New Essay On Space Policy

I've have a long essay in this quarter's issue of The New Atlantis, in
which I discuss the myths of the old space age.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/simberg.htm

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
I've have a long essay in this quarter's issue of The New Atlantis, in
which I discuss the myths of the old space age.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/simberg.htm


Nice, though one point I do question is your emphasis on reusability.
Is this not picking winners? Can the market not decide this for itself?
I suppose the suborbital tourist market tends to imply reusability,
though there are other initial markets where reusability may not be so
optimal.

Personally I favour an even greater emphasis on flight rate and open
organic type grass roots competition. Within the current limited market
size, (which will not suddenly grow by many orders of magnitude
overnight), it would be nice to be able to facilitate a smaller vehicle
size. One which might sustain considerably higher launch rates even
while starting from the current existing small market, though growing
sustainably with it over time.

Even now I see the Falcon development path leading on to the Falcon
five. Where does launcher growth end? Space X is being sucked into the
old ways. Given the opportunity, everyone seems to opt for bigger
vehicles instead of higher flight rates. The existing launcher paradigm
has created the existing market paradigm which is corrupting new launch
initiatives back into the old launcher paradigm, it is a vicious circle.
To break out of this I am wondering if on orbit assembly is actually the
critical first step to high flight rates, and thereby CATS. Launcher
growth prevents high flight rates. I suspect CATS might only grow from
a market that discourages launcher growth.

Pete.

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 14:38:37 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pete
Lynn made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
.. .
I've have a long essay in this quarter's issue of The New Atlantis, in
which I discuss the myths of the old space age.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/simberg.htm


Nice, though one point I do question is your emphasis on reusability.
Is this not picking winners?

Yes.

Can the market not decide this for itself?

Sure, but my opinion is that we won't get costs low enough for
tourists if we throw the vehicle away. If we don't get them low
enough for tourists, we won't get them low enough to open up space (or
have an "affordable" and "sustainable" VSE).

To break out of this I am wondering if on orbit assembly is actually the
critical first step to high flight rates, and thereby CATS.

It may be, for orbital launchers.

Launcher
growth prevents high flight rates. I suspect CATS might only grow from
a market that discourages launcher growth.

That may be the case, which is another reason I oppose heavy lift.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message .. .

Sure, but my opinion is that we won't get costs low enough for
tourists if we throw the vehicle away. If we don't get them low
enough for tourists, we won't get them low enough to open up space (or
have an "affordable" and "sustainable" VSE).

IMHO the major advantage of reusability is reduced testing costs and
that is about it. If in addition the vehicle can non-destructively be
recovered in most fault conditions, you can also do incremental testing
and development. Material costs are a very small part of the equation.
Aluminum is cheap.

Mass production of vehicles would also reduce costs, since you could test
a small sample per lot instead of testing every simple part and vehicle.
It would also justify expending more resources on machinery, etc.
This applies to both expendable (e.g. missiles) and reusable (e.g. cars)
vehicles.

Launcher
growth prevents high flight rates. I suspect CATS might only grow from
a market that discourages launcher growth.

That may be the case, which is another reason I oppose heavy lift.

I 100% agree on this point.

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 15:54:16 -0500, in a place far, far away,
(quasarstrider) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote in message .. .

Sure, but my opinion is that we won't get costs low enough for
tourists if we throw the vehicle away. If we don't get them low
enough for tourists, we won't get them low enough to open up space (or
have an "affordable" and "sustainable" VSE).

IMHO the major advantage of reusability is reduced testing costs and
that is about it.

No, there's much more advantage than that. Like not having to build a
new vehicle for each flight...

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 15:54:16 -0500, in a place far, far away,
(quasarstrider) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote in message .. .

Sure, but my opinion is that we won't get costs low enough for
tourists if we throw the vehicle away. If we don't get them low
enough for tourists, we won't get them low enough to open up space (or
have an "affordable" and "sustainable" VSE).

IMHO the major advantage of reusability is reduced testing costs and
that is about it.

No, there's much more advantage than that. Like not having to build a
new vehicle for each flight...

The two are related, as you undoubtedly know. I think
the effect on development costs is less understood, however.
IMO, the Econ cost model that killed Phase A space shuttle
designs was flawed in not recognizing the benefits of
reusablility and the possibility of incremental flight
testing. Expending during development leads to hand-wringing,
crucial tests that tends to add greatly to development costs.
The impact on operational costs is more obvious.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
(change x to len)
http://www.tour2space.com

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
I've have a long essay in this quarter's issue of The New Atlantis, in
which I discuss the myths of the old space age.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/simberg.htm

This is a good summary of Rand's position on the economics of space flight.
It's obviously too short for him to go into specifics (e.g. graphs showing
the per flight cost of different types of designs as a function of flight
rate).

Instead, we have the tired old analogy of comparing space flight with air
travel. Everyone has their own take on the specifics of this analogy and
how this analogy really applies to space. Rand concentrates on flight rate,
not on technology. This makes some sense as the technology in air travel
has changed dramatically over time (from piston engines on wooden, cloth
covered, open air bodies to high bypass turbofan jet engines bolted to
pressurized bodies made of aluminum alloy and composites.

In other words, air travel has long been a very active, profitable,
industry, long before today's technologically mature passenger jet aircraft
came into being.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

Jeff Findley wrote:



This is a good summary of Rand's position on the economics of space flight.
It's obviously too short for him to go into specifics (e.g. graphs showing
the per flight cost of different types of designs as a function of flight
rate).

Instead, we have the tired old analogy of comparing space flight with air
travel. Everyone has their own take on the specifics of this analogy and
how this analogy really applies to space. Rand concentrates on flight rate,
not on technology. This makes some sense as the technology in air travel
has changed dramatically over time (from piston engines on wooden, cloth
covered, open air bodies to high bypass turbofan jet engines bolted to
pressurized bodies made of aluminum alloy and composites.

In other words, air travel has long been a very active, profitable,
industry, long before today's technologically mature passenger jet aircraft
came into being.


Another problem is with his call for abrogation of the 1967 Outer Space
Treaty...one loopy sidelight of that would be that a country's airspace
could continue up into outer space (this has already been somewhat done
with the comsat positioning spaces in GEO.) and in theory you would need
a country's permission to have your satellite pass over it, or the
country it was passing over would have the right to destroy it. That was
one of the early legal concerns that space law faced back in the late
50's; by letting Sputnik fly over the U.S. unopposed, the U.S. set a
legal precedent that would pay big dividends when the era of the
reconnaissance satellites arrived, as was pointed out in the book "The
Heavens And The Earth".
Rand's idea seems to be to let the government set financial rewards for
individuals and corporations to develop private spaceflight into a
workable form- if we are going to go with a nice free-market approach,
then let's free the private side of the equation from the threat of
_all_ government interference....by having it do whatever it wants to do
all on its own.

Pat

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:16:13 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Another problem is with his call for abrogation of the 1967 Outer Space
Treaty

Not abrogation--withdrawal or renegotiation.

...one loopy sidelight of that would be that a country's airspace
could continue up into outer space

No, as you say, overflight was accepted in 1957. If the OST was
needed to resolve this issue, how did we manage for a decade without
it? And even if it were a problem, it could be handled in the
renegotiation.

Rand's idea seems to be to let the government set financial rewards for
individuals and corporations to develop private spaceflight into a
workable form- if we are going to go with a nice free-market approach,
then let's free the private side of the equation from the threat of
_all_ government interference....by having it do whatever it wants to do
all on its own.

What's your point?

Rand Simberg wrote:




...one loopy sidelight of that would be that a country's airspace
could continue up into outer space



No, as you say, overflight was accepted in 1957. If the OST was
needed to resolve this issue, how did we manage for a decade without
it? And even if it were a problem, it could be handled in the
renegotiation.


I was digging around on Fortean Times breaking news and ran into this:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3028490a11,00.html
It appears that the Maori have gotten an early foot into the space
ownership concept. :-D




Rand's idea seems to be to let the government set financial rewards for
individuals and corporations to develop private spaceflight into a
workable form- if we are going to go with a nice free-market approach,
then let's free the private side of the equation from the threat of
_all_ government interference....by having it do whatever it wants to do
all on its own.



What's your point?


To prevent the danger of creeping socialism ;-) , it would be best if
business were to develop any private spaceflight capability by its own
means, rather than an influx of public money...Burt Rutan made a
spaceship on his own, Bill Gates could certainly develop a privately
financed space access capability if he thought it was a good idea (hell,
Gates could probably finance his own manned Mars expedition if he felt
like it.), but I have doubts about the concept that we will develop this
new technology of large-scale space access, and then it will develop
into a worthwhile and profitable industry all on its own.
About the only thing that might have a near-term economic impact that
can be done in LEO over the next ten or twenty years would be large
scale solar power satellites. The amount of weight that would have to
carried to orbit to build those would require large, not small, carrier
vehicles of the type you seem to favor... or are the Moon and Mars in
the scenario you propose?

Pat