New heavy lifter?

Dave O'Neill wrote:

Space development may well happen even if individuals can't afford to
get into space. I know that doesn't help Rand Simberg get into space,
but actual space related business and commerce is royally screwed if
it is utterly reliant on da reduction in costs to make it worthwhile.

and

I'm not sure that is the case, even if it is, it is irrevelent. You
cannot base business development on future cost reductions. You need
to find methods to make business work without them.

We weren't talking about "business." We were talking about space
development. In most peoples' minds, that involves humans in space, by
definition.

"Dave O'Neill" wrote in message
om...
I'm not sure that's quite fair. Based on the industry speculation
I've been seeing, the market for large GEO com sats is increasing
dramatically, and the current limits will not be particularly
acceptable for much longer.

There is more than one way to skin this cat. It may prove cheaper to launch
comsats that can be refueled during their lifetime than to launch them with
all their fuel. Such a fuel delivery system would be much lighter and
smaller than launching the comsat itself. Such a solution would not require
even bigger launch vehicles.

The push for bigger launch vehicles partially comes from the desire to run
the programs as they have *always* been run. Unfortunately, such an
attitude kills innovation and any chance of large reductions in operating
costs.

The trouble is, it's not a massive market. It probably will be
enouugh to fund continued development and maybe even a Ariane 6.
There are spin off uses, however, you could always go to the Russians
for some of this capability if it was that important.

In other words, the trend towards bigger launch vehicles is a symptom of the
larger problem which keeps the costs of comsats and their launch vehicles
high. Without any increase in luanch rate or real increase in the magnitude
of the number of comsats flying, costs will remain high.

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

Rand Simberg wrote:
Sander Vesik wrote:

no space development doesn't follow from no CATS - only no development
directly involving humans does.

What would be the point of that?

Why would humans not being involved in the construction of a SPS
substract anything from its usefulness?

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Sander Vesik wrote:

no space development doesn't follow from no CATS - only no development
directly involving humans does.

What would be the point of that?


Why would humans not being involved in the construction of a SPS
substract anything from its usefulness?

It wouldn't, but that's not space development in any conventional
understanding of the word.

Rand Simberg wrote:

There is at least one more reason: I can compare the cost per kg to
orbit to other existing launchers, and then decide if the launcher
is cheap or expensive. What would You compare the orbital tankfarm
too, if ISS is no applicable example?

I don't understand your question.

Suppose someone proposes to build a tankfarm, an orbital tug, or any other
piece of equipment for X USD. Are X USD cheap or not? How would You
decide this question, if You cannot compare a tug against another tug,
a tankfarm against a similar one?

Robert Kitzmueller

Robert Kitzmueller wrote:

There is at least one more reason: I can compare the cost per kg to
orbit to other existing launchers, and then decide if the launcher
is cheap or expensive. What would You compare the orbital tankfarm
too, if ISS is no applicable example?

I don't understand your question.


Suppose someone proposes to build a tankfarm, an orbital tug, or any other
piece of equipment for X USD. Are X USD cheap or not? How would You
decide this question, if You cannot compare a tug against another tug,
a tankfarm against a similar one?

There is no tankfarm, or space tug at ISS, so I still don't understand
why you think that ISS is relevant. There is nothing to compare these
things to, and pretending that ISS is comparable doesn't make it so.

I would do a bottoms up cost estimate as a function of cost of access to
orbit, and the design of the space system. But ISS would be utterly
irrelevant to this, since it was built under entirely different
assumptions for different purposes. Whatever you come up with, it will
be quite obvious whether it's cheaper than ISS, if that's for some
reason a figure of merit. And it would almost be guaranteed to be,
since the ISS is just about as expensive as it's possible to be.

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Robert Kitzmueller wrote:
There's nothing magic about a Delta IV upgrade that will automatically
give it commercial applications where a similarly-sized vehicle with a
different ancestry wouldn't have any.

The HLV version would not attract more customers than shuttle C, or
Energia, or whatever. It would run on the same assembly line, share
the same components, share part of the cost, with smaller versions
which are better suited for the commercial market.

Bear in mind, also, that a spacecraft design which is squeezed down to fit
on one launch of the smallest possible launcher will have trouble giving
you much more than "flags and footprints". A growth path is needed.

Must the very first model after a long wait be perfect in every way?
I would imagine that at first something like somewhat smaller prototypes
would make more sense. After some years You would like something bigger
and better, and then You could use the lessons learned at the first try
to make it really better, and maybe also cheaper.

Shuttle needed to be perfect the first try, and look what happened.
The US parts of ISS had no real precursor, and look what happens.

Robert Kitzmueller

Mike Atkinson wrote:

EOR, docking (not construction or fuel transfer) and ~20T modules
(propulsion and various payloads) seems a better way. No costly HLV
or orbital infrastructure. It is probably not as efficient from an
initial mass in LEO point of view and has more complex operations
than a single HLV, but it is more flexible and with multiple launcher
types (EELV, A5) is robust to launcher failures.

This proposal looks a lot more useful than Jeff Fousts Tankfarm
approach. Docking of 20t modules is no great leap into the unknown,
considering MIR and Salyut 7.

But why must the cap be at 20t? Commercial launchers get bigger and
cheaper, even if business is very cyclic. 2015 (the date named by GWB)
is far enough away that one more cycle could have happened, with
bigger launchers than now available desperatly looking for customers.
(Like NASAs moon mission). And since the Apollo craft was heavier than
necessary, a simple mission could be launched using something not much
bigger than commercial available - that is, in 2015-2020, not in 2004.

Robert Kitzmueller

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
news
Dave O'Neill wrote:

no space development doesn't follow from no CATS - only no development
directly involving humans does.

What would be the point of that?


From a business perspective there's enough to create a multi-billion
dollar industry. Imaging, weather, communications and so forth all
seem to be doing rather. MLV seems to be arriving as a consequence of
needing ever larger switches in GEO.

That's not what most people consider the "development" of space.

Really? And what do "most" people consider it?

And
we're already doing all of them.

Yes we are, and without CATS.

Dave

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
.net...
Dave O'Neill wrote:

Space development may well happen even if individuals can't afford to
get into space. I know that doesn't help Rand Simberg get into space,
but actual space related business and commerce is royally screwed if
it is utterly reliant on da reduction in costs to make it worthwhile.

and

I'm not sure that is the case, even if it is, it is irrevelent. You
cannot base business development on future cost reductions. You need
to find methods to make business work without them.

We weren't talking about "business." We were talking about space
development. In most peoples' minds, that involves humans in space, by
definition.

As we live in a capitalist culture, something I'm rather happy about. We
can't discuss these things without considering business.

If there was a business need to do it, then we'd do it.

If there's not, then there's a problem.

Dave