Cost of Space Travel

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has released a report of the costs
of Shuttle Operations. I have taken this from the 2009 figures -
there were five flights, cost per flight was $596.34 million each.
With a 24.4 metric ton payload this is a cost of $24.44 million per
metric ton. Where would a commercial entity cut costs?

Total Space Shuttle: $2,981.7 million

Flight and Ground Operations: $1,031.2 million
Launch & Landing: $705.5
Landing Operations $ 4.0
Mission Operations: $236.5
Flight Crew Operations: $87.6
Space & Life Sciences: $12.6
Transition: $2.0

Flight Hardwa $1,460.9 million
Orbiter: $459.1
EVA: 0.2
ET: $253.6
RSRM: $301.6
SSME: $193.8
SRB: $ 154.1
SSC Test: $30.0
Transition: $85.8

Program Integration: $489.6 million
System Engineering & Integration: $74.0
Safety and Mission Assurance: $54.8
Flight Softwa $100.9
Flight Operations & Integration: $54.8
Space Shuttle Propulsion Systems Integration: $16.6
Construction of Facilities: -
Safety & Sustainability: -
Mission Directorate Support: $12.2
Contract Administration: $25.5
Closed Accounts: $1.0
Transition: $1.5
Severance: $40.3

Here are some courses that introduce core costing concepts and apply
them to aerospace systems;

6.83J Space Systems Engineering
______
Undergrad (Spring)
(Same subject as 12.43J)
Prereq: Permission of department
Units: 3-3-6
Add to schedule Lectu T3-5 (35-225) Lab: F1-3 (35-225)
______
Design of a complete space system, including systems analysis,
trajectory analysis, entry dynamics, propulsion and power systems,
structural design, avionics, thermal and environmental control, human
factors, support systems, and weight and cost estimates. Students
participate in teams, each responsible for an integrated vehicle
design, providing experience in project organization and interaction
between disciplines. Includes several aspects of team communication
including three formal presentations, informal progress reports,
colleague assessments, and written reports. Every other year, 16.83 is
the first term in the three-term capstone subject, followed by 16.831
and 16.832. Can be taken alone.
D. L. Miller, S. Seager


16.866J Cost Estimation and Measurement Systems
______
Graduate (Fall) H-Level Grad Credit
(Same subject as ESD.361J)
Prereq: ESD.301 or a basic understanding of statistics and permission
of instructor
Units: 3-0-6
______
Focuses on principals of cost estimation and measurement systems with
specific emphasis on parametric models. Theories from the fields of
hardware, software, systems engineering, Systems of Systems, and
enterprise science will be applied to a variety of contexts (i.e.,
aerospace, IT, manufacturing). Material is divided into five major
sections: cost estimation fundamentals, parametric model development
calibration, economic principles, measurement systems, and government/
policy issues.
R. Valerdi


To design and build a rocket system from scratch costs between $5
million and $30 million per metric ton. Which is pretty much the cost
of what it takes to put something on orbit.

In a nutshell, what you do is figure out what the total structural
fraction is - how many tons - for a given vehicle - and then multiply
it by the estimated range of numbers from $5 to $30 million based on a
number of factors (maturity of the technology, overall size of the
system, overall production volume, etc.)

Different systems have different costs as well. Tankage, engine,
empennage, etc.

One way to reduce cost is to build commodity items - like MEMS rocket
arrays - and standardize on them to achieve missions. You can see the
Shuttle doesn't do this. In fact, there is a resistance to do this
since it adversely impacts the standing army of men and women that
work to keep the Shuttle flying.

This paper describes what might be possible;

http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyM...V2005_3650.pdf

At 50 pounds per square inch and $10 per square inch for MEMS rockets,
and 1,000 to 1 thrust to weight - A metric ton of lift costs $440 and
the device itself weighs only 2.2 pounds! It is also highly
efficient, reliable, controllable, and so forth.

I have developed a technique to use HDTV control methodology to
control the direction as well as the amount of thrust a 'propulsive
surface' produces

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzXwctPXT4c

WIth this sort of performance (and appropriate attention paid to MEMS
based and Micro-based pumps and piping) structural fractions as low as
5% are obtained.

A 1,000 ton engine set forms a disk that spans 7 meters (22 ft) and
lifts 720 tons take off weight vehicle that weighs 40 tons empty. The
cost of the vehicle at $10 million per ton is $400 million. Reused
1,000 times costs pe rlaunch is $400,000, 680 tons at $100 per ton for
cryogens is another $68,000 - operating costs less than $500,000 -
total cost less than $1 million per launch. $1 billion for 1,000
launches - including vehicle purchase.

The payload is 59.79 tons using hyrogen oxygen - more than double the
space shuttle. The vehicle comes back and lands under rocket power
like the DC-X making good use of the MEMS technology.

Five vehicles would put nearly 300,000 tons into orbit over 1,000
launches for less than $5 billion.

Even in large scale production the payload itself would cost $5
million per kg. So, each launch would cost $30 million on that
basis.

A fleet of five vehicles launched one every other day would produce 15
launches per month and have a 10 day turn-around per vehicle. Total
cost $465 million per month - the same cost as a single space shuttle
launch.

On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:03:28 -0800 (PST), William Mook
wrote:

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has released a report of the costs
of Shuttle Operations. I have taken this from the 2009 figures -
there were five flights, cost per flight was $596.34 million each.
With a 24.4 metric ton payload this is a cost of $24.44 million per
metric ton. Where would a commercial entity cut costs?

Total Space Shuttle: $2,981.7 million

You probably need to add the "Space and Flight Support" part of the
Space Operations budget, too, although how to divide that between
Shuttle and ISS is a problem.

Brian

On 17 Feb, 23:03, William Mook wrote:
The General Accounting Office (GAO) has released a report of the costs
of Shuttle Operations. *I have taken this from the 2009 figures -
there were five flights, cost per flight was $596.34 million each.
With a 24.4 metric ton payload this is a cost of $24.44 million per
metric ton. *Where would a commercial entity cut costs?


very interesting post

about the "commercial cargo" to ISS, the calculation of its price-per-
ton is very easy...

COTS funds paid by NASA: $500M

COTS funds paid by investors: $500M

COTS extra-funds from 2011: $300M

SpaceX+Orbital CRS program: $3500M

TOTAL funds for R&D and ISS services: $4800M

TOTAL cargo delivered to the ISS by COTS/CRS contractors: 40 tons

price-per-ton of cargo carried to the ISS by SpaceX and Orbital:
$4800M / 40 tons = $120M per ton

that's about four-five times the price of the Space Shuttle

also, the Shuttle carries 6-7 astronauts to the ISS at every flight,
that, in "Soyuz seats costs" is a money saving around $300-350M for
each Shuttle flight

so, if we consider the saving in "Soyuz seats", the real price-per-ton
of each Shuttle flight's cargo is LESS than HALF the (already low)
costs calculated above...

everything as already explained in this article:

http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts2/061comparison.html

..

I give up....

Tell you what 'G' why don't you start a program for private investors
to take over operation of the shuttle if it's such a bargain?

Dave

On Feb 18, 8:40*pm, David Spain wrote:
I give up....

Tell you what 'G' why don't you start a program for private investors
to take over operation of the shuttle if it's such a bargain?

Dave

Sorry, but that's strictly reserved for William Mook and myself,
although I'd have no problems with the gaetanomarano think-tank and
its subsequent R&D responsibilities. My primary job would pertain to
tranquillizing Mook from time to time, plus having a commercial stun-
gun handy whenever Mook is allowed to be active.

~ BG

On Feb 18, 11:40*pm, David Spain wrote:
I give up....

Tell you what 'G' why don't you start a program for private investors
to take over operation of the shuttle if it's such a bargain?

Dave

If you look at Boeing and Lockheed 10K and 10Q you can see that their
space operations are money losers while their primary actvities - of
building aircraft and missile systems - are money makers. So, if you
buy Boeing, split off the space operations from the commercial
aircraft operations, and sell the commercial aircraft operations - you
can actually make about $8 billion.

If you had a commercial use for the space faring component, this would
be a way to get it funded.

The simplest approach would be to build a network of satellites in
polar orbit that created a global wireless hotspot, that made $80
billion or more in revenue each year.

Then, power sats.

Then, asteroid capture.

and so forth.

David Spain writes:
3G and beyond systems are well beyond what is doable via satellite today,

I need to qualify that statement.

Of course satellites can supply raw bandwidth at higher rates than 3G towers
today. However, the trick is how to share that bandwidth amongst a large
number of subscribers. Existing Ku band systems in GEO use CONUS style
transponders, which means they share bandwidth across *all* ground stations
within their range. It's like a giant party line, or if you like one big cable
loop among all the subscribers nationally. Typically to make these systems pay,
the sat. provider must oversubscribe. This isn't a problem until everyone gets on
at the same time which is typically what happens during the hours of
4pm-10pm. During these times service crawls to a snail's pace (equiv. to an
old style dial-up line).

The newer Ka systems use 'spot-beam' technology which allows transponder
freq. reuse between zones that lie outside the coverage 'spot'. This allows
better sharing than CONUS and even allows for sat-to-sat relay, but so far
there are only a handful[1] of these sats on-station and as more subscribers
are forced migrate to these new systems from the more plentiful legacy Ku
systems (which are largely leased, hence the move) it is unclear that service
will not degrade to the same degree on the Ka systems as they become grossly
oversubscribed as well.

That is what exists today. Of course Mr. Mook was proposing LEO sats in polar
orbit. A start-up company was founded in the early 90's to do just that
(Teledesic). But it would appear the NRE costs to get to orbit, the prior
commercial failures of Iridium and Globalstar and the fact that by the time
the system would come on-line similar if not better performing systems would
already be available to celluar customers, forced Teledesic to suspend
construction work on their system on October 1, 2002.

http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Teledesic

I see no evidence that the business case has improved.

Dave

[1] IIRC: Hughesnet, the largest satellite internet provider today, was
originally to have 2 of these on-station. But because the business case
for HD sat TV was far stronger than for sat internet, the first two of
these Ka birds, SPACEWAY 1 & 2, were sold to DirecTV. On August 14 2007,
the first Hughesnet Ka bird to provide sat internet, SPACEWAY 3, was
launched and later placed into service on April 8, 2008. The nearest Ka
competitor, WildBlue has 2 Ka birds on station. Actual delivered service
has never lived up to the promise:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/show...FAP-Caps-97011
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/H...In-2012-103034
http://www.bbb.org/denver/business-r...age-co-9036631

On Feb 21, 5:54*pm, David Spain wrote:
David Spain writes:
3G and beyond systems are well beyond what is doable via satellite today,

I need to qualify that statement.

Of course satellites can supply raw bandwidth at higher rates than 3G towers
today. However, the trick is how to share that bandwidth amongst a large
number of subscribers. Existing Ku band systems in GEO use CONUS style
transponders, which means they share bandwidth across *all* ground stations
within their range. It's like a giant party line, or if you like one big cable
loop among all the subscribers nationally. Typically to make these systems pay,
the sat. provider must oversubscribe. This isn't a problem until everyone gets on
at the same time which is typically what happens during the hours of
4pm-10pm. During these times service crawls to a snail's pace (equiv. to an
old style dial-up line).

The newer Ka systems use 'spot-beam' technology which allows transponder
freq. reuse between zones that lie outside the coverage 'spot'. This allows
better sharing than CONUS and even allows for sat-to-sat relay, but so far
there are only a handful[1] of these sats on-station and as more subscribers
are forced migrate to these new systems from the more plentiful legacy Ku
systems (which are largely leased, hence the move) it is unclear that service
will not degrade to the same degree on the Ka systems as they become grossly
oversubscribed as well.

That is what exists today. Of course Mr. Mook was proposing LEO sats in polar
orbit. A start-up company was founded in the early 90's to do just that
(Teledesic). But it would appear the NRE costs to get to orbit, the prior
commercial failures of Iridium and Globalstar and the fact that by the time
the system would come on-line similar if not better performing systems would
already be available to celluar customers, forced Teledesic to suspend
construction work on their system on October 1, 2002.

http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Teledesic

I see no evidence that the business case has improved.

Dave

[1] IIRC: Hughesnet, the largest satellite internet provider today, was
* * originally to have 2 of these on-station. But because the business case
* * for HD sat TV was far stronger than for sat internet, the first two of
* * these Ka birds, SPACEWAY 1 & 2, were sold to DirecTV. On August 14 2007,
* * the first Hughesnet Ka bird to provide sat internet, SPACEWAY 3, was
* * launched and later placed into service on April 8, 2008. The nearest Ka
* * competitor, WildBlue has 2 Ka birds on station. Actual delivered service
* * has never lived up to the promise:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/show...ess-providers/...

A global ISP network of robotic airships cruising nearly effortlessly
at 5075,000 feet would have been the solution as of a decade ago, as
well as right now and into the foreseeable future. Most of us would
never be more than 100,000 feet away from any given node, and others
might be isolated by 150,000 foot distance unless you're talking
Arctic/Antarctic locations that could conceivably be 300,000 foot.

~ BG

The limitations of CONUS and other aspects are absolutely correct.

However, I have developed a technique using circularly polarized
phased array antenna that paints a doppler corrected array of surface
stationary virtual towers across the surface of the Earth. Each
satellite acts like a dynamic router to these virtual cells. Each
satellite also has six open optical links at 20 THz to nearest
neighbor satellites in the network. Each 20 ton satellite therefore
is capable of connecting with a large number IEEE 802.11y *type*
chipsets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11y

864 satellite neetwork consisting of 24 satellites in each of 36
orbital planes - each satellite weighs 20 metric tons. These fly in
sun-synch polar orbits and provide broadband coverage for the whole
planet - supporting 50 billion broadband channels simultaneously.

The project I envision entails the development of a spacecraft capable
of putting 1,000 tons into LEO. (and 480 tons plus propellant for
positioning maneuvers into SSPO)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/24390383/mokaerospace-3

A fleet of five of these vehicles are capable of putting up 3
collections of 24 per month - populating the entire network in 12
months.

US News and World Report estimated the revenue possible for such a
Teledesic network, which is far smaller, to exceed $85 billion per
year.

With greater bandwidth and lower power requirements (we have what
amounts to a radio telescope on orbit with a very sophisticated FFT
analyzer on board) we provide more capability for less money - which
everyone likes.

Basically, every single cell phone, lap top, HDTV screen would be
equipped with a broadband chipset for $10 - and charge $1 per month to
activate it. Sales of hardware would earn $20 billion per year, sales
of basic services would earn another $65 billion per year.

$85 billion per year over the 20 year life of the satellite network is
worth $937 billion - when discounted at 6.5% - with usual price of
living increases the network is worth $1.4 trillion the day its
switched on.

When you communicate EVERYWHERE it doesn't matter where you are and
where you are not.

Also, having the ability to communicate everywhere gives you the
ability to DEVELOP EMERGING MARKETS CHEAPLY.

So, you can have massive increases in service.

Here are some possibilities;

(1) Provide builders - Chinese or Indian - of satellites and handsets
- with bandwidth as partial compensation for services. Giving China
1 billion channels free of charge for 20 years - is worth $240 billion
- and helps develop the information infrastructure in that nation -
and gets our handsets and hardware for nearly free.

(2) Develop new services on the backbone you've erected. This
includes
(a) banking services - $1 trillion per year earned here -
microbanking
(b) mediation services - $1 trillion per year earned here -
microlegal
(c) insurance services - $1 trillion per year earned here -
microinsure

(3) Develop new technologies around the backbone you've erected.
(a) Virtural Tourism - to the 1 billion wealthy - $200 billion/yr
(b) Tele-robotic workers - to the 3 billion under employed - $20
trillion/yr

The fleet of five vehicles is also capable of providing tourism to the
moon, and establishing a village on the moon and an outpost on Mars,
while also orbiting solar power satellites.

The fleet and launch infrastructure will cost $27.2 billion to build
and operate the satellites will mass 17,280 metric tons. At $10
million per metric ton the satellite network will cost $172.8
billion. The total $200.0 billion.

A five year program will cost; with launches in the last year

$1,325 billions value at switch on

Annual Return at 40% ROI
COST AT STARTUP
billions billions

$20 $108 YEAR 1
$30 $115 YEAR 2
$40 $110 YEAR 3
$50 $ 98 YEAR 4
$60 $ 84 YEAR 5

$200 $515 TOTALS

38.83% OWNERSHIP OF REVENUE

So, the way this would work is a sponsor would organize the core
technology and vision, and jump through all the regulatory hoops, and
as they proceeded would sell interests in the revenue generated by the
asset they built owned and operated.

And this is the value based on the basic service to the 2 billion well-
heeled folks around the world. Added value is created by the value
added services mentioned, and success with the first step, provides
the revenue for other steps (including power satellites, space
tourism, lunar cities and mars outposts)

So, this is definitely doable - once the basic financial and
regulatory structure is setup around the improved technology I've
developed.

David Spain said, "Problem is that in the most affluent areas that
would actually subscribe, "

William Mook replies;

The world is rich enough to subscribe generally. Average global
income is $10,350 per person per year.

RANK INCOME PEOPLE SERVICE PACKAGE

Low income: $1,407 1.5 billion $1/year - 2 MHz - $20
handset
Middle income: $6,157 3.8 billion $1/month - 10 MHz - $200
netbook
High income: $37,141 1.5 billion $12/month - 60 MHz - $2000
laptop

With 33% market penetration $85 billion per year is earned.

There is also an advantage to global penetration in that there is a
seamless path to growth worldwide.

David Spain writes; "Of course Mr. Mook was proposing LEO sats in
polar
orbit. A start-up company was founded in the early 90's to do just
that
(Teledesic). But it would appear the NRE costs to get to orbit, the
prior
commercial failures of Iridium and Globalstar and the fact that by the
time
the system would come on-line similar if not better performing systems
would
already be available to celluar customers, forced Teledesic to suspend
construction work on their system on October 1, 2002. "

Mook replies:

There is a natural progression in capabilities from

(1) point to point communications (Telstar),
(2) one to many satellites (DirecTV and Sirius),
(3) many to many (Teledesic, Iridium)

Time to market and cost of space access is important. I spoke with
Craig McCaw about this back in 1995. I said that he needed to spend
as much developing low cost space launch as he did satellites. He
disagreed. He thought that

(a) adding space launch development to his tasks multiplied risks;
and
(b) delayed development; and
(c) increasing demand for launch would lower cost of expendable
vehicles

I pointed out that increasing demand for expendables would raise costs
since all commercial costs were subsidized heavily and demanding more
launch capability than subsidies would support mean rising costs with
rising volume, not falling costs.

Time to market is very important. This is part of what killed
Iridium. Also, redesigning satellites to fit on available launchers,
reduced capabilities. Finally, rising costs meant very high priced
services.

The ONLY way to make this natural next step in communications work is
to develop a commercial launcher of adequate size, get it flying, and
THEN design the best available satellite network.

The way to do that is to build a large RLV for space tourism, and then
use it to launch your satellite network - once development is paid for
by the tourists.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/24390383/mokaerospace-3