When will we be able to afford space settlement?

"Leonard Robinson" wrote in message news:vx%gc.171851$K91.435121@attbi_s02...
Mea culpa, James; I am falling over myself in American Patriotism and
wanting OPEC to be no more important than the prices of the food in the
Baghdad Bazaar.

Still, though, I would love to see the gas prices fall because the OPEC are
trying to undercut Space Solar Power.

Let's black box the power supply for the moment. Let's say I find
myself with the plans for Black Box, an electric power-generator that
would cost multiple billions to develop and deploy.

So I attract investors to my plan, and we start construction. By the
end of the construction cycle, we've invested, reasonably, $75 billion
in the creation of the power-generating system. At last, we're fully
ready to supply power to customers.

So we set our prices at 10 percent below the current electric cost.
Potential customers start talking to us. Their current suppliers
agree to match our rates for the foresable future, even if that means
they take a loss until they drive us out of business. So we have to
cut our rates down to a rate they cannot match. But we have billions
in investment to recoup. We have to make bond payments or we lose our
company. So there's a limit to how low we can bring our costs.

It's a very, very tricky balance, and has less to do with where the
system is - whether it's and SPS or anything else - than how much it
costs to develop and deploy.

(John Ordover) wrote in message om...
h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message .. .
On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 19:39:19 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Paul F.
Dietz" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

John Ordover wrote:

What product will that be, exactly?

Climate modification.

Freedom.

Freedom isn't free. And you can't sell it.

Yes and no. Freedom isn't free but, per the scenario, the opportunity
for freedom could be sold at $100/lb.

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Alex Terrell wrote:

Initially, it would do so, but the long run marginal cost of SSP is
likely to be very, very cheap - cheap enough to enable a hydrogen
economy.

At least, cheap enough at today's oil prices, though the arrival of 25
TW of SSP capacity would probably push oil down towards $5 per barrel.
Then it becomes a tax / policy question - Do you want your economy to
be dependend on SPS from giant corporations, or from nice friendly
Arab states?

SPS cannot replace oil now or in the foreseeable future. It would have
to deliver electricity at costs well below today's wholesale rates
in order for electrolytic hydrogen to begin to be competitive with
hydrogen produced from fossil fuels.

Now, you can handwave arbitrary cost reductions with far future
technology, but that's true of the competitors to SPS also, including
the technology for fossil fuel extraction.

Take heart, spacefans: it may be a long time before SPS are *cheap*, but
within our lifetimes they will become necessary, and so they will be built.

The matter of a "hydrogen" economy is entirely separate. We have a
"hydrogen" economy now for almost all forms of transport because the best
way to store and deliver hydrogen is in the form of liquid hydrocarbons.
That will remain the case for some time; it hardly matters that the liquid
hydrocarbons used will be made artificially instead of derived from
petroleum.

(John Ordover) wrote in message . com...
(Vincent Cate) wrote in message . com...
The initial investment should be less than 1 billion. This gets you
a suborbital RLV and a tether with a 4,000 Kg capacity. With this
you can start making money and building the hotel. As you get more
rooms in the hotel people, you can let people stay in space longer.

That's wildly optimistic. Even the testing and deploying of the
equipment will cost multiple billions.

Our suborbital RLV is about like the first stage of the Falcon-I.
I think the SpaceX budget is closer to $100 mil than multiple billions,
and that is for 2 stages on the Falcon-I and also the new Falcon-V.
The suborbital 4,000 Kg payload we are talking about is much easier
than something like 65,000 lbs to orbit the shuttle does.

We are talking lots of suborbital launches of 4,000 Kg at a time
that go to tether.

And what about the constant need for repair and replacement?

In http://spacetethers.com/calculations/DesignBuild.xls
We used for our RLV (we say SSTT for Single Stage To Tether):

SSTT Development $100,000,000
Build fleet of 10 SSTTs $100,000,000
SSTT investment $200,000,000

Cost of Capital per day at 20%/year $109,589

Fuel cost per flight of $19,096
Flight overhead, (1% of build) $100,000
Incremental costs/flight of about $120,000

So depending on how many flights per day the capital costs are
spread over, you can get different costs per flight. This and
how loaded the flights are gives you the 3rd graph in:

http://spacetethers.com/cc1.bootstrapping.html

A Falcon-I sells for $6 million. We only need something the size
of the first stage. So our $10 mil cost each after $100 mil
development seems reasonable.

The tether should last very well. It will be a design like the
HoytTether that can get local damage without failing (more like
a net than a simple rope). So this is a development and launch
cost, but at a high flight rate will not hurt the per flight
cost all that much.

So at 14 flights per day the cost/flight (including capital) is
about $130,000. With ten people each paying $50,000 we are looking
at a total revenue of $500,000/flight. Out of this you also have
overheads like employees selling tickets etc. But it should be
profitable.

While our numbers are just estimates, and may not be right,
I don't think they are "wildly optimistic". However, we won't
know for sure until someone builds it.

But what parts of our numbers would you argue with most? Like
the $10 mil each to product the RLV? Or the 1% of initial
cost as maintenance each flight? Or the interest rate of 20%?
Or the flight rate of 14 per day with 10 ships? Things are
in a spreadsheet, so it is easy to tweak the numbers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vincent Cate Space Tether Enthusiast
http://spacetethers.com/
Anguilla, East Caribbean http://offshore.ai/vince
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it
happen the way you want to take it. - German Proverb

"Richard Schumacher" wrote in message
...
....
Take heart, spacefans: it may be a long time before SPS are *cheap*, but
within our lifetimes they will become necessary, and so they will be
built.

But Richard, they only become necessary if they also become cheap. The
current high price implies that they, and the power they might generate, are
the exclusive property of the absurdly rich. You don't get that night light
after all.

On 20 Apr 2004 04:25:11 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Bill Bogen) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

What product will that be, exactly?

Climate modification.

Freedom.

Freedom isn't free. And you can't sell it.

Yes and no. Freedom isn't free but, per the scenario, the opportunity
for freedom could be sold at $100/lb.

Once again, Ordover displays his ongoing profound idiocy. First he
says that freedom isn't free, which is beside the point, because we
were talking about products, not free services.

And of course, freedom is purchased all the time, whether by buying a
ticket from Shanghai to Los Angeles, or paying a coyote to get you
across a border. Sometimes the cost is in blood, and an opportunity
to purchase it less dearly would be welcomed by many.

Joe Strout wrote in message ...
It would really be helpful if you would be more specific when talking
about a rotating tether (perhaps even use the term "rotovator"), since
otherwise "space tether" means a ground-to-GEO space elevator to many
readers.

I don't actually require a rotating tether. A "hanging tether"
(sometimes called a "hypersonic skyhook") that was not ground-
to-GEO could work too. This requires a much longer tether,
but not far heavier. I don't think it is as easy to dodge
space junk with a hanging tether. A rotating tether can sort of
pull its arms in/out and spin faster/slower so the arms are not
at a place where junk is going to be. Anyway, the more generic
"space tether" seems to me what I mean.

Also, these days the ground-to-GEO seems to be called a "space elevator"
most of the time, though you still hear "beanstalk" sometimes. I don't
think I have seen people call it a "space tether". And if someone does,
I think you should ask them to stop. :-) I think we should always
use "space elevator" for this thing that requires materials we don't
yet have, and "space tether" for anything we could actually build.
If some day we have carbon-nanotubes that let us really build
a "space elevator" then it would become ok to call it a "space tether". :-)

-- Vince

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 15:15:16 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On 20 Apr 2004 04:25:11 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Bill Bogen) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

What product will that be, exactly?

Climate modification.

Freedom.

Freedom isn't free. And you can't sell it.

Yes and no. Freedom isn't free but, per the scenario, the opportunity
for freedom could be sold at $100/lb.

Once again, Ordover displays his ongoing profound idiocy. First he
says that freedom isn't free, which is beside the point, because we
were talking about products, not free services.

Even our Founding Fathers knew that the freedom isn't free. The price
of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Besides which, Bill Bogen wrote this, not John Ordover. And they're
both correct. Freedom isn't a service, it's a right, but getting
someone somewhere to exercise that right is a service (not an
entitlement).

And of course, freedom is purchased all the time, whether by buying a
ticket from Shanghai to Los Angeles, or paying a coyote to get you
across a border. Sometimes the cost is in blood, and an opportunity
to purchase it less dearly would be welcomed by many.

No, this is just buying the opportunity for freedom. Buying a ticket
or paying a coyote to get to a country that offers freedom (under
certain conditions) is not buying freedom.

For example, being met at the other end by the Border Patrol, loaded
onto a bus, and returned to Mexico puts you back where you were, only
without the money you paid the coyote. You didn't buy freedom from
the coyote, you bought a chance at it. Crossing the border doesn't
magically bestow freedom on everyone or La Migra would never have been
created.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 09:08:53 -0700, in a place far, far away, Mary
Shafer made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 15:15:16 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On 20 Apr 2004 04:25:11 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Bill Bogen) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

What product will that be, exactly?

Climate modification.

Freedom.

Freedom isn't free. And you can't sell it.

Yes and no. Freedom isn't free but, per the scenario, the opportunity
for freedom could be sold at $100/lb.

Once again, Ordover displays his ongoing profound idiocy. First he
says that freedom isn't free, which is beside the point, because we
were talking about products, not free services.

Even our Founding Fathers knew that the freedom isn't free. The price
of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Besides which, Bill Bogen wrote this, not John Ordover.

No, Ordover wrote it, but since he's in my killfile, I saw it in
Bogen's post.

(John Ordover) wrote in message . com...
(Alex Terrell) wrote in message . com...
"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message ...
G EddieA95 wrote:

No you don't. The world is running out of oil. We need every watt we can
capture from nonoil sources. And with oil getting more expensive, CO2 and its
associated greenhouse effect will become self-terminating.

Now, if you sunshield were in fact a gigantic SPS, you may have a point.


SPS replaces fixed generation facilities that are mostly not oil-fired
(especially at today's oil prices.)

Paul

Initially, it would do so, but the long run marginal cost of SSP is
likely to be very, very cheap - cheap enough to enable a hydrogen
economy.

At least, cheap enough at today's oil prices, though the arrival of 25
TW of SSP capacity would probably push oil down towards $5 per barrel.
Then it becomes a tax / policy question - Do you want your economy to
be dependend on SPS from giant corporations, or from nice friendly
Arab states?

It's clear we want the economy to run on oil, because anything else
requires retooling our major transporation equipment. Check out
today's Science Times for manure-to-oil setups that are only on the
drawing board right now but are way ahead of SPS and much cheaper to
set up.

The retooling will happen as people switch from internal combustion to
fuel cells powered by hydrogen or a hydrogren rich liquid. Governments
will back this with tax advantages.