62 thoughts on “Developing An Economically Sustainable Space Policy”

  1. A couple of nits. In the article, mention is made of orbital space requiring 30 times the energy of sub-orbital. This misses the point that both fields pay a similar price in terms of aerodynamic and gravity losses. A sub-orbital ship with a mass ratio of 3 handles well over 1/30 the energy of an orbital vehicle with a mass ratio of 16. More like 6 or so. Delta V of 3 km/sec by the sub-orbital propulsion system compared to the orbital system handling 9 km/sec is also very different than the 30-1 quotation. Space Access is hard enough without throwing scare numbers, even if unintentionally.

    The other nit is in the comments section where it is asserted that LEO and GEO are in commercial use because we stayed there and the moon is not because we went briefly and then left. The moon is not in commercial use because no clear and undeniable profits are available there. Some of us do believe that profits can be made, though without enough solid evidence to convince an investor to jump in with both feet.

    1. “The other nit is in the comments section where it is asserted that LEO and GEO are in commercial use because we stayed there and the moon is not because we went briefly and then left.”

      I believe it was something else. Property rights were settled for GEO and not for Luna.

      Hot Orbital Slots: Is There Anything Left?
      http://www.satellitetoday.com/via/features/22108.html

      The World’s Hottest Real Estate: Orbital Slots Are Prime Property.
      http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-78121434.html

      Once we defined the property rights obital slots became real estate and it took off. I believe the same thing would happen on Luna, starting with a speculative mineral and water rights market.

      1. GEO in particular is in commercial use because you can make a lot of money there. There are some companies making money in LEO (such Iridium and those commercial imagery satellite companies) but not as much as in GEO. Commercial companies exist to make money. If someone came up with a viable plan to make money on the moon or Mars, then companies will find a way to make it happen.

        1. They did. The first to do so was the space settlement initiative. They’re problem is they want to lobby government rather than just taking some initiative (how ironic?)

          If they use my settlement charter as a blueprint, add a few billionaires, MarsOne pragmatism, gaslight tech. and a few dozen colonists no government could stop them and they would make money in a land rush (slow motion at first, but the pace would quickly develop and every martian colonist would have the assets to make true liberty possible.)

        2. Why no government could stop them?: They certainly would try. But ultimately they couldn’t stop colonist from launching if an independent pad were available (and I expect soon will be. )

          Second, by making the claims small enough to be reasonable they will be ignored while they build a history. If not ignored, they can do the ignoring themselves since they are a bit beyond the governments reach (especially if they focus on gas light tech for survivability and an industrial ecology that promotes fast self sufficiency.)

          Governments can control their own borders. They’re not going to control new colonies unless we are fool enough to let them.

  2. “I met Professor Elvis at GLEX a couple months ago.”

    He was the one who closed his talk with: “Thank you, thank you very much.”

  3. Perhaps the rise in the price of metals and other resources was actually useful for something after all.

  4. The B612 Foundation may actually prove to be more of a game-changer than Planetary Resources. For one thing, its goals are much easier to reach, and it at least has an extremely sound cost model. Watch this one.

  5. Was there anything new in this article at all? It just looks like your regular “lower the cost of access to space by begging the government for scraps” strategy.

    My opinion is that the government can’t do it and talk about “government infrastructure” is counterproductive (and, frankly, something I’d expect from a Democrat). So long as the government is involved, it will never be cheap to access space.

    Advocates of “capitalism in space” should be calling for the end of NASA and DoD anti-competitive practices, not more handouts.

    1. So long as the government is involved, it will never be cheap to access space.

      It’s hard not to bounce between two modes of thought. Keep the government out vs. they’re going to spend the money anyway; can’t it be better spent?

      I’m hopeful private companies will come to the realization that the wealth is out there (not in something that may prove valuable in the future but something valuable right now) and that government exists only to take some of that wealth away.

      As always financing is the big issue. Second is keeping the lawyers at bay.

      I’m hopeful, but since humans are involved… getting it screwed up is likely.

      1. the government are going to spend the money anyway; can’t it be better spent?

        No.. if you’re sending someone else’s money you will always spend it poorly. There is simply no possibility that anything useful can come out of stealing money from the public. It will always be better to leave it with the public. To suggest that maybe something useful could be done with it if it is going to be stolen anyway is to miss the fundamental nature of that money.

        No matter how well NASA spends the money they are given by the thieves who stole it, there will always be the double wammy: the money will not be spent on whatever it would have been spent on originally, and private investment in space will be suppressed because “that’s NASA’s job”.

        When I’m asked “If the government is going to tax you anyway, don’t you want them to spend it on something you care about?” I answer no! I’ll take the single wammy of having the money stolen over the double wammy of having people think it’s now the government’s job to do whatever it is I care about!

        It would actually be better for the government to just burn all the tax money they collect in a big pit than it would for them to direct it towards space. Failing that, encourage the government to spend their ill gotten gains on things that you don’t like – that way we’ll get less of them.

        1. I confess a human weakness of wanting to argue for better spending.

          But you are absolutely right. The problem with this country is people not using that organ in their skulls and willing to be labeled ‘extremists.’

          Why does the media get to label the truth extreme? Tar and feathers is too good for them. Man the pitchfork and torches.

          1. Ken, Trent,

            I agree. Government spending on space is not the answer, its the problem. Its far past time to move beyond NASA.

  6. What could the country do to enhance commercial prospects?

    As always, cut the red tape and don’t presume control.

    The country does have the responsibility of protecting it’s citizens. Currently, they haven’t spent much time doing that with regard to rocks colliding with earth. So they could start to take this responsibility seriously by actually moving rocks into earth or lunar orbit. Once there, allow anyone to make a mining claim. The technology needed to move these rocks into orbit and the experience doing so makes their commitment to defense real.

    The other thing, as I’ve said before, is the government could establish a depot in LEO and buy and sell water for a known fixed price. No red tape, anybody could buy or sell there. The depot would have it’s own tug for establishing a dock with any vehicle that shows up. A certain amount of the water would be separated, but a much larger quantity would just be water.

    It’s important that the country not make use of this depot a big deal. Otherwise a private company would be better off just bypassing its use for their own private temporary depots for missions BEO.

    The point is to make water in LEO a truly liquid commodity. (Yes, pun intentional.)

  7. It is similar to the talk about taxes. People realize.there must be some level of taxation. Tax too little and the government can’t function. Tax too much and the populace can’t function. How are people who think there should be no taxes viewed?

    Well, it is the same with space. There will be government involvement l, it’s unavoidable. So the challenge is hitting the sweet spot of government involvement that will incourage the private sector and not stifle it. The sweet spot will change over time with the capabilities of either party.

    1. You’re serious aren’t you?

      I have no choice but to agree with you.. after all, if there wasn’t government involvement in hamburgers, bicycles, yachts or sandbags, no-one would be incouraged (sic) to make them.

      The “sweet spot” of government involvement is no government involvement.

      1. Trent,

        I think this Ayn Rand quote is appropriate here.

        “Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.’

        Which is why its amazing so many space libertarians have built their non-profit groups and careers as advocates calling for more government spending on space, or for them to spend it on New Space contractor firms…

        1. Gee, libertarians arguing FOR government regulation instead of trusting in the market. What is the world coming to. Or are you really libertarians?

          1. Sorry, that post should be below. Its hard posting when Rand’s blog is in its “white” phase.

        2. Thomas,

          Re: “space libertarians [who] have built their non-profit groups and careers as advocates calling for more government spending on space, or for them to spend it on New Space contractor firms…”

          Just out of curiosity could you cite some specific examples?

          1. Ken,

            The founders of the Space Frontier Society are a good example, who while calling for a free market frontier in space spent most of their time, and members money, in Washington lobbying Congress and NASA. That is why I quit as an Advocate, because I saw what they were doing not only being a waste of time and money, but even worst, reinforcing the image in the business community that NASA support/funding was central to any space venture. In short they were doing more damage to opening the frontier then enabling it.

            What is needed is a group that stops looking to Washington for the answers and instead encourages scalable commercial options. A Space Commerce Society if you would that would serve more as a network for innovation then a lobby for government contracts. The early computer clubs like the old Apple users groups would be a good model.

      2. True.. but I do enjoy in America a certain level of standards, I do not want a restaurant chopping up rats on the floor and calling it a hambuger.

        1. Most people don’t want youths running around trashing their property, either. It’s easy to build agreement on what the first dollar of tax revenue should be spent on, it’s the marginal spending that’s the usual point of contention, no?

        2. That’s where truth in advertising laws come in. You want to chop up rats and sell “ratburgers”, fine. Just call it what it is.

  8. Rocket science isn’t hamburger science. If putting a man on the Moon was a simple as making a hamburger you might have a point. But even with hamburgers there is government interaction with the business community from FDA regulations on beef to your local health department requirements for a sanitary restaurant.

    Right now, at this moment of capability, government has to be involved. That is just the reality of it. That can change and so can the relationship between government and business but there will always be a relationship. Maybe in your ideal world there is no government but that isn’t reality. You have to accept the conditions on the playing field if you want to find a way to win.

    I think the government can be a powerful catalyst for space based industries. COTS and CCDEV are great programs that are helping private companies progress faster than they ever would on their own. Without the government there would be nothing in space. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

  9. government has to be involved

    No, they don’t. Imagine there were no I.S.S. and no shuttle… oh, we don’t have to imagine there is no shuttle… Ok, so no station then. Then remove all the space regulations. Ok. Now where are we?

    People still want to go to orbit for a stay. Bigelow could do that privately.

    They need a way to get there. SpaceX could do it today.

    MarsOne is planning to go to mars on private funds (wishing them the best.)

    All benefited from government research. Would they have done it otherwise?

    Yes. They would have and could have even if slower (however, there is a case they could have gone faster if not slowed down by government.)

    If it weren’t for debate among government lawyers, the question of property claims would have been settled long ago.

    So no, the government does not need to be involved. But it would be foolish not to take the money if the strings are not too onerous. Musk has already publicly stated he would cut those strings should they be.

    I think the only thing holding us back is the potential of government mucking up the works.

    1. Ken,

      What I am waiting for is when the billionaire space advocates recognize what the billionaire financiers recognized decades ago, namely the many advantages of going to a small island nation and turning it into a capitalist paradise for space. Bermuda, the Bahamas, The Caymans, are all good models from the global financial industry that would work well for a new global space industry. I could think of a dozen that would work well for space, both in terms of locations for spaceports as well as creating the perfect legal environment.

      As for ITAR, that is only a issue if you wish to use U.S. technology. There are many other options for starting technology, and any technology developed offshore would be ITAR free.

      Again, its time to move beyond the Apollo legacy of NASA contracting to a new one of space commerce.

        1. Ken,

          If folks like Andrew Beal and Elon Musk followed that model we would be a lot farther along.

          Want to own a piece of Mars? Just have the local island government nation you selected, which never signed the OST, past a law allowing you to claim it. If the Big Space Powers object, just cry to the liberal media how they are still oppressing their former colonies and trying to take their sovereign rights as nations away. After all they never signed the OST and are not bound by it legally, so why are these Big Greedy Wealthy nations threatening them over it?

      2. Tom,

        Unfortunately the US government seems to think that ITAR applies to anything space related that a US citizen builds anywhere in the world. It is my understanding that if I went to one those Islands and developed a launch system from scratch with zero legacy designed components, I would still be in violation of ITAR.

        I am not interested in becoming a non-US citizen, even if I were convinced that I had all the answers for opening up the new frontier.

          1. The core of Lutz Kayser problems was picking first Zaire and then Libya as his host countries. Both had dictators who would have no problem hijacking the technology to make missiles. That is why you pick a country that doesn’t poise a political threat to anyone. There is a reason the off shore financial industry is located in small island nations like the Bahamas and Bermuda, nations under the military protection of the U.K., countries no one sees as a threat and not in places like Cuba or Zaire.

            Second, it was France and Russia that basically put the pressure on Germany to shut him down, again, because of the threat they saw from launch operations in nations with power mad dictators. He may have been technically knowledgeable but he lacked an understanding of the great game of international politics. If he was he would have never gone near those countries in his venture. That was as bad as Andrew Beale picking a launch site on a piece of land that Guyana, Venezuela and a local indigenous tribe all claimed. Guyana and Venezuela would just growl at each other occasionally over it, but left it to the locals because it was just a worthless swamp, too worthless to fight over, until Beale Aerospace cut a deal for a launch site on it. Talk about stirring up a hornet’s nest…

            As for ITAR, again, the key is to set up a subsidiary that has a majority of foreign ownership and locate it in an island nation not seen as a strategic threat. Art Dula’s work in the Isle of Man is a good model to follow.

    2. The important part of what I said comes before your quote. SpaceX wouldn’t be here without government help. Someday they wont need it but for now they do. And even after they are self sufficient enough to be able to thrive without government contracts, they will still have a relationship with the government.

      There is also a difference between NEED and need. Does the government NEED to be involved? No, but it needs to right now. And regardless of the need, it is already.

      I’m in favor of small government but not no government. I like what we are doing right now with COTS and CCDEV especially if government can help create the environment for these companies to survive on their own and open up new markets.

    1. Would smartphones? The question is absurd only because the answer is so obvious.

      When geezers national treasures lament that laser guns, flying cars and other 1950’s consumer dreams of the future never came to pass, I simply point-out that they can place the blame squarely on Moore’s Law. Hitching your wagon to that rocket meant RoI like history had never seen before, thus, that’s where the capital went.

    2. But would satellites and the launch industry exist? You could say yes but now or a hundred years from now? Maybe never?

      1. I would guess we would have dozens of independent firms with more capability than SpaceX today if the government had not been ‘the launch industry’ which reduces competition. Government ALWAYS reduces competition. The individual companies in the industry would have started smaller. TV and radio technology is developed on the ground. Once you’ve got that, the incentive to put satellites in orbit drives everything. With more companies competing, because the government isn’t competing them out of existence, you have more services being developed faster.

        1. Ken,

          Yes. The ‘at cost” launches NASA supplied to the comsat industry until Challenger were a major barrier to private firms developing launch vehicles. Ariane only emerged as a competitor because the French government bankrolled it and pushed European nations to use it as alternative to NASA.

  11. Long-time reader, first-time commenter. Love the blog.

    I’m not sure if it’s accurate to refer to Martin as a “British astrophysicist.” It’s technically true in the sense that he’s originally from the UK… and still speaks with that genteel accent. But he’s been a cornerstone of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (in the P.O.C. — People’s Republic of Cambridge, MA) for decades. He may even be a US citizen now.

    And he does have some fun with his famous surname… 🙂

  12. The more you think about it; the more you realize it’s the “you didn’t build that” argument. First they take your money with the threat of force. They spend it for political gain, not really caring what the money is spent on. They claiming it could not have been done without them.

    It’s time we all woke up from the media hypnotists.

  13. Interesting, an employee for a government organization calling for more government spending on space to open the space “frontier”.

    Really, the sooner we lose the American West analogy for space policy the better.

      1. Ken,

        If you want one look to the Polynesian model. When the local head cheese got too powerful the group which didn’t like the head cheese just loaded up the canoes and went over the horizon to find a new island to live on. That’s probably a lot better description of your mars model then the American West. No government funding or involvement and a one way trip.

        As for start space industry, you do have the example of Comsat which actually worked.

        1. If you want one look to the Polynesian model. When the local head cheese got too powerful the group which didn’t like the head cheese just loaded up the canoes and went over the horizon to find a new island to live on.

          I thought you were getting away from the American West analogy. That describes the Mormons to a tee and they weren’t the only ones.

          1. Karl,

            The Mormons are not a bad model. They didn’t want any government help. In fact just the opposite, they just wanted everyone, including the U.S. government to leave them alone.

          2. And yet the Mormons set up their own government. It looks like there really is no escaping it. Should you live on your own and make your own rules well guess what you are a dictator.

          3. Wodun,

            Yes, but it was their own government, not one imposed on them. A big difference.

            But I am curious, do you really think it would be possible for more that a few dozen folks to live in a community without some sort of governance?

        2. First off, wild west and frontier are not the same thing. Space is, unquestionably, a frontier. A frontier is by definition a place where government is not established to the degree of the non-frontier.

          Get away from the lawyers and debate society with all their ‘space is the common heritage of mankind’ bullshit and free people have room to make great things happen.

          1. Ken,

            Space is a frontier, but it has nothing in common with the American West which folks think of when they hear the term frontier.

          2. Space does have one thing in common with the wild west. Well, it will have once colonization starts for real. The colonies that are successful will look to themselves rather than any government.

            Sure, governments will be involved. I can easily see China sending cattle cars of colonists to overcome other colonies (proving their superior workers paradises of course. /sarc)

    1. And SpaceX would be in competition for Bigelow’s Aerospace’s America Prize and not a contractor for NASA.

  15. And what sort of society(s) would the Belters develop? Methinks there might be some good scientifiction there.

  16. jsallion,

    Four books of Ben Bova’s Grand Tour Series discuss the society of the Belters starting with “The Precipice – The Asteroid Wars Vol 1.

    Robert Heinlein also touched on it in the last part of his novel “The Rolling Stones.”

    L. Neil Smith’s Ngu Family Sagas are also set in an asteroid society.

    There are the one which come to mind first.

    1. Zubrin has the torchship design if the belters want it.

      Why is it always war? The solar system would need to be populated before war becomes likely.

      It’s like cop shows on TV. If we actually lived in what we see on cop shows every citizen would live in a fortress and be armed to the teeth.

      1. Ken,

        True. But if the novel was just about folks in the belt raising families while getting rich it would be boring to most readers.

    2. I tend to think of Niven’s Belters in his Known Space stories, and then Pournelle’s “Those Pesky Belters and Their Torch Ships” when I think of a Belter society.

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