By the time the fuel runs out the technology used on
> the satellite is far enough out of date to make replacement
> more practical and economical. That is why Dennis
> Wingo’s Orbital Recovery system made more sense.
> It just stabilized the satellite if needed for an extra
> year or two, or help moved it into a disposal orbit if needed.
That sounds more viable as a market – hell maybe sell you’re obsolete sat to the third world and move it there, or at least eliminate it as a future source of space junk!
1. > Martijn Meijering Says: June 28th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
>> By the time the fuel runs out the technology used
>> on the satellite is far enough out of date to make
>> replacement more practical and economical.
> As I explained earlier this is about orbit raising for a satellite,
> not for refueling it. It’s the orbital transfer vehicle that would
> be refueled, not the satellite, though not fueling the satellite
> until it arrives in LEO would have additional benefits.
Are you just talking about LEO to GEO (or other HEO) transfers? Or from GEO to a higher disposal orbit?
A couple problems I could see is with so little launch market, the parked tug wouldn’t get enough business to justify it and its repair? [On concept for the US station was it would be a “home port for such tugs, and shuttles could bring them down when they needed servicing – which seems necessary for a tug to work?] Also, its more complex to have the LV have to deliver the sat to dock with a LEO parked Tug, hope the tugs still working and interfaces properly, then getting it properly to its final orbit. Added risk doesn’t thrill folks when they are setting up multi billion dollar projects.
[whimps] 😉
> == The idea is that once you have a small RLV, one that
> is far too small to launch a fully fueled comsat to LEO let
> alone GTO or GEO, you could launch the propellant and
> comsat separately. If the comsat doesn’t support refueling
> it would likely still have to be launched on an expendable
> launcher, although this could now be a smaller one. The
> propellant for injection into GTO would be launched
> separately and much more cheaply. The difference in
> effective launch price could be split among the client and the RLV provider.
Course a couple questions are :
– Why not just field a bigger RLV then a smaller RLV and fuel farm?
– How and why would the propellant be launched more cheaply?
The idea of a post launch check out and fueling of a big sat in LEO has appeal – though its not gained any market interest to my knowledge? Also transferring fuel and LOx up in a dedicated tanker, rather then have the sats tanks be rated for safe launch stresses, could be a plus as well. But again with few and declining demand to launch any sats, its hard to justify the expense commercially of the extra infastructure.
> OTVs have long been considered, but existing
> launchers are big enough to make the extra complications
> not worth it. An RLV with an order of magnitude lower
> launch prices could change that. ==
But bigger craft are more efficient then smaller ones, and the development costs don’t increase proportional to the size. I.E. a RLV (or aircraft) with 100 tomes the capacity, would generally only cost 10 times as much to develop. Given development costs dominate launch costs, and fuel and energy costs are negligible (To quote Elon Musk “the Delta-V is free.”), yuo want more launches per ship type, and/or lower dev costs.
I once drove Ed Wright nuts by pointing out fieldnig a 25 ton (shuttle size) RLV first was more economical, since it could launch about anything currently launched, rather then a small RLV that could only launch a small fraction of current lifts. I.E. more flights per give dev cost, leading to lower costs per flight even if 1/5th of the time your using a 25 ton “big rig” to carry a 1 ton sat.
🙂
1. > Martijn Meijering Says: June 28th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
>>Has any comsat customer expressed interest
>> in contracting for this service?
>>Is there any evidence it would be cheaper?
> Depends on the launch costs per kg of the RLV,
> the propellant requirements of the OTV and the
> required investment to develop both the RLV
> and the OTV. Get all of these down by enough
> and the answer will be yes. Unfortunately, lowering
> one variable may increase the others.
I’ld think the development and operating costs of the OTV could boost total prices to the sats final operating orbit up rather then down? Especially unless theres a lot of demand for such sat transfers.
Actually.. It would be cheaper to refuel the RLV in LEO, and have it carry the sat to its final orbit. The RLV would presumably have the Delta-V capacity with refueling, and doing it that way would avoid the need to develop a second OTV craft. That way the company crew can certify and do final assembly on the sat in its final orbit. If there is a fault with the sat it could be return to the factory in the RLV, allowing sats to be cheaper needing no OTV abilities, or needing to be as rugged and complex as far as self deploy abilities. The RLV would get its servicing after each flight anyway, so no increased costs there. Other Tank RLVs could shuttle up the fuel – more flights for the RLV fleet lowers cost per flight.
1. > Thomas Matula Says: June 28th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
> As Milton Friedman pointed out inflation is caused
> by an excessive supply of money. You tighten the
> money supply and you reduce inflation. ==
>
> Ayn Rand view was that markets should be allowed
> to correct themselves, which always leads to increasing
> boom and bust cycles. ==
Monetary supply is controlled by the feds, markets by commercial actors. So the two activities are pretty autonomous unless you really choke the monetary supply enough to strangle the economy?
Are you just talking about LEO to GEO (or other HEO) transfers? Or from GEO to a higher disposal orbit?
I was talking about the former, though the latter could be somewhat useful too. Transport of comsats to GTO/GEO is a known and sizeable market however.
A couple problems I could see is with so little launch market, the parked tug wouldn’t get enough business to justify it and its repair?
Without the tug, the small RLV would not be economically viable. The tug will only be viable if the RLV can get launch costs down by enough. But one or two orders of magnitude are believed to be possible.
Added risk doesn’t thrill folks when they are setting up multi billion dollar projects.
That’s true and you’d have to offer a discount to counter that, which would make it more difficult to close the business case. On the other hand, the RLV would quickly build up a record so that its true reliability would be known very accurately, very soon. And if the reliability isn’t very high, the whole concept won’t be economical anyway as Rand has pointed out in the past.
– Why not just field a bigger RLV then a smaller RLV and fuel farm?
Development costs would be much lower and the lack of funding is what has stopped this from happening so far.
I.E. a RLV (or aircraft) with 100 tomes the capacity, would generally only cost 10 times as much to develop.
As long as the technology and the economics (both actual costs and sales prices) are unproven, minimising initial capital outlay and retiring risk are crucial. A factor ten cheaper is enormous. This is why SpaceX started with Falcon 1, not Falcon 9 and why New Space companies are starting with suborbital and sometimes unmanned launchers before going on to orbital and manned launchers.
– How and why would the propellant be launched more cheaply?
Because I was thinking of very small RLVs. The satellite might not fit on the RLV whereas the propellant, which is easily divisible, would. But if you offload the satellite’s propellant it too might fit on the RLV. And even if not, the offloaded propellant would still mean more business for the RLV.
But again with few and declining demand to launch any sats, its hard to justify the expense commercially of the extra infastructure.
That may be true, but the smaller the RLV the easier it will be to close the business case. And if NASA does exploration with propellant transfer it could easily provide the necessary demand.
It would be cheaper to refuel the RLV in LEO, and have it carry the sat to its final orbit.
Yes, combining the RLV and the OTV (or just having them as two versions of the same basic design) is a promising way to approach this. Basing the OTV on an existing satellite bus would be another way. This would be especially interesting if you used storable propellant (much easier and desirable for the comsat itself anyway, but with lower profit margins) and/or SEP, say with self-annealing solar panels. The depot itself could also be combined with either the OTV or the RLV or both, again either as the actual vehicle, or by basing them on a shared basic design.
There are quite a few unconventional tricks you could use to make the OTV work effectively, there’s no need to restrict ourselves to a “black aluminium” LOX/LH2 approach especially since that relies on unproven and undeveloped technology and would likely be marginal initially because of the one month storage limit. It would still be very desirable to retire that risk and offer another propulsion option.
That way the company crew can certify and do final assembly on the sat in its final orbit.
People were speculating about these payload effects to justify the Shuttle. Once we have fully reusable manned RLVs, we can start thinking about that. I don’t think it can help justify a first generation true RLV.
1. > Martijn Meijering Says: June 29th, 2010 at 6:09 am
>== Transport of comsats to GTO/GEO is a known and sizeable market however.
Sizable?
>> A couple problems I could see is with so little launch
>> market, the parked tug wouldn’t get enough business to justify it and its repair?
> Without the tug, the small RLV would not be economically
> viable. The tug will only be viable if the RLV can get launch
> costs down by enough. But one or two orders of magnitude are believed to be possible.
Yeah I knew some folks on the DC-X program. IF you could get a high enough flight rate, cost per pound could go to the low hundreds of $ a pound for a first gen craft. Tens of $ a pound for a highly used second gen craft.
Hell shuttles margin cost was about a $1,000 a pound, and it was optimized for HIGH cost to satisfy Congress..
>> Added risk doesn’t thrill folks when they are setting
>> up multi billion dollar projects.
> That’s true and you’d have to offer a discount to counter
>that, which would make it more difficult to close the
>business case. On the other hand, the RLV would quickly
> build up a record so that its true reliability would be known
> very accurately, very soon. And if the reliability isn’t very
> high, the whole concept won’t be economical anyway as
> Rand has pointed out in the past.
>> – Why not just field a bigger RLV then a smaller RLV and fuel farm?
> Development costs would be much lower and the lack
> of funding is what has stopped this from happening so far.
Actually its lack of market. RLVs haven’t proven more expensive as thought. L/M and McDac offered to develop shuttle class RLVs if a buyer would stand up – none did.
>== This is why SpaceX started with Falcon 1, not Falcon 9 ==
Actually no. Musk saw Falcon 1 as a viable market niche adn a test bed for F-9. He was surprized to find much less interest ni F-1 adn much more for F-9 …though demand for both is much below his initial projections.
🙁
Maned vrs unmanned is a different issues. Currently manned is not in demand, and folks are much pickier about who they will trust with that. Its also pretty price insensitive at these prices.
>== and why New Space companies are starting with suborbital =
Hey its a lot easier to do a suborbital. A suborbital hoping up to space and nearly straight down is to a orbiter, is what a ultralight is to a trans pacific range aircraft.
>> – How ..
> But ..
agree
>> It would be cheaper to refuel the RLV in LEO, and
>> have it carry the sat to its final orbit.
> Yes, combining the RLV and the OTV (or just having
> them as two versions of the same basic design) is a promising
> way to approach this. ==
Yeah it would minimize capital costs, and simplify the design – and the sat itself could be simpler and cheaper.
> == The depot itself could also be combined with either
> the OTV or the RLV or both, again either as the actual
> vehicle, or by basing them on a shared basic design.
There’s a huge dif in the weight of the fuel to do LEO to GEO, to the cargo weight. So you’d either need to park the RLV in orbit and have several tanker RLVs come fuel it, or have the tankers refuel a LEO parked fuel farm in orbit. The fuel farm even with Cryo (unless its liquid hydrogen – but kerosene works much better anyway) would be pretty easy, cheap and not to bulky. Much simpler then a OTV. A little solar power to run the fuel farm and cryocooler…
===
>> That way the company crew can certify and do final
>>assembly on the sat in its final orbit.
> People were speculating about these payload effects to
> justify the Shuttle. Once we have fully reusable manned
> RLVs, we can start thinking about that. I don’t think it
> can help justify a first generation true RLV.
With shuttle there wasn’t the access to the launcher, or low cost launch – and NASA could be capricious in honoring contracts. Though the technology of on orbit repairs was demonstrated conclusively. [Hope that isn’t lost in the layoffs.]
Martijn Meijering, Ken,
I didn’t see any links to your blog.
Tom
Sizable?
Sorry, I meant the propellant needed to transport a handful of satellites from LEO to GTO/GEO and returning the OTV afterwards would be a sizeable market for a 2mT RLV. There wouldn’t be a market for an RLV capable of launching satellites straight to GTO/GEO and then getting itself back to the ground.
IF you could get a high enough flight rate, cost per pound could go to the low hundreds of $ a pound for a first gen craft.
That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to start with a very small RLV.
L/M and McDac offered to develop shuttle class RLVs if a buyer would stand up – none did.
Under the model I’m describing no one would buy the RLV, the company that developed it would own it and sell launch services instead, just like ULA/Orbital/SpaceX do. The flight rates aren’t there to support a 20mT RLV. Once the technical and economic aspect have proven themselves, then LEO tourism will take off in a big way and then it might be possible to finance even large RLV. But cheap small lift (good enough for people and consequently also for propellant) is all we need.
Actually no. Musk saw Falcon 1 as a viable market niche adn a test bed for F-9.
How’s that different from what I’m saying? Violent agreement?
Much simpler then a OTV.
Not if you already own a satellite bus as Orbital does and if you wanted to use SEP (like Orbital’s Dawn spacecraft). And Orbital is already in the launch vehicle business. A vertically integrated company wouldn’t have to sell its customers on the transport, it could sell satellites in GEO or even just satellite services, bearing all the risks itself.
Kelly Starks,
I believe you are thinking of Dennis Wingo’s firm, Orbital Recovery. I heard they had a few nibbles but Dennis would be to one to discuss it.
Tom
I didn’t see any links to your blog.
You can click on Ken’s name above the post. I don’t have a blog. 🙂
Tom, just click on my name.
1. > Martijn Meijering Says: June 29th, 2010 at 8:14 am
>> Sizable?
> Sorry, I meant the propellant needed to transport a handful
> of satellites from LEO to GTO/GEO and returning the OTV
> afterwards would be a sizeable market for a 2mT RLV. ==
Yeah, if you used the RLV as the OTV – a couple dozen flights worth of fuel and stuff for each sat flight to orbit. With virtually all costs of the RLV fleet being fixed costs – you total cost for the launch to orbit is yearly fixed costs + upfrount dev costs/num flights. (Dev costs likely a billion+ for 2.5 ton cap rlv, versus $5b+ for a 25 ton cap rlv)
You’ld certainly prove the RLVs reliability pretty quickly.
> == There wouldn’t be a market for an RLV capable of
> launching satellites straight to GTO/GEO and then getting itself back to the ground.
Samer issue for a OTV adn a RlV doing OTV.
>> IF you could get a high enough flight rate, cost
>> per pound could go to the low hundreds of $ a pound for a first gen craft.
> That’s one of the reasons it’s so important
> to start with a very small RLV.
Nt so much that, as you need a significant market for it. So a small launcher (say 2 ton cargo cap) might, like Falco-1) not find much market.
>> L/M and McDac offered to develop shuttle class
>> RLVs if a buyer would stand up – none did.
> Under the model I’m describing no one would buy
> the RLV, the company that developed it would own
> it and sell launch services instead, ===
They offered that to – still no takers.
>== The flight rates aren’t there to support a 20mT RLV. ==
Actually there is more demand for larger cargo launch then smaller.
>== Once the technical and economic aspect
> have proven themselves, then LEO tourism will take
> off in a big way==
Possibly.
>> Actually no. Musk saw Falcon 1 as a viable market
>> niche adn a test bed for F-9.
> How’s that different from what I’m saying? Violent agreement?
😉
Must didn’t do F-1 for cost savings reasons. Also he found F-1’s market much more limited then expected.
>> Much simpler then a OTV.
> Not if you already own a satellite bus as Orbital does
> and if you wanted to use SEP (like Orbital’s Dawn spacecraft). ==
A bus is a big step short of a Reusable OTV.
> I believe you are thinking of Dennis Wingo’s firm,
> Orbital Recovery. I heard they had a few nibbles
> but Dennis would be to one to discuss it.
Could be, thanks.
Samer issue for a OTV adn a RlV doing OTV.
True and the same goes for a dedicated depot. All that requires additional investment which makes the business case harder to close, which is why combining multiple functions in one spacecraft and reusing existing systems would be a good idea. I do believe that an OTV would be cheaper to develop than an RLV (and it would also allow substantial reuse of existing systems), so it wouldn’t suffer as much from a low mission rate, especially for a company like Orbital which has to bear the fixed costs of its satellite bus infrastructure anyway.
Nt so much that, as you need a significant market for it. So a small launcher (say 2 ton cargo cap) might, like Falco-1) not find much market.
Not for payloads, but for internal use for orbit raising.
A bus is a big step short of a Reusable OTV.
In what way? Bear in mind that Orbital has or is developing most of the components and technologies for it (automated rendez-vous for Cygnus for instance) and would have the ability to adapt its own satellites to an orbit raising architecture. It would also have an incentive to do so, because it could then launch its own GEO satellites to GEO on Taurus II instead of relying on Ariane or EELVs. Their own variable costs must be substantially below the price they would have to pay another launch vehicle company. Having a higher flight rate for their own launchers (especially with cheap payloads like propellant) would be good for them.
That’s just the orbit raising part, not the RLV part, for which Orbital might be less suited. But they could enter into a strategic partnership with or make a strategic investment in one or more promising New Space companies if they wanted to. They would then have an architecture that was capable of matching current EELV and Ariane capabilities to GEO and capable of taking immediate advantage of RLVs the moment they arrive.
1. > Martijn Meijering Says: June 29th, 2010 at 10:04 am
>> Samer issue for a OTV and a RlV doing OTV.
>True and the same goes for a dedicated depot. All that
> requires additional investment which makes the business
> case harder to close, which is why combining multiple
> functions in one spacecraft and reusing existing systems
> would be a good idea.==
Agreed
>== I do believe that an OTV would be cheaper to develop than
> an RLV (and it would also allow substantial reuse of existing
> systems), ==
I’m not as confident about that. They are similar performance margin craft etc.
And of course you need the RLV either way, so the OTV is extra cost.
>> Not so much that, as you need a significant market for
>> it. So a small launcher (say 2 ton cargo cap) might,
>> (like Falcon-1) not find much market.
> Not for payloads, but for internal use for orbit raising.
Then its unnessisary extra cost?
>> A bus is a big step short of a Reusable OTV.
>> In what way? ==
The OTV needs performance to get frmo LEO to GEO adn back, be serviced adn refueled in space (how is a good question) for multiple reuse, and be durable for several – dozens of flights. A bus generally is a one shot.
> That’s just the orbit raising part, not the RLV part, for
> which Orbital might be less suited. But they could enter into
> a strategic partnership with or make a strategic investment in
> one or more promising New Space companies if they wanted to. ==
I’d avoid the newspace firms, they lack the expertise. L/M or Boeing would be a good first choice, but scaled would be good to. Since scaled is part of Northrop/Grumman they have all the resources and expertise needed, and they might be able to work a cooperative deal with Virgin.
Also scaled a very efficent little skunk work like group – which could help keep costs down.
fyi for grinns
http://www.scifiairshow.com/guided-tour.html
Ha, great link!
Yeah, some folks had to much time on their very skilled hands.
😉