As Dennis Wingo (sort of) points out, that question is (as Pauli would have said) not even wrong. If we develop needed capabilities, the destinations will sort themselves out. And one of the capabilities that we don’t need is an overpriced, oversized low-flight-rate government-developed rocket.
18 thoughts on “What Is The Destination For Space Development?”
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Though I tend to agree about the importance of space in general, I will focus on what disagree about. Exploration is not what NASA is doing, as NASA is not looking for ways of how we going to open the space frontier-
instead it’s about scientific interest and the look but don’t touch religious
view.
I think NASA should explore the Moon, but I think this exploration should be constrained/limited. I might have such a view if NASA wasn’t flat out crazy. NASA history regarding it’s ideas of lunar exploration has been maniacal. So in simple terms, NASA should do a very cheap lunar exploration program which has the sole purpose to determine of answering the question, is there minable lunar water. And this does not mean can NASA mine lunar water. As that is a crazy idea lacking any meaning. Instead the question is can a lunar mining companies mine lunar water and be profitable. Or is there trillions or hundred of billions
of lunar water on the Moon. In other words one can find a oil deposit on Earth and it may or may not be minable. And it may or may be minable at the present time or perhaps in some more distant future time.
Or now, with the present fracking technology many shale deposit are minable- and those deposits were explored decades ago and were not minable [for most part] until now.
So what is needed from NASA is exploration of the Moon to determine whether or not lunar water is minable. And NASA needs to consider exactly how best to do this. And part of how best to do this is to guideline of how not to mired in the mud- NASA needs to have an exit strategy. Part of this exit strategy is that the lunar exploration program will be cheap- easily less than 50 billion dollars spent on program- 25 billion is improvement and 75 billion is bad.
Another part of exit strategy, is to have something NASA can do, so it stops exploring the Moon. So exploring Mars seems likes an ok idea.
And one can have lunar exploration as way to get ready to begin a manned exploration of Mars.
So lunar exploration of the Moon should relatively heavy towards robotic
exploration. And Mars exploration should also be similarly heavily weighted on robotic exploration. But to imagine it’s all robotic, is just foolish. It weighed towards robotic because than is the current reality- we have more robotic capability now as compared to time of Apollo- and the Apollo program had a fair amount robotic used.
But more important and more basic to any exploration of space, is NASA needs to develop fuel depots. Something it “should have done” decades ago. With fuel depots, the NASA view should not be that NASA will have operate several fuel depots in space, rather it’s view should be to develop a commercial market for rocket fuel [and other stored supplies]
in space. So this means NASA should use fuel depots, NASA should spacecraft that are able to use fuel depots. And should have policy that almost all it’s spacecraft [robotic/manned] will use fuel depots.
I hear a lot of people – even people I whose opinions I respect, like Jeff Greason and Sally Ride – put a minimum useful size on viable launch vehicles. I know they qualify this with “for currently acheivable missions” but I think that is part and parcel of the same fallacy as “we need a destination.” If you build a launcher whose price per lb is 1/10th the market price, not only will payloads adapt, but they will likely adapt on about the time scale it takes you to prove out the system.
If SpaceX ceased to exist tomorrow, their greatest legacy is probably this – pace your development with your customers and some of the chicken and egg problems get much more tractable. Someone like Blue Origin might offer a cheap orbital launch system 10 years from now, but they will not have built the institutional inertia in the market to change with them. The result is the “if we dropped and RLV on the world today we would only need one of them to satisfy global launch demand.”
SpaceX can gradually lower prices as they increase the reliability and reusability of their vehicles iteratively. There is a good chance that will come with steady increase in dry mass, and decrease in payload. But it will be a few hundred lb at a time. It is much more realistic to tell a signed or in-negotiation customer “we can cut your launch cost by 10% if you trim off 500 lb, and ohbytheway next time we can cut it in half if you can shave another ton” than “we can cut your launch cost by a factor of 20 if you are willing to buy 5 launches and assemble and fuel in orbit.”
The minimum lift capacity needed is determined by the mass of the largest non divisible mission component. For example, suppose the mission architecture for a lunar outpost determines that a small nuclear reactor is the only practical method of supplying electricity and heat during the long lunar nights (a completely made up example). Nuclear reactors of a certain capacity are likely heavy (especially with shielding) and may not be divisible into too many pieces for separate launches. In this example, that reactor requirement may drive booster design requirements.
Dennis, absolutely fantastic article. So I’m going to nit pick my baileywick. 😉
Designers for the most part gloss over this need [of 10-50 kilowatts per person] but it is critical.
They need even more than that in my opinion, but even Mars One starts out with 38 kW per person which is right in your ballpark. With enough power you have more critical needs filled: water, oxygen and temperature control. Raising their power levels ISRU beyond that will not be too difficult. This leaves just food at 2 kg per person per day (which is very generous since adding water makes it even more. I’m assuming a combination of freeze dried and not such as flour and sugar.)
They will be able to start to produce some of that 2 kg from the moment they land. Over time they will be able to produce all of it. A single 50m Zubrin hobby farm should fully supply 3 or 4 people. A lander with 2500 kg fully supplies a dozen colonists for over 100 days or $700 million per year. How long it takes to send those landers isn’t an issue as long as we send enough before they are needed. The landers themselves become a valuable resource for the colony. It will be a long time before they have to hunt for aluminum since it is the only 100% recyclable material there is.
$700m per year is very doable, but it will go down rapidly each year as food production goes up. Mars will be the fastest place in the solar system for 99% independence.
Independence is key to development. Getting off the $700m food stamp program means they will grow without further need of any government assistance. Millions of people on earth will assist them by communications alone which is a lot cheaper than rockets.
Mars is not exclusive, just the fastest and best place to throw off the yoke of government.
Each lander comes with 18 draco and 8 superdraco engines. Stripped out, that would allow building six pogo vehicles from each with 2 superdracos left over for other uses. They make them out of iron since aluminum will be too valuable. They only have circuit boards for one from each (assuming we keep the redundancy) but that’s a low mass import. Software would need to be written so any child could pilot the craft (a dial for hover and land, a joystick for translation. The dial only indirectly adjusts thrust which actually is controlled by software. Turning the dial to zero gives you a gentle landing. Turning the dial to 100 gives you an altitude limited by fuel calculations including reserve safety.) A 20 minute flight time should give you a 10 km radius so you can walk home if you miscalculate.
Ok, I was dreaming. Though a superdraco with 3 dracos could lift about 5,000 kg off mars that would not allow for 20 minutes of fuel. But whatever it did allow would make for a fun ride.
There’s absolutely nothing the government can do to speed up the development of the space industry. NASA is such a behemoth organization that it sucks the air out of the room in other countries as well as the US. Demanding that a government organization not act like a government organization is a waste of breath.
Sure it could. It could do the same thing it did with airmail — purchase vast numbers of tickets, and vast quantities of propellants in LEO.
It probably won’t, but it could.
Airmail wasn’t the Shangri-La that many seem to think it was. The end result was a government enforced oligopoly. It’s hard to imagine a more clear-cut case of regulatory capture.
Trent, if you haven’t already, you’re certainly starting to identify as a non-empirical ideological fanatic.
The guy says he is in favor of murdering US government employees, in the context of the second worst terrorist attack in US history, but it takes a disagreement regarding air mail for you start wondering whether he is a fanatic.
What? Go actually read about the Airmail act. You might discover there’s still things in the world you still have to learn.
While I’m sure there’s plenty of people who would say the effect of the Airmail act was great for aviation, the simple fact is that it was used to shut out competition and innovation. If it wasn’t for WW2, and the patent pool, the US may never have regained the aviation industry.
Also, Bob-1, please fuck off.
Trent, your point about zeal was lost in the context which makes it hard to separate your point from the reality. Too bad, because the point itself was a good one.
Ken, go back and read the thread. Trent wasn’t (just) making a point about zeal, he clearly stated his belief that employees of the government who were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing were legitimate targets for those who want to shrink government. I brought up the example of one victim, a 50-something year old secretary, a wife and mother, who worked for HUD, and Trent’s response was that HUD was unconstitutional and had caused the housing market crisis – and that justifies killing secretaries who work there. If Trent’s point had been about mere zeal, he wouldn’t have discussed whether HUD was constitutional, etc. Don’t delude yourself on this.
And once again, Bob hijacks a thread.
Here’s a link with various years of airmail acts (scroll down.)
Thanks Ken.
“What is the destination for space development?”
The question reminds me of High Plains Drifter, after Clint Eastwood’s character has commandeered the town’s only rooming house; the proprietor asks, “Where will all my boarders go?” and Eastwood replies simply, “Out.”