Space as a way of avoiding a Dark Age. That’s a justification i haven’t heard before, and it’s a damn good one.
Jeff is inspiring, as always. What surprises me is the applause he got. The TED crowd is not very friendly to capitalism…
The earth may not be able to avoid a dark age regardless of what we do in space. We need to commit enough resources so space gets a chance not to included in that dark age.
One square kilometer individual property claims finance the whole thing. Thorium is not just abundant on earth. It’s abundant and easy to find on the moon and mars as well.
We need to get industrial nuclear chemists operating out there ASAP.
There is a very simple way of calculating whether or not space is a good investment. First estimate the scale of investment required to make space happen. Then estimate the integral with regard to time of the size of the human economy with and without space. If the difference between the two integrals is greater than the required investment, then it is worth doing.
For this solar system alone I estimate the space economy would be say a thousand times bigger than the earth economy (based on available resources – conservative) and that it might last ten times longer (0.5b verse 5b years with regard to the useful life of the sun). So pretty much any investment is worth it in the long term.
There is an argument that the dark ages was caused by the ~10% tyth that Christianity leveled upon the western world. That this destroyed economic growth and thereby R&D and technological advancement. With that in mind I suspect the global economy (~80 trillion/year) could sustain investing a few trillion in space per year. Although I suspect a smart investment of as little as a billion would be enough to get the ball rolling. Say 100m each to the first five ~2 person RLVs and a 100m each to the first five groups to support a 100 people in space for a year. With launch costs of $100/lb the latter is probably possible.
I agree with Greason 95%, but in this talk he does ignore that there is a problem with reusable + orbital. Airliners don’t have to deal with the mass ratios or staging that has to be part of the equation dealt with in designing orbital launch systems using chemical rockets.
Thorium is not just abundant on earth. It’s abundant and easy to find on the moon and mars as well.
We need to get industrial nuclear chemists operating out there ASAP.
As a heat source, solar concentrators are much lighter and cheaper than thorium reactors until quite some distance out from the sun. I might advocate using thorium on Mars – Mars not being particularly suitable for life. Even for the moon I would probably favor solar thermal – regolith is a great insulator and it is fairly simple to turn large amounts of it into thermal energy storage, enough to pass the lunar night. This might be combined with regolith roasting and the extraction of volatiles.
Note that developing thorium reactors is a very long and expensive development project and invokes considerable bureaucracy, not something for a space start up to tackle. The primary problem in space is actually heat rejection – that is where innovation is required.
Airliners don’t have to deal with the mass ratios or staging that has to be part of the equation dealt with in designing orbital launch systems using chemical rockets.
Consider the comparison of a trip half way around the world, one by airplane and one by RLV.
Fuel use per kilogram of payload is maybe five times higher for the RLV.
The RLV can make ten flights for every one the airplane makes (45min flight time plus launching, landing and ten minute turnaround), and so need only weigh about a tenth as much. Payload to dry mass ratios are similar for both vehicles and as Jeff noted, the materials used and cost per kilogram of vehicle need not be significantly different.
Point being, while the fuel cost is likely to be greater for the RLV, the amortized cost of the RLV itself can be significantly less than the airplane. Due to the much higher fuel cost, the RLV is likely to cost 2-3 times more per person per flight.
“There is a very simple way of calculating whether or not space is a good investment. First estimate the scale of investment required to make space happen. Then estimate the integral with regard to time of the size of the human economy with and without space. If the difference between the two integrals is greater than the required investment, then it is worth doing. ”
“First estimate the scale of investment required to make space happen.”
Hard to give an answer to that question. How about, how much does it costs to start a market in space. What is cheaper market to start first. And what is total value of that market.
Even these questions are “hard quantify” or “misleading”.
Example. Towns are valuable.
How much does it cost to “start” a town. How much is a town worth?
Pick any number from zero to trillion dollars.
One could argue that starting a town has negative value and/or one could say they have infinite costs- with little in profit.
But I will give it a shot.
The amount money spent on all electrical power on earth is trillions of dollars per year.
If you had a very smart person who had one trillion dollars and that guy had several decade of life remaining, and was very interested and working like a manic, that person might be able to build a business that provided all electrical power needed on earth from power from space. But if instead that guy invested his money in other things, within 2 decades he could more easily make more money from his business [and therefore “do more good”- because making money can seen as measurement of how much good one is doing, as judged by society in general]
Now, let’s look at Branson and SpaceshipTwo. Say within 5 years, he is flying lots of passengers into space. And say within 2 or 3 decades, suborbital travel is cheaper than airline travel.
I don’t think Branson has to put much effort in this suborbital project- but he will probably get a lot credit if it’s successful. A lot of other people may actually do most of the work. The suborbital travel industry in 3 or 4 decades may be a trillion dollar industry.
Which worth more, a trillion dollar space power industry or improved airline industry with the suborbital aspect of that industry being a trillion dollar industry.
“Then estimate the integral with regard to time of the size of the human economy with and without space. If the difference between the two integrals is greater than the required investment, then it is worth doing. ”
How about within 2 or 3 decades, space markets could dwarf the computer age?
So tell me what computer age did with or without- and space could be 10 or 20 times that- in roughly the same time period.
But space will also “cost” about 10 or 20 times more than computer age.
Pete,I’ve been trying to imagine a feasible RLV doing a series of practical orbital trips along the lines you describe. I can’t.
“Pete,I’ve been trying to imagine a feasible RLV doing a series of practical orbital trips along the lines you describe. I can’t.”
How about something crazy.
Take the paper study of the Sea Dragon and modify the Sea dragon into a suborbital vehicle.
Airlines have 20% of costs in fuel. Make is 90% of cost for suborbital.
If you think sea dragon is close to being right- that it can lift 1 million lb to orbit, have your second [or third stage] use most of it propellant for landing. So 1/2 of the million ton payload is rocket fuel which used so reentry is easier.
So you using globs of rocket fuel, but carry 2 or 3 times as many passengers as any airliner. Could also carry larger cargo size, than any airliner.
Go from NYC to India- [non stop:)].
Maybe since Palin interested in better US India relations this could a be part of a cheap stunt, that a president Palin could support:)
The recent discovery that there may be underground chambers from ancient volcanoes on the Moon that would be several kilometers in diameter makes the possibility of lunar settlement even more attractive, and perhaps less expense then thought before.
The best system I know of for a quick turn-around chemical rocket powered launch vehicle that is I think practical is the almost traditional two stage, both winged.
With such a system you’re probably not going to get much better than 1% of the launch mass as payload (the weight of wings and landing gear will make the payload a small fraction than in current launch systems). compare this to around 30% payload for air freighters. So I think you can expect even this fully reusable option to cost 30 times a kg more for freight than airliners.
Andrew, 30 times more per kg than for airliners is still about 1/30th the cost per kg for payload on Falcon Heavy. Achieving that would make the future happen.
Mike, yep, I just thought Pete was being a bit unrealistic suggesting 1/10th of that guesstimate.
Thorium is an ISRU option; it may or may not be part of the mix.
We don’t need any magic breakthroughs. We have all we need. We just need to make the choice.
While thorium will be part of the mix, my understanding is that there’s no shortage of it on Earth, and that that’s actually one of the reasons it’s popular with people promoting thorium as a nuclear fuel.
Pete,I’ve been trying to imagine a feasible RLV doing a series of practical orbital trips along the lines you describe. I can’t.
While I suspect an updated DC-X type vehicle could probably work (as would many others), my current favorite is a capsule plus engines with inflatable external tanks. Initially leave the tanks in space, later retract them into the capsule for reuse. With the tanks being structurally independent and weighing less than 1% of GLOW, I suspect a payload fraction of 2-3% would be possible. I might also consider air launching from an over sized electric quadrotor (very cheap, avoids aero losses, tank insulation, etc.) and perhaps similarly using an integral quadrotor type landing system (similar weight to other landing systems, dependable/controllable, and can recharge batteries on descent).
Hard to give an answer to that question. How about, how much does it costs to start a market in space. What is cheaper market to start first. And what is total value of that market.
Sorry, the point of my argument was that the size and duration of a space economy would be so many orders of magnitude beyond the current global economy that any investment that does not cripple the global economy is worth it. The difference in size between the long term space economy (thousands of Earth equivalent economies) and the current Earth economy is necessarily economic growth and ROI. In contrast, once the Earth nears its economic carrying capacity, economic growth on Earth stops.
“Sorry, the point of my argument was that the size and duration of a space economy would be so many orders of magnitude beyond the current global economy that any investment that does not cripple the global economy is worth it.”
I don’t see how space economy can be an equal order of magnitude than current global economy- within time frame of say a century or two [or 3 or 4].
The US economy has GDP of 14.12 Trillion dollars.
A vast space power infrastructure that could provide most Earth’s electricity would by itself have “GDP” of about trillion dollars.
I can’t see any single space market having anything with a higher “GDP” within a century or so [or perhaps, better to say, that is beyond it being “predictable”]
A lunar economy of say 100 to 200 billion GDP, would be quite significant- and very unlikely within a few decades- or say, before 2040.
And btw I think one would need that level of a lunar economy [+100 billion GDP] before one would even think of providing earth with any significant amount of electrical power.
And a suborbital market shouldn’t be considered a space market- no more than the airline industry is considered a space market.
The scale of investing in space markets would around 10 billion in first few years. After a decade or so, capital investment may amount tens of billion and may at some point it could leap over 100 billion.
Wouldn’t expect more than 50 billion in total in first decade, could be more than 100 billion within second decade.
It could grow faster, most likely it would grow slower- and no real signs that this going to occur at all, anytime soon.
Though more much encouraging now, then say a decade ago.
But if American is involved with opening space frontier, it’s GDP will at least double every decade.
I can’t see any single space market…
There’s your problem. Don’t expect any magic bullet. The space market will consist of all the things and more that any town on earth sees.
People will pay for transportation of themselves and cargo. People will produce ISRU and sell it to others. Others will go about their own business according to their inclinations. You don’t have to imagine how the economy works because it just will. People, where ever they are need to eat meaning someone will have to produce.
Driving cross country with a friend from a farming community he asked me where are the farms? How do these people eat? From his perspective a community that didn’t include farms seemed strange but most communities don’t. Starting a colony, they will know farming as it will be a part of any starting community. Seeds, sunlight and soil will be a big part of any starting economy.
At first, the economy will be focused on survival. Over time it will naturally diversify if freedom and liberty are part of the mix. This is why strong individual property rights are so important. They provide the capital to get an economy thriving.
“I don’t see how space economy can be an equal order of magnitude than current global economy- within time frame of say a century or two [or 3 or 4].”
I don’t know how fast it would happen, but the answer to your question is colonization. A space economy that’s limited to being a commodity export economy back to Earth would always be of limited size, but a production and consumption economy within space would be of (nearly) unlimited size.
Consider the size of Manhattan’s current economy relative to the cost of sending over the first settlers from Amsterdam.
This begs three questions-
1. How cheaply & quickly can you build livable destinations?
2. How cheaply & quickly can you get people from Earth to those livable destinations?
3. How hard will it be to find qualified colonists?
Of these three constraints, I think #3 will be the primary constraint for some time. In order to avoid the problems the Pilgrims had in the New World (mainly privation; hopefully not angry natives) only people who were qualfied to run and maintain the systems that supported human life in space (or Mars, Venus, the Moon, etc.) should be allowed to go. Those skills would be hard to come by on Earth, at least at first.
Problem #1 is primarily a problem of ISRU and automation. Whether your destination is the Moon or the Asteroids I suspect robots and small teams living in Bigelow modules would be sufficient to build the pressurized shells and life support systems.
Problem #2 seems like the least constraint. Assuming sufficent demand for colonial transport (given constraints #1 and #3), a single Sea Dragon could launch 1,000 or more colonists per launch. A fleet of 100 Sea Dragons, each launching every day …
I don’t see how space economy can be an equal order of magnitude than current global economy- within time frame of say a century or two [or 3 or 4].
To first approximation the size of the economy is proportional to the population. People will take their money with them when they emigrate to space, and this will be the primary means of paying for Earth derived goods initially. a few billion people in space within a 100-200 year time frame seems achievable to me. Most would live in much larger Bigelow like space stations spun on a tether for artificial gravity, presumably most would be around the asteroid belt, where the resources are. With an Earth derived Bigelow type habitat fundamentally costing little more than a fancy home on Earth people could take one with them when we leave – the RV/covered wagon model.
Population growth alone will drive economic growth at a very high rate. It is a mistake to think that space requires a separate product to be sold to Earth to make happen. Emigration is the killer app. Once the process starts there will be no shortage of money, space will be where all the population, economic growth and ROI will be, the ultimate emerging market. A hundred years from now the space population and economy might exceed that of the US, that is a lot of economic growth between now and then.
A problem with deciding to make ‘space energy capture’ roughly the same scale as terrestrial energy production is: This is something for which the uses are literally infinite. (Or, so mind-boggling that the word googolplex might be used.) (Side note: Spell checker knows “Google” as a replacement … but not the words from which the name derived. Too funny.)
“Wait, what?!”
A random rock is generally more valuable reduced to its constituent atoms – which will release oxygen as a ‘waste product’. Terrestrial mining currently focuses materials that either ‘seam’ in a mostly-pure or easy-alloys – or ores for which the energy cost of processing the material of interest out is cost effective.
Bauxite -> Aluminum is a mighty-energy-disavantaged reaction. But aluminum is too useful for words. And… there is a very long list of rocks containing useful amounts of aluminum – but which aren’t as “easy”.
Make power 1000x cheaper, and you can mine a much wider variety of stuff. Make it a 10E6 cheaper….
I have always looked up to Jeff Greason – an amazing man. This merely confirms that view.
Space Launch costs are not the big barrier to lunar settlement many seem to believe. Its the lack of technology to create self-sustained habitats. Once that technology is developed then you would only need the launch capability to place the technology on the Moon in order to create the habitats. Once again this is where the proximity of the Moon to Earth is important since it enables controllers on Earth to oversee the creation of the self-sufficient lunar habitats.
Once the habitats are built then its just a case of shipping the settlers and biological seed stock to the Moon.
That is why the recent discovery of massive underground caves as a result of failed calderas is so important to lunar settlement, second only to the discovery of lunar water. It solves both the radiation and thermal problems, lowering the cost of building habitats large enough to be self-sufficient.
You could place a substantial population in a cave with a floor area of 6-10 square kilometers and a ceiling that is 1/2 kilometer or more above it. And, if we are very lucky, the dust problem may also be solved, since the caves should be isolated from the micro-meteorites that created the dust layer on the lunar surface.
1. How cheaply & quickly can you build livable destinations?
$10b to $40b. Ten to twenty years ($1b to $2b/yr) starting today.
2. How cheaply & quickly can you get people from Earth to those livable destinations?
Immigration happens after about a decade of ISRU research.
100 people/yr. $100m each includes travel, property, habitat and farm. Price will come down substantially as we learn and develop cheaper methods of travel. The entire cost is recovered with property rights.
3. How hard will it be to find qualified colonists?
Everybody will be qualified. For every expert they will need 100 technicians. Labor will always be in short supply. Anybody (among the first few million or so) that want’s to go to stay should be able to get a pioneer loan of some kind or win a ticket to ride.
The philosophy that Greason talks about in the latter half of the video is what I consider to be the defining characteristic of America. It is what makes America unique and special – American exceptionalism.
I stated as such on a socially conservative blog yesterday. The responses I attracted made clear that many of the social conservatives are as messed-up in the head as the liberal-left.
Tom, actually going to the Moon to investigate those caves (even if just with robots) would do a lot for making the argument that a test colony should be made.
And yes, it would have to be a test colony because we *still* don’t know if humans can reproduce there. Doing that research on the Moon instead of in a tether research station in LEO has a lot of advantages. Not the least of which is the radiation protection. Even if you decide to send rats to get some preliminary confidence that mammals can reproduce in 1/6th gravity, the radiation exposure is likely to muddle those results.
[I can’t see any single space market…
There’s your problem. Don’t expect any magic bullet. The space market will consist of all the things and more that any town on earth sees.]
I can’t see a larger single market than one of selling electrical power from space to all nations on the Earth.
I see water mining in space as the “magic bullet” but I don’t see it as getting as big as a trillion dollar market- not within a century or two.
Before selling electrical power to earth, I would guess electrical power production in space for space would one of the biggest markets in space.
I think once electrical power in space is selling for around $1 per kW/h, then you could think about selling it to Earth- obviously at that point the cost to make electricity will be driven down to less than 1 cent per kw/h.
And then we get a lot unpredictable things happening- but that probably at best that is about century from now- if we got our act together now.
So when do you think electrical power in space could be sold for $1 per kW/h- and btw where in space will it be the cheapest at this price point- earth orbit, lunar surface, LEO,…?
And what point in time could water be sold in space for less $1 per lb?
Not arguing with you here, Trent, just demonstrating a point ..
>> actually going to the Moon to investigate those caves (even if just with robots)
.. and there are no plans to do so. Looks like most realistically, next robot to land on the moon will either come from JAXA ( SELENE-2 ) , one of GLXP teams pulling a miracle, or Chinese Chang’e-2. NASA’s mars mafiaa is still busy “following the water” on the red planet, whatever that is supposed to accomplish..
>> it would have to be a test colony because we *still* don’t know if humans can reproduce there
.. and there are no plans to land either chimps or mice on the moon, to figure this out. AFAIK there are not even any plans to put a bunch of rodents in a 1/6th gravity centrifuge on LEO, to study the health effects.
Trent,
Yes, evidence that mammals are able to reproduce in 1/6 G is critical and is another line of research that have been neglected far too long.
reader,
And that is exactly why many no longer consider NASA to be on the critical path to lunar development. As long as “peer reviewed science” rather then development drives NASA’s agenda it will be irrelevant to the opening of the space frontier. That is why many, including many folk at NASA, are now moving beyond NASA in their plans to return to the Moon.
>>As long as “peer reviewed science” rather then development drives NASA’s agenda it will be irrelevant to the opening of the space frontier.
Exactly. Case in point : Lunar polar volatiles explorer rover is supposed to take 8 years and cost north of $1 billion.
You could probably spend around $200M a year on a series of rovers sent to lunar pole, trying incrementally better (risky) technology and still get the job done more comprehensively and faster than the current proposal.
reader,
[[[You could probably spend around $200M a year on a series of rovers sent to lunar pole, trying incrementally better (risky) technology and still get the job done more comprehensively and faster than the current proposal.]]]
That is how it was done in the Apollo days, with Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter. A series of simple missions, each building on the success of earlier ones and correcting their failings.
@Pete: There is a very simple way of calculating whether or not space is a good investment. First estimate the scale of investment required to make space happen. Then estimate the integral with regard to time of the size of the human economy with and without space. If the difference between the two integrals is greater than the required investment, then it is worth doing.
Two small points which make a big difference: (1) you have to discount future earnings by the time value of money, and (2) simply having a positive net present value is not sufficient to establish the worthiness of an investment. The investment must be the best use of that money, compared to all the other options you have to invest that money.
The way the management of an engineering company thinks about it (or is supposed to think about it) is that you have a long list of projects and a finite amount of money to invest. You rank the projects by expected return and invest in the projects at the top of the list until you max your budget. That’s how you maximize the net present value of your company. (BTW the return on the last investment that makes the cut should be what defines the minimum attractive rate of return, or “MARR”, that you use as a discount rate.) Sure, every now and then you can afford a small “pet” project that doesn’t look good on paper but may give unexpectedly high returns, or may have ulterior value like favorable publicity, but if you do that consistently, the board will fire you and replace you with someone who understands managerial economics.
Now, it may be that space exploration in the big sense is the best use of our money, or at least is on the top half of the list, but you won’t make the case unless it is phrased in terms that the money guys understand…. Dong ma?
Not About Space Anymore.
The investment must be the best use of that money, compared to all the other options you have to invest that money.
Watch Jeff Greason’s video again. He was very clear there are better ways to make money than what he does. Same with Elon Musk – SpaceX will hopefully be profitable, but he’s not doing it for profit maximization.
An insurance policy against the human race going extinct seems like the best use of any money I can think of, once the basics of food and shelter are met here on Earth (which they clearly are for most nations). And spending money on the things that empower your soul is good thing too.
Well, my take is that space exploration is one of those things for which prediction about future benefits is fanciful at best and more likely simply implausible. But experience shows it’s worth doing anyway. Maybe Robert Goddard dreamt of life-saving weather satellites and GPS and the Hubble Deep Sky Survey, but more likely he was kept going by a simple abiding faith that exploration would take you places you didn’t know existed.
Robert Wilson, the man most responsible for the existence of Fermilab, famously said that some things (like Fermilab) don’t contribute to national defense — except for giving us something worth defending. That’s how I feel about space.
An unjustified assumption is that if we spent nothing on space but instead on earth that money would not be wasted.
Two futures… A) earth only. B) the entire solar system.
Which is a bigger better more diverse economy? No math required.
If you realize it’s B, why wait?
the best use of money, compared to all other options
Something people rarely agree upon.
Two small points which make a big difference: (1) you have to discount future earnings by the time value of money, and (2) simply having a positive net present value is not sufficient to establish the worthiness of an investment. The investment must be the best use of that money, compared to all the other options you have to invest that money.
Yes, and maximum ROI reduces to maximizing cumulative economic scale. That is why space is so critical, it enables economic growth (and ROI) many many orders of magnitude beyond Earth.
Compare the long term economic (and population) growth curves for both scenarios. Doing so you may also note that delaying a generation now, costs trillions of lives later.
When I look at maximizing long term economic growth, investing at least a few trillion per year in space seems optimal with regard to opportunity cost.
Watch Jeff Greason’s video again. He was very clear there are better ways to make money than what he does.
In the short term, yes, but Jeff was very clear that he is in it for the long term.
Jeff is just ahead of the curve.. at some point all these little proxy frontiers will be used up – the corporations will weep because there’s no more third world countries to conquer.
Robert Heinlein’s solution in “Time for the Stars” was to create a foundation to fund ideas that provided no immediate return and therefore would not be considered rational investments by modern investment models.
Unforunately most space non-profits either spend their funds lobbying for NASA to fund their projects or are stuck on the prize model, both which have limitations. They also focus on the least important part of the problem, launch costs, and not the technologies actually needed for space settlement.
delaying a generation now, costs trillions of lives later.
Which is so obvious if you have the least understanding of growth curves.
the least important part of the problem, launch costs, and not the technologies actually needed for space settlement.
Absolutely true. Everybody tells you how they could do this or that if only launch costs come down which is putting the cart before the horse. Launch costs will come down with activity and experience. That’s why my mars plan starts with a dozen people rather than the four to six that other plans do then goes immediately to 48 when ISRU water is solved. We can support that many almost indefinitely (with enough hands to do some real work) until they (with help from billions on earth) solve the next problem, farming and and strong property rights with everybody able to make a reasonable claim, to allow immigration to take place.
Robert Heinlein’s solution in “Time for the Stars” was to create a foundation to fund ideas that provided no immediate return and therefore would not be considered rational investments by modern investment models.
Universities and the funding of pure science are similar long term investments without direct payback, and yet one that we publicly and privately manage to fund. This is not a new or insolvable problem.
Nope. Advocates have just been looking it from the wrong perspective. The train wreck we have now in term of space policy is resulting in many starting to look at it from a new perspective, one that is beyond CATS and beyond NASA 🙂
I have long argued that we need much smaller and modular Bigelow type infrastructure that can be launched on ~2 person sized RLVs if need be and orbitally assembled. However, just because NASA can not develop CATS for $100m does not mean that CATS can not be developed for a $100m. Indeed there is significant evidence to suggest that CATS can be developed for $100m. At such a cost level, with regard to the objective of space settlement, CATS seems economically worth doing now. It would be well economically justified as an enabling technology.
1) A miniature Dragon with some XCOR engines and some external inflatable tanks air launched on the White Knight 2 or a large electric quadrotor.
2) Miniature DC-X with XCOR engines air launched from White Knight 2 or large electric quadrotor.
3) 2 stage Lynx launch vehicle.
4) 2-3 stage Masten vehicle.
5) Various combinations of the above.
A hundred million each to say five such approaches would I suspect result in a few successes. For a tenth the annual NASA manned space budget…
Of course I also want to see development of similarly low cost space infrastructure, including inflatable hangers, that could be launched in ~250kg lots. If I had a few hundred million to spare that is one of the developments I would tackle. And I would likely prioritize it over developing a CATS vehicle. There are quite a few groups working on small CATS vehicles, I am not sure anyone is working on hangers that could be launched on them.
Pete,
You do know that SpaceX has mothballed the Falcon 1 program because of lack of customers? So who are the customers for all of those projects?
You do know that SpaceX has mothballed the Falcon 1 program because of lack of customers? So who are the customers for all of those projects?
If Falcon 1 only cost $100/lb it would not have been mothballed. You may have also noted that XCOR is looking to the nanosat market.
Space as a way of avoiding a Dark Age. That’s a justification i haven’t heard before, and it’s a damn good one.
Jeff is inspiring, as always. What surprises me is the applause he got. The TED crowd is not very friendly to capitalism…
The earth may not be able to avoid a dark age regardless of what we do in space. We need to commit enough resources so space gets a chance not to included in that dark age.
One square kilometer individual property claims finance the whole thing. Thorium is not just abundant on earth. It’s abundant and easy to find on the moon and mars as well.
We need to get industrial nuclear chemists operating out there ASAP.
There is a very simple way of calculating whether or not space is a good investment. First estimate the scale of investment required to make space happen. Then estimate the integral with regard to time of the size of the human economy with and without space. If the difference between the two integrals is greater than the required investment, then it is worth doing.
For this solar system alone I estimate the space economy would be say a thousand times bigger than the earth economy (based on available resources – conservative) and that it might last ten times longer (0.5b verse 5b years with regard to the useful life of the sun). So pretty much any investment is worth it in the long term.
There is an argument that the dark ages was caused by the ~10% tyth that Christianity leveled upon the western world. That this destroyed economic growth and thereby R&D and technological advancement. With that in mind I suspect the global economy (~80 trillion/year) could sustain investing a few trillion in space per year. Although I suspect a smart investment of as little as a billion would be enough to get the ball rolling. Say 100m each to the first five ~2 person RLVs and a 100m each to the first five groups to support a 100 people in space for a year. With launch costs of $100/lb the latter is probably possible.
I agree with Greason 95%, but in this talk he does ignore that there is a problem with reusable + orbital. Airliners don’t have to deal with the mass ratios or staging that has to be part of the equation dealt with in designing orbital launch systems using chemical rockets.
Thorium is not just abundant on earth. It’s abundant and easy to find on the moon and mars as well.
We need to get industrial nuclear chemists operating out there ASAP.
As a heat source, solar concentrators are much lighter and cheaper than thorium reactors until quite some distance out from the sun. I might advocate using thorium on Mars – Mars not being particularly suitable for life. Even for the moon I would probably favor solar thermal – regolith is a great insulator and it is fairly simple to turn large amounts of it into thermal energy storage, enough to pass the lunar night. This might be combined with regolith roasting and the extraction of volatiles.
Note that developing thorium reactors is a very long and expensive development project and invokes considerable bureaucracy, not something for a space start up to tackle. The primary problem in space is actually heat rejection – that is where innovation is required.
Airliners don’t have to deal with the mass ratios or staging that has to be part of the equation dealt with in designing orbital launch systems using chemical rockets.
Consider the comparison of a trip half way around the world, one by airplane and one by RLV.
Fuel use per kilogram of payload is maybe five times higher for the RLV.
The RLV can make ten flights for every one the airplane makes (45min flight time plus launching, landing and ten minute turnaround), and so need only weigh about a tenth as much. Payload to dry mass ratios are similar for both vehicles and as Jeff noted, the materials used and cost per kilogram of vehicle need not be significantly different.
Point being, while the fuel cost is likely to be greater for the RLV, the amortized cost of the RLV itself can be significantly less than the airplane. Due to the much higher fuel cost, the RLV is likely to cost 2-3 times more per person per flight.
“There is a very simple way of calculating whether or not space is a good investment. First estimate the scale of investment required to make space happen. Then estimate the integral with regard to time of the size of the human economy with and without space. If the difference between the two integrals is greater than the required investment, then it is worth doing. ”
“First estimate the scale of investment required to make space happen.”
Hard to give an answer to that question. How about, how much does it costs to start a market in space. What is cheaper market to start first. And what is total value of that market.
Even these questions are “hard quantify” or “misleading”.
Example. Towns are valuable.
How much does it cost to “start” a town. How much is a town worth?
Pick any number from zero to trillion dollars.
One could argue that starting a town has negative value and/or one could say they have infinite costs- with little in profit.
But I will give it a shot.
The amount money spent on all electrical power on earth is trillions of dollars per year.
If you had a very smart person who had one trillion dollars and that guy had several decade of life remaining, and was very interested and working like a manic, that person might be able to build a business that provided all electrical power needed on earth from power from space. But if instead that guy invested his money in other things, within 2 decades he could more easily make more money from his business [and therefore “do more good”- because making money can seen as measurement of how much good one is doing, as judged by society in general]
Now, let’s look at Branson and SpaceshipTwo. Say within 5 years, he is flying lots of passengers into space. And say within 2 or 3 decades, suborbital travel is cheaper than airline travel.
I don’t think Branson has to put much effort in this suborbital project- but he will probably get a lot credit if it’s successful. A lot of other people may actually do most of the work. The suborbital travel industry in 3 or 4 decades may be a trillion dollar industry.
Which worth more, a trillion dollar space power industry or improved airline industry with the suborbital aspect of that industry being a trillion dollar industry.
“Then estimate the integral with regard to time of the size of the human economy with and without space. If the difference between the two integrals is greater than the required investment, then it is worth doing. ”
How about within 2 or 3 decades, space markets could dwarf the computer age?
So tell me what computer age did with or without- and space could be 10 or 20 times that- in roughly the same time period.
But space will also “cost” about 10 or 20 times more than computer age.
Pete,I’ve been trying to imagine a feasible RLV doing a series of practical orbital trips along the lines you describe. I can’t.
“Pete,I’ve been trying to imagine a feasible RLV doing a series of practical orbital trips along the lines you describe. I can’t.”
How about something crazy.
Take the paper study of the Sea Dragon and modify the Sea dragon into a suborbital vehicle.
Airlines have 20% of costs in fuel. Make is 90% of cost for suborbital.
If you think sea dragon is close to being right- that it can lift 1 million lb to orbit, have your second [or third stage] use most of it propellant for landing. So 1/2 of the million ton payload is rocket fuel which used so reentry is easier.
So you using globs of rocket fuel, but carry 2 or 3 times as many passengers as any airliner. Could also carry larger cargo size, than any airliner.
Go from NYC to India- [non stop:)].
Maybe since Palin interested in better US India relations this could a be part of a cheap stunt, that a president Palin could support:)
The recent discovery that there may be underground chambers from ancient volcanoes on the Moon that would be several kilometers in diameter makes the possibility of lunar settlement even more attractive, and perhaps less expense then thought before.
The best system I know of for a quick turn-around chemical rocket powered launch vehicle that is I think practical is the almost traditional two stage, both winged.
With such a system you’re probably not going to get much better than 1% of the launch mass as payload (the weight of wings and landing gear will make the payload a small fraction than in current launch systems). compare this to around 30% payload for air freighters. So I think you can expect even this fully reusable option to cost 30 times a kg more for freight than airliners.
Andrew, 30 times more per kg than for airliners is still about 1/30th the cost per kg for payload on Falcon Heavy. Achieving that would make the future happen.
Mike, yep, I just thought Pete was being a bit unrealistic suggesting 1/10th of that guesstimate.
Thorium is an ISRU option; it may or may not be part of the mix.
We don’t need any magic breakthroughs. We have all we need. We just need to make the choice.
While thorium will be part of the mix, my understanding is that there’s no shortage of it on Earth, and that that’s actually one of the reasons it’s popular with people promoting thorium as a nuclear fuel.
Pete,I’ve been trying to imagine a feasible RLV doing a series of practical orbital trips along the lines you describe. I can’t.
While I suspect an updated DC-X type vehicle could probably work (as would many others), my current favorite is a capsule plus engines with inflatable external tanks. Initially leave the tanks in space, later retract them into the capsule for reuse. With the tanks being structurally independent and weighing less than 1% of GLOW, I suspect a payload fraction of 2-3% would be possible. I might also consider air launching from an over sized electric quadrotor (very cheap, avoids aero losses, tank insulation, etc.) and perhaps similarly using an integral quadrotor type landing system (similar weight to other landing systems, dependable/controllable, and can recharge batteries on descent).
Hard to give an answer to that question. How about, how much does it costs to start a market in space. What is cheaper market to start first. And what is total value of that market.
Sorry, the point of my argument was that the size and duration of a space economy would be so many orders of magnitude beyond the current global economy that any investment that does not cripple the global economy is worth it. The difference in size between the long term space economy (thousands of Earth equivalent economies) and the current Earth economy is necessarily economic growth and ROI. In contrast, once the Earth nears its economic carrying capacity, economic growth on Earth stops.
“Sorry, the point of my argument was that the size and duration of a space economy would be so many orders of magnitude beyond the current global economy that any investment that does not cripple the global economy is worth it.”
I don’t see how space economy can be an equal order of magnitude than current global economy- within time frame of say a century or two [or 3 or 4].
The US economy has GDP of 14.12 Trillion dollars.
A vast space power infrastructure that could provide most Earth’s electricity would by itself have “GDP” of about trillion dollars.
I can’t see any single space market having anything with a higher “GDP” within a century or so [or perhaps, better to say, that is beyond it being “predictable”]
A lunar economy of say 100 to 200 billion GDP, would be quite significant- and very unlikely within a few decades- or say, before 2040.
And btw I think one would need that level of a lunar economy [+100 billion GDP] before one would even think of providing earth with any significant amount of electrical power.
And a suborbital market shouldn’t be considered a space market- no more than the airline industry is considered a space market.
The scale of investing in space markets would around 10 billion in first few years. After a decade or so, capital investment may amount tens of billion and may at some point it could leap over 100 billion.
Wouldn’t expect more than 50 billion in total in first decade, could be more than 100 billion within second decade.
It could grow faster, most likely it would grow slower- and no real signs that this going to occur at all, anytime soon.
Though more much encouraging now, then say a decade ago.
But if American is involved with opening space frontier, it’s GDP will at least double every decade.
I can’t see any single space market…
There’s your problem. Don’t expect any magic bullet. The space market will consist of all the things and more that any town on earth sees.
People will pay for transportation of themselves and cargo. People will produce ISRU and sell it to others. Others will go about their own business according to their inclinations. You don’t have to imagine how the economy works because it just will. People, where ever they are need to eat meaning someone will have to produce.
Driving cross country with a friend from a farming community he asked me where are the farms? How do these people eat? From his perspective a community that didn’t include farms seemed strange but most communities don’t. Starting a colony, they will know farming as it will be a part of any starting community. Seeds, sunlight and soil will be a big part of any starting economy.
At first, the economy will be focused on survival. Over time it will naturally diversify if freedom and liberty are part of the mix. This is why strong individual property rights are so important. They provide the capital to get an economy thriving.
“I don’t see how space economy can be an equal order of magnitude than current global economy- within time frame of say a century or two [or 3 or 4].”
I don’t know how fast it would happen, but the answer to your question is colonization. A space economy that’s limited to being a commodity export economy back to Earth would always be of limited size, but a production and consumption economy within space would be of (nearly) unlimited size.
Consider the size of Manhattan’s current economy relative to the cost of sending over the first settlers from Amsterdam.
This begs three questions-
1. How cheaply & quickly can you build livable destinations?
2. How cheaply & quickly can you get people from Earth to those livable destinations?
3. How hard will it be to find qualified colonists?
Of these three constraints, I think #3 will be the primary constraint for some time. In order to avoid the problems the Pilgrims had in the New World (mainly privation; hopefully not angry natives) only people who were qualfied to run and maintain the systems that supported human life in space (or Mars, Venus, the Moon, etc.) should be allowed to go. Those skills would be hard to come by on Earth, at least at first.
Problem #1 is primarily a problem of ISRU and automation. Whether your destination is the Moon or the Asteroids I suspect robots and small teams living in Bigelow modules would be sufficient to build the pressurized shells and life support systems.
Problem #2 seems like the least constraint. Assuming sufficent demand for colonial transport (given constraints #1 and #3), a single Sea Dragon could launch 1,000 or more colonists per launch. A fleet of 100 Sea Dragons, each launching every day …
I don’t see how space economy can be an equal order of magnitude than current global economy- within time frame of say a century or two [or 3 or 4].
To first approximation the size of the economy is proportional to the population. People will take their money with them when they emigrate to space, and this will be the primary means of paying for Earth derived goods initially. a few billion people in space within a 100-200 year time frame seems achievable to me. Most would live in much larger Bigelow like space stations spun on a tether for artificial gravity, presumably most would be around the asteroid belt, where the resources are. With an Earth derived Bigelow type habitat fundamentally costing little more than a fancy home on Earth people could take one with them when we leave – the RV/covered wagon model.
Population growth alone will drive economic growth at a very high rate. It is a mistake to think that space requires a separate product to be sold to Earth to make happen. Emigration is the killer app. Once the process starts there will be no shortage of money, space will be where all the population, economic growth and ROI will be, the ultimate emerging market. A hundred years from now the space population and economy might exceed that of the US, that is a lot of economic growth between now and then.
A problem with deciding to make ‘space energy capture’ roughly the same scale as terrestrial energy production is: This is something for which the uses are literally infinite. (Or, so mind-boggling that the word googolplex might be used.) (Side note: Spell checker knows “Google” as a replacement … but not the words from which the name derived. Too funny.)
“Wait, what?!”
A random rock is generally more valuable reduced to its constituent atoms – which will release oxygen as a ‘waste product’. Terrestrial mining currently focuses materials that either ‘seam’ in a mostly-pure or easy-alloys – or ores for which the energy cost of processing the material of interest out is cost effective.
Bauxite -> Aluminum is a mighty-energy-disavantaged reaction. But aluminum is too useful for words. And… there is a very long list of rocks containing useful amounts of aluminum – but which aren’t as “easy”.
Make power 1000x cheaper, and you can mine a much wider variety of stuff. Make it a 10E6 cheaper….
I have always looked up to Jeff Greason – an amazing man. This merely confirms that view.
Space Launch costs are not the big barrier to lunar settlement many seem to believe. Its the lack of technology to create self-sustained habitats. Once that technology is developed then you would only need the launch capability to place the technology on the Moon in order to create the habitats. Once again this is where the proximity of the Moon to Earth is important since it enables controllers on Earth to oversee the creation of the self-sufficient lunar habitats.
Once the habitats are built then its just a case of shipping the settlers and biological seed stock to the Moon.
That is why the recent discovery of massive underground caves as a result of failed calderas is so important to lunar settlement, second only to the discovery of lunar water. It solves both the radiation and thermal problems, lowering the cost of building habitats large enough to be self-sufficient.
You could place a substantial population in a cave with a floor area of 6-10 square kilometers and a ceiling that is 1/2 kilometer or more above it. And, if we are very lucky, the dust problem may also be solved, since the caves should be isolated from the micro-meteorites that created the dust layer on the lunar surface.
1. How cheaply & quickly can you build livable destinations?
$10b to $40b. Ten to twenty years ($1b to $2b/yr) starting today.
2. How cheaply & quickly can you get people from Earth to those livable destinations?
Immigration happens after about a decade of ISRU research.
100 people/yr. $100m each includes travel, property, habitat and farm. Price will come down substantially as we learn and develop cheaper methods of travel. The entire cost is recovered with property rights.
3. How hard will it be to find qualified colonists?
Everybody will be qualified. For every expert they will need 100 technicians. Labor will always be in short supply. Anybody (among the first few million or so) that want’s to go to stay should be able to get a pioneer loan of some kind or win a ticket to ride.
http://ken-anthony.squarespace.com/journal/2011/3/25/100-hectare-and-a-mule.html
…was the link I intended above.
The philosophy that Greason talks about in the latter half of the video is what I consider to be the defining characteristic of America. It is what makes America unique and special – American exceptionalism.
I stated as such on a socially conservative blog yesterday. The responses I attracted made clear that many of the social conservatives are as messed-up in the head as the liberal-left.
Tom, actually going to the Moon to investigate those caves (even if just with robots) would do a lot for making the argument that a test colony should be made.
And yes, it would have to be a test colony because we *still* don’t know if humans can reproduce there. Doing that research on the Moon instead of in a tether research station in LEO has a lot of advantages. Not the least of which is the radiation protection. Even if you decide to send rats to get some preliminary confidence that mammals can reproduce in 1/6th gravity, the radiation exposure is likely to muddle those results.
[I can’t see any single space market…
There’s your problem. Don’t expect any magic bullet. The space market will consist of all the things and more that any town on earth sees.]
I can’t see a larger single market than one of selling electrical power from space to all nations on the Earth.
I see water mining in space as the “magic bullet” but I don’t see it as getting as big as a trillion dollar market- not within a century or two.
Before selling electrical power to earth, I would guess electrical power production in space for space would one of the biggest markets in space.
I think once electrical power in space is selling for around $1 per kW/h, then you could think about selling it to Earth- obviously at that point the cost to make electricity will be driven down to less than 1 cent per kw/h.
And then we get a lot unpredictable things happening- but that probably at best that is about century from now- if we got our act together now.
So when do you think electrical power in space could be sold for $1 per kW/h- and btw where in space will it be the cheapest at this price point- earth orbit, lunar surface, LEO,…?
And what point in time could water be sold in space for less $1 per lb?
Not arguing with you here, Trent, just demonstrating a point ..
>> actually going to the Moon to investigate those caves (even if just with robots)
.. and there are no plans to do so. Looks like most realistically, next robot to land on the moon will either come from JAXA ( SELENE-2 ) , one of GLXP teams pulling a miracle, or Chinese Chang’e-2. NASA’s mars mafiaa is still busy “following the water” on the red planet, whatever that is supposed to accomplish..
>> it would have to be a test colony because we *still* don’t know if humans can reproduce there
.. and there are no plans to land either chimps or mice on the moon, to figure this out. AFAIK there are not even any plans to put a bunch of rodents in a 1/6th gravity centrifuge on LEO, to study the health effects.
Trent,
Yes, evidence that mammals are able to reproduce in 1/6 G is critical and is another line of research that have been neglected far too long.
reader,
And that is exactly why many no longer consider NASA to be on the critical path to lunar development. As long as “peer reviewed science” rather then development drives NASA’s agenda it will be irrelevant to the opening of the space frontier. That is why many, including many folk at NASA, are now moving beyond NASA in their plans to return to the Moon.
>>As long as “peer reviewed science” rather then development drives NASA’s agenda it will be irrelevant to the opening of the space frontier.
Exactly. Case in point : Lunar polar volatiles explorer rover is supposed to take 8 years and cost north of $1 billion.
You could probably spend around $200M a year on a series of rovers sent to lunar pole, trying incrementally better (risky) technology and still get the job done more comprehensively and faster than the current proposal.
reader,
[[[You could probably spend around $200M a year on a series of rovers sent to lunar pole, trying incrementally better (risky) technology and still get the job done more comprehensively and faster than the current proposal.]]]
That is how it was done in the Apollo days, with Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter. A series of simple missions, each building on the success of earlier ones and correcting their failings.
@Pete: There is a very simple way of calculating whether or not space is a good investment. First estimate the scale of investment required to make space happen. Then estimate the integral with regard to time of the size of the human economy with and without space. If the difference between the two integrals is greater than the required investment, then it is worth doing.
Two small points which make a big difference: (1) you have to discount future earnings by the time value of money, and (2) simply having a positive net present value is not sufficient to establish the worthiness of an investment. The investment must be the best use of that money, compared to all the other options you have to invest that money.
The way the management of an engineering company thinks about it (or is supposed to think about it) is that you have a long list of projects and a finite amount of money to invest. You rank the projects by expected return and invest in the projects at the top of the list until you max your budget. That’s how you maximize the net present value of your company. (BTW the return on the last investment that makes the cut should be what defines the minimum attractive rate of return, or “MARR”, that you use as a discount rate.) Sure, every now and then you can afford a small “pet” project that doesn’t look good on paper but may give unexpectedly high returns, or may have ulterior value like favorable publicity, but if you do that consistently, the board will fire you and replace you with someone who understands managerial economics.
Now, it may be that space exploration in the big sense is the best use of our money, or at least is on the top half of the list, but you won’t make the case unless it is phrased in terms that the money guys understand…. Dong ma?
Not About Space Anymore.
The investment must be the best use of that money, compared to all the other options you have to invest that money.
Watch Jeff Greason’s video again. He was very clear there are better ways to make money than what he does. Same with Elon Musk – SpaceX will hopefully be profitable, but he’s not doing it for profit maximization.
An insurance policy against the human race going extinct seems like the best use of any money I can think of, once the basics of food and shelter are met here on Earth (which they clearly are for most nations). And spending money on the things that empower your soul is good thing too.
Well, my take is that space exploration is one of those things for which prediction about future benefits is fanciful at best and more likely simply implausible. But experience shows it’s worth doing anyway. Maybe Robert Goddard dreamt of life-saving weather satellites and GPS and the Hubble Deep Sky Survey, but more likely he was kept going by a simple abiding faith that exploration would take you places you didn’t know existed.
Robert Wilson, the man most responsible for the existence of Fermilab, famously said that some things (like Fermilab) don’t contribute to national defense — except for giving us something worth defending. That’s how I feel about space.
An unjustified assumption is that if we spent nothing on space but instead on earth that money would not be wasted.
Two futures… A) earth only. B) the entire solar system.
Which is a bigger better more diverse economy? No math required.
If you realize it’s B, why wait?
the best use of money, compared to all other options
Something people rarely agree upon.
Two small points which make a big difference: (1) you have to discount future earnings by the time value of money, and (2) simply having a positive net present value is not sufficient to establish the worthiness of an investment. The investment must be the best use of that money, compared to all the other options you have to invest that money.
Yes, and maximum ROI reduces to maximizing cumulative economic scale. That is why space is so critical, it enables economic growth (and ROI) many many orders of magnitude beyond Earth.
Compare the long term economic (and population) growth curves for both scenarios. Doing so you may also note that delaying a generation now, costs trillions of lives later.
When I look at maximizing long term economic growth, investing at least a few trillion per year in space seems optimal with regard to opportunity cost.
Watch Jeff Greason’s video again. He was very clear there are better ways to make money than what he does.
In the short term, yes, but Jeff was very clear that he is in it for the long term.
Jeff is just ahead of the curve.. at some point all these little proxy frontiers will be used up – the corporations will weep because there’s no more third world countries to conquer.
Robert Heinlein’s solution in “Time for the Stars” was to create a foundation to fund ideas that provided no immediate return and therefore would not be considered rational investments by modern investment models.
Unforunately most space non-profits either spend their funds lobbying for NASA to fund their projects or are stuck on the prize model, both which have limitations. They also focus on the least important part of the problem, launch costs, and not the technologies actually needed for space settlement.
delaying a generation now, costs trillions of lives later.
Which is so obvious if you have the least understanding of growth curves.
the least important part of the problem, launch costs, and not the technologies actually needed for space settlement.
Absolutely true. Everybody tells you how they could do this or that if only launch costs come down which is putting the cart before the horse. Launch costs will come down with activity and experience. That’s why my mars plan starts with a dozen people rather than the four to six that other plans do then goes immediately to 48 when ISRU water is solved. We can support that many almost indefinitely (with enough hands to do some real work) until they (with help from billions on earth) solve the next problem, farming and and strong property rights with everybody able to make a reasonable claim, to allow immigration to take place.
Robert Heinlein’s solution in “Time for the Stars” was to create a foundation to fund ideas that provided no immediate return and therefore would not be considered rational investments by modern investment models.
Universities and the funding of pure science are similar long term investments without direct payback, and yet one that we publicly and privately manage to fund. This is not a new or insolvable problem.
Nope. Advocates have just been looking it from the wrong perspective. The train wreck we have now in term of space policy is resulting in many starting to look at it from a new perspective, one that is beyond CATS and beyond NASA 🙂
I have long argued that we need much smaller and modular Bigelow type infrastructure that can be launched on ~2 person sized RLVs if need be and orbitally assembled. However, just because NASA can not develop CATS for $100m does not mean that CATS can not be developed for a $100m. Indeed there is significant evidence to suggest that CATS can be developed for $100m. At such a cost level, with regard to the objective of space settlement, CATS seems economically worth doing now. It would be well economically justified as an enabling technology.
1) A miniature Dragon with some XCOR engines and some external inflatable tanks air launched on the White Knight 2 or a large electric quadrotor.
2) Miniature DC-X with XCOR engines air launched from White Knight 2 or large electric quadrotor.
3) 2 stage Lynx launch vehicle.
4) 2-3 stage Masten vehicle.
5) Various combinations of the above.
A hundred million each to say five such approaches would I suspect result in a few successes. For a tenth the annual NASA manned space budget…
Of course I also want to see development of similarly low cost space infrastructure, including inflatable hangers, that could be launched in ~250kg lots. If I had a few hundred million to spare that is one of the developments I would tackle. And I would likely prioritize it over developing a CATS vehicle. There are quite a few groups working on small CATS vehicles, I am not sure anyone is working on hangers that could be launched on them.
Pete,
You do know that SpaceX has mothballed the Falcon 1 program because of lack of customers? So who are the customers for all of those projects?
You do know that SpaceX has mothballed the Falcon 1 program because of lack of customers? So who are the customers for all of those projects?
If Falcon 1 only cost $100/lb it would not have been mothballed. You may have also noted that XCOR is looking to the nanosat market.