The Non-Innovator's Dilemma

Rand Simberg writes:

With the three stage design, the second can return on its first opportunity
after delivering the upper stage to orbit. If the second stage is the upper
stage, it is stuck in orbit as long as the passenger compartment is.

Oh, I thought you meant faster ground turnaround.

I guess I don't see that as a feature. It's like arguing that we
should have two-stage airplanes, so that the first stage can be
returned to its airport sooner, and not tie up the entire vehicle on
the flight...


You mean like a glider and its towplane?

I'd argue that an orbital tourism spaceplane is more like a sailplane than a
conventional airliner: the destination is up there rather than a point on the
ground, the customer is interested in maximizing his time up there, and the
engine that gets him up there is not needed for the part of his flight that
he's most interested in.

Will McLean

On 25 Sep 2003 23:44:51 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(McLean1382) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg writes:

With the three stage design, the second can return on its first opportunity
after delivering the upper stage to orbit. If the second stage is the upper
stage, it is stuck in orbit as long as the passenger compartment is.

Oh, I thought you meant faster ground turnaround.

I guess I don't see that as a feature. It's like arguing that we
should have two-stage airplanes, so that the first stage can be
returned to its airport sooner, and not tie up the entire vehicle on
the flight...


You mean like a glider and its towplane?

Nope.

I'd argue that an orbital tourism spaceplane is more like a sailplane than a
conventional airliner: the destination is up there rather than a point on the
ground, the customer is interested in maximizing his time up there, and the
engine that gets him up there is not needed for the part of his flight that
he's most interested in.

"The customer is interested in maximizing his time up there"?

Sorry, the analogy doesn't work.

The customer might be interested in maximizing his time in orbit, but
that's not the same as wanting to maximize his time sitting in a space
plane. The customer wants to get out at whatever orbital facility
he's going to ASAP, and won't take kindly to sitting for hours or days
on the virtual tarmac waiting for a gate...

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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On 26 Sep 2003 01:01:05 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(McLean1382) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg writes:

The customer might be interested in maximizing his time in orbit, but
that's not the same as wanting to maximize his time sitting in a space
plane. The customer wants to get out at whatever orbital facility
he's going to ASAP, and won't take kindly to sitting for hours or days
on the virtual tarmac waiting for a gate...

Unless the tour company is trying to make money before they have their facility
built by selling tours that are just a ride in the spaceplane....

Now, even once the facility is built, you still have some limitations in
orbital mechanics on how quick you can get up there and back down. I don't
think anyone would rather be sitting in a Soyuz when he could be doing
something useful or interesting in a nice roomy space station, but I believe
the trip up takes about two days. Docking and unloading takes time, and you
need to wait for a return window as well. Call it three days.

Three days is a long time for an expensive vehicle to stay idle, if you are
trying to make money with high flight rate orbital space tourism.

Let's assume that everything you say is true. Part of it is driven by
the number and location of orbital facilities to go to (e.g., an
equatorial station has virtually continuous rendezvous opportunities,
albeit it's a less interest location from a tourist standpoint).

The issue is not that I'm right and you're wrong (or vice versa) but
that there is a genuine trade to be performed here, between investing
in orbital facilities, versus building a vehicle that's pleasant to
spend a few hours or days in, and the associated turnaround costs (and
the costs of using, in retrospect, a spacecraft built to government
specifications), etc. associated with those choices. Those are
decisions that will ultimately be sorted out by the market.

I submit that it's not possible to know what the right answer is at
this time, but I don't think that there's sufficient evidence that the
commercial market is going to jump on an OSP as justification for NASA
to build one.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

Rand Simberg writes:



I submit that it's not possible to know what the right answer is at
this time, but I don't think that there's sufficient evidence that the
commercial market is going to jump on an OSP as justification for NASA
to build one.


Not sufficient justification by itself. However, if someone is going to build a
manned orbital RLV, then having a flight tested OSP available as an upper stage
improves their options. That is a plus, although its value is difficult to
quantify.

Assume for the sake of argument that discounted life cycle costs, based on
todays's prices, are pretty similar for the OSP/Cargo vehicle and Shuttle over
the next 20 some years, considering both failure cost and amortized
development. I think it will be possible to do better than that, but we don't
have real estimates yet.

There are other advantages to the OSP:

It moves 8-10 launches from the USA cartel to a market where there are
competing vehicles, and it expands that market by that much.

RLV prices seem to be coming down a lot faster than shuttle launch costs.

Once development is amortized, the OSP will be considerably less expensive. The
shuttle, however, will still be the shuttle.

Will McLean