Well, gosh. My post last week on “Commercial Spaceflight” generated a lot of interesting comments. Thanks to Jeff, Clark, Colin, Ferris, and a few others for thought-provoking inputs. This post is not for them (well, it is a little, but I know that you’ll be able to handle it).
When a community of people becomes too intellectually inbred, it produces brain children with birth defects. My sense, after reading the more strident comments on my post is that the small community of space commerce fans needs some fresh blood really badly.
They also need to take a moment out to think back over their own history. Remember MirCorp? They were going to take over the rickety old Russian Mir space station and turn it into a money-making venture. Of course, this made no sense at all, but anyone who pointed this out was pilloried. In the end, it failed. They blamed NASA and moved on to the next fad.
I found it interesting, too, that the most suspect space ventures impressed some of them the most. They didn’t seem excited by the start-up companies that have found a niche and profited; for example, Malin Space Science Systems, which builds imagers for NASA’s robotic spacecraft. In fact, they didn’t even mention them.
There was also the matter of the EADS announcement. EADS is a big European aerospace consortium. One fellow posted a press release about how they plan to build a suborbital aircraft for tourists. He made out like this made nonsense of my arguments. Other jumped on that bandwagon as well.
The fact is, though, that the EADS announcement creates problems for the U.S. start-up companies that say they want to launch tourists on suborbital flights. EADS has relatively deep pockets, and the start-ups don’t. One failure could easily kill a start-up space tourism company. Extensive testing is unlikely, since tests cost money and generate limited revenue.
Some of the people who commented on my post seemed to think that droves of wealthy space tourists would gladly pay big bucks to do a 45-minute joyride in a barely proven spacecraft. Maybe so, but I’d be willing to bet that they’d prefer to fly a spacecraft that has been built and extensively tested by a consortium with a proven track record.
Burt Rutan, whose SpaceShip One won the X-Prize, may understand this; he was quick to criticize the EADS plan on technical grounds.
Frankly, it’s too early to say whether the EADS thing will work out. Even if no tourists fly, it might have some military uses, which would position EADS for contracts in the future. We’ll have to wait to see how it all plays out.
But never mind. What I really want to talk about here today is ideology. You see, the start-up space companies are supposed to do an end run around stodgy old NASA and open the universe to settlement. It’s about rugged individualists thumbing their noses at the vast Federal bureaucracy, striking out for the frontier, and striking it rich.
I’m sympathetic to visions of space settlement, as you can see if you bother to read my post “Saving Spaceflight.” However, I’m realistic about it. I recognize that it has to grow from what exists, and that, no matter how much I want it, it’s conceivable that it simply won’t be possible. And I don’t blame anyone for that. It could just be reality.
Space doesn’t care whether you are enthusiastic about a given vision for spaceflight or not. Space is a vast, inhospitable place, utterly different from any environment where people have lived before. It’s not the U.S. West. We are not evolved to live there. We don’t know whether people can live there indefinitely.
We do know that on average people in space lose bone mass at a rate of about 1% a month. We also know that about half the people who go into space spend up to a week being ill before their bodies acclimate, then become ill again upon returning to Earth. Sounds like a great vacation.
There’s also the issue of radiation. There’s a lot of it in space. Apollo astronauts regularly saw flashes caused by heavy particles shooting through the aqueous humor in their eyeballs. Astronauts on Mir went through laptops at a prodigious rate because radiation fried them. Astronauts are classified as radiation workers, and are only allowed a certain career dose. It’s not unlikely that a single six-month stay on the moon could subject an astronaut to enough radiation that they would be permanently grounded when they returned to Earth.
I suspect that we can find solutions for all of these problems, but the fact is that we haven’t yet, and there are no guarantees. The number of people who’ve lived in space more than about six months at a time can be counted on your fingers and toes, and not all of those long-term flagpole sitters collected good data on what space was doing to them during their stay in orbit.
Before you accuse me of lying or not doing my homework, I suggest that you do some reading, and not just in the literature of the faith. Dig up some serious papers. I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but educating yourself is important when you want to make something happen. Space is not a religion, where you receive the holy writ and stop thinking. It’s also not science fiction. It’s a set of complex technical, economic, medical, political, and cultural problems.
One of the cultural problems we space supporters face is declining U.S. educational standards. The vast majority of Americans are hard-pressed to name the nearest planet or describe the Van Allen belts or say what the moon is made of. One reason I write for Earth & Sky is that I’d like to try to change that.
This, at root, is why I think that “NewSpace” will fail - because many of its adherents (including some who have made big investments) don’t have a good grip on the problems. They want to believe, so they do. I believe that such people are not in fact interested in space much at all. If they were, they’d understand the daunting range of problems they face better than they do.
If you know my website, you’ll probably ignore this comment, but hey, why not.
You are right, most of the people approaching space tourism ventures are dreamers. But I don’t think you can say people like Burt Rutan or EADS don’t have a grip on the problems or dangers of space flight.
Of all the ventures out there, Virgin Galactic seems to have the best chance of succeeding. It has the branding, the interest, deep pockets, and an excellent ship design. Some of the ventures out there literally are relying on a wing and a prayer, but with any new industry, there are those that succeed and those that fail.
You mentioned that there will not be sufficient testing. Virgin Galactic has announced publicly there will be at least 100 test flight before any paying customer climbs on board. I can’t imagine EADS getting any kind of regulatory approval without that kind of testing as well.
Will the industry flourish, all I can say is, we’ll see. I’m one of the dreamers that hopes it does. But I know one thing, we should try. Like the representative said from EADS Astrium, “Space Tourism is the cherry on the cake.” We can’t even begin to know the materials, energy and resource benefits that can come from commercial space exploration. Again, its all in the waiting, and the good ol’ college try.
David, if you don’t mind, we’ll move the discussion from the first post to this one. I am copying and pasting what I put in the other post, eariler today
I am talking cheap, safe access, for any cargo, whether it be satellites, bulk cargo, humans, laboratory mice, raw material for space manufacturing - take your pick.
Effectively, what I am saying is when do you think we’ll have Horizontal integration for cheap, safe access.
Does that answer it better for you?
Steve, no, I didn’t know your website. I looked at it and bookmarked it.
The big companies might have a chance to make this work, for all the reasons you give. I still think that space tourism is a long shot, however. As you say, we’ll have to wait and see.
I am pretty sure that Rutan has some idea what he’s doing, at least as far as the engineering is concerned. My post was aimed mainly at the space commerce cultists, the old L5ers, who generally have no clue and are unpleasant to be around. I really do wish they’d educate themselves, if possible. It would elevate the discourse, if nothing else; it might even enable them to make a meaningful contribution.
Ferris, no problem about moving your questions to this post. It all depends on what you want to launch. If you want to launch people you don’t mind killing, then that’d be cheaper than if you want to launch people you’d like to keep alive.
From where I sit right now, I don’t see the demand being sufficient to foster investment in technologies that would yield a major reduction in launch costs for cargo. The cost of safely launching people is likely to come down quite a bit in the U.S., but only because the Shuttle is such an obscenely costly beast.
Space access is pretty cheap right now, given the type and level of demand that exists. I don’t think that human spaceflight will be “safe” for some time to come, at least compared with other forms of transportation. Again, the demand is not great enough to justify the investment required to yield airline-type safety levels. Spaceflight will be a lot like visits to the ocean abyss for a couple of decades yet, maybe longer.
David,
There was a second part to my question - what business oppertunities do you see opening up when you have the type of flights I talk about?
I believe you hit the nail on the head in your last two paragraphs. If we are going to go forth into space we will need new technology that we don’t have and probably haven’t even conceived of yet (except in science fiction perhaps). We aren’t going to develop those key technologies by letting many of our best minds go to waste in an education system that concentrates on the average. But heh, at least we aren’t wasting tax dollars by reducing class sizes or something crazy like that.
Ferris, I was hoping you’d forget that part of it.
The truth is, I don’t think that space is rich in commercial opportunities the way some people believe. I mean, there are some, obviously, but they aren’t the ones the NewSpace folks are hung up on. The Bigelow plan to sell office space in orbit (I’m being fascetious), for example, assumes that people are beating down the doors to get into pressurized volumes in space. They aren’t.
There coluld be more commercial opportunities at some point, maybe, but they will require a big infrastructure investment. We’re still in the “government does the pioneering” stage.
So, if one wants to profit in space, one needs to do something the government wants to pay for.
I see space exploration as being like the arts. We should support it because it’s what our civilization will be remembered for when all the businesses and contracts and entrepreneurs are dust, and because it elevates and inspires us. Of course, it has only occasionally been about that, but it *should* be. There are many, many things people do that aren’t wildly profitable but are worthwhile, and space exploration is one of them.
Frankly, I’m mystified by the obsessive concern over making money in space that some people have. It’s been an undercurrent for a long while, but it’s really bad right now. I hear from people all the time who think space exploration is bad and should stop because it’s not profitable in terms of dollars and cents.
I have nothing against people making money. But it’s not the only (or even the main) reason to go into space.
David,
Final question, and then I promis to show my hand - You’ve mentioned a few things NewSpace is selling as profit (IE sub-orbital space tourist flights) - what other products/services do you know of that the NewSpace companies are going for? Not what you think are viable, just what they are going for - btw, I am curious - have you looked at Randy Campbell’s reply to you concerning colonizing the ocean floor, or antartica?
Brief bit. We have had the technology for decades to get into space for costs a few times long ocean crossing airliner flights. Problem is its not a technology problem. its a market problem. You can build a airliner or a fully reusable servicable etc space shuttle for several billion (depending on sizes etc). Its hard, but sos the airliner. But said Airliner will sell hundreds if not thousands of copies (or you wouldn’t have bothered to build it), adn each one will fly a few times a day. Few spaceship fly a 100 times in the service life of their fleet. The current NASA space shuttle is hoped to do 130 (?) flights in the fleets service life.
So take the fixed development costs and support infastructure costs, and divide them over hundreds of craft and hundreds of thousands of flights a year, and the cost per is a lot less then if you spread it over 6 craft and 5-5 flights a year.
So the rockets don’t get the level of effort to develop, test, and economize.
So newer tech helps a lot, but if you don’t find a real sizable market for your wahtever, it won’t effect you costs much.
Ferris: “Your hand”? Can’t wait.
The tourist flights get the most press, which is perhaps understandable, given the drama, the fact that they involve people, and their appeal to the American ideological mythos. That’s basically what I’ve been writing about in these posts. Of course, we’ve also discussed Bigelow’s inflatables. Folks have touted a lot of money-making space projects - growing protein crystals, satellite constellations for mobile phones, space elevators - but these efforts haven’t gotten very far, for their either easier and cheaper to do on Earth using non-space techniques or their ahead of their time and make optimistic assumptions. There’s space communications and Earth observation, for decades the real money-makers. And my favorite, burying the dead in orbit.
No, I haven’t replied to the oceans and Antarctica comment. I’ll have timne this weekend to get caught up (I hope).
David;
By now I’m sure this has at least been pointed out to you, but:
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12135-few-outsiders-sign-on-to-use-space-station-for-research.html
NASA put out an announcment last week that they would be offering governments and corporations what amounted to ‘free’ space on the ISS to conduct experiments and research. The ‘reaction’ from the international community and industry has been, well… lacking.
I’d be interested on your ‘take’ on this. I need to probably point out a few ‘caveats’ though;
The ISS is actually poorly designed for research as I’ve mentioned before. Experiments in Protien Crystal growth for example need highly stabilized environments with no outside ’shocks’ for anywhere from hours to weeks. On average the ISS thrusters fire every couple of minutes due to activity inside the station. The same conditions have pretty much ‘ruined’ all previous experiments aboard the Shuttle. This has not changed, and is likely not GOING to change.
The ISS does not have much ‘room’ or life support capacity for ‘extra’ personnel so the ‘offer’ to host other nations astronauts doesn’t seem to actually ‘offer’ all that much actual utility. In addition the chances are that any ‘experiments’ will have to be highly automated because the ISS crew won’t have time to ‘babysit’ experimental packages or the expertise to monitor and adjust experiments. So this ‘offer’ seems so far to be a recent re-offer of the “Get-Away-Express” experiment package offered by NASA during the early flights of the Shuttle. With even less support.
I’m really not surprised that there has been a ‘lack’ of reaction to the offer, nothing that has been said so far is what has been near what has already been identified as the ‘needs’ for commercial experimentation.
Randy
Randy:
I’m actually surprised that NASA is bothering with this. What’s the story behind it, I wonder? Funneling money into a congressional district someplace? Somebody’s girlfriend/boyfriend needs a job?
It’s actually dangerous to our future in space to keep justifying spaceflight in terms of profitability. There’s nothing we can do that will justify the cost and risk to crew. If we see it as something that we simply should do because it’s worthwhile for itself, then we can justify a great deal.
>> Randy Campbell
>>
>> ==
>> NASA put out an announcment last week that they would be
>> offering governments and corporations what amounted to
>>‘free’ space on the ISS to conduct experiments and research.
> David S. F. Portree
> I’m actually surprised that NASA is bothering with this.
> What’s the story behind it, I wonder?==
Largely to try to justify the station. It was sold as a orbiting research center with great potential, and a way to leverage the Russians into focusing on space rather then selling advanced (including WMD) weapons to the third world. Obviously the later failed, and there’s virtually no research being done on the station. Frankly most of the capacity to do research on it was deleted for budget reasons.
So they likely were hoping since the russians are making a killing flying tourists to the station, they could find commercial research interest. If so that would justify the station. Otherwise we’ll likely pull out of it after finishing “honoring our commitment to the ISS partners”.
> It’s actually dangerous to our future in space to keep justifying
> spaceflight in terms of profitability. There’s nothing we can
> do that will justify the cost and risk to crew. If we see it
> as something that we simply should do because it’s worthwhile
> for itself, then we can justify a great deal. ==
That’s the most dangerous and historically ineffective justification for space around!! We have spent vast amounts on space. Each year the budget for the shuttle program could by a new aircraft carrier or two, fleets of new bombers or fighters, whole new major airports etc. We simply don’t spend that kind of money, decade after decade, for something that doesn’t show results. Currently NASA is considered justified largely due to its pork, jobs in districts, which we space advocates have to a degree encouraged; and for national braging rights. But there are easier ways to spread pork around, and they don’t entail killing elite crews in spectacular manors; and with more nations and commercial entering space, its less impressive to brag about.
If space doesn’t start showing some practical benefit it simply won’t be continued. As a younger female poster on another thread noted, to her generation space is simply boring. It doesn’t do anything. Its virtually done nothing new in her lifetime. More comsats, recon sats, NASA to orbit, and soon another Apollo-ish program like in her grandparents days. And Congress is responding to this lack of interest. Shuttles ending in 3 years. Aries/Orion replacements are being under funded, and funds to buy seats on Soyoz to the station are being extended. So signs suggest Congress is keeping open the option to shuit down NASA manned launch capacity and station. Effectively gutting NASA and eliminating all its political worth.
Space needs to prove its value quickly.