************ Topic 17 Tue Mar 31, 1992 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 08:23 EST Sub: Delta Clipper Delta Clipper is a project that will lead to SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) spacecraft. This is the topic for Delta Clipper and related advanced booster development projects. 699 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 401 Fri Apr 16, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 19:46 EDT Thank you for the report Randall, the effort is much appreciated. As for meeting woth my congressdroid, sorry, no cigar. If we have government money in the picture we get government oversight, and an all too real chance of ending up with yet another shuttle system with high cost, excess paperwork, and delayed schedules. If space can not be the arena for private enterprise we are no better off than we are now. Sorry, but I can not support spending more tax dollars to maintain a system that has demonstrated it can not deal rationally with space. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 402 Fri Apr 16, 1993 T.MCGAHA [Deacon Blues] at 20:28 EDT Re: cost estimation. There's a really good book by Daniel P. Raymer titled "Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach". It has a chapter on cost estimation, and you should be able to find the book in any university's engineering library. Structurally, DC-X might be considered "like" an aircraft fuselage. I haven't ground out some numbers myself, but you ought to be able to get a ballpark figure for a cost estimate anyway. DB ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 403 Sat Apr 17, 1993 H.VANDERBILT at 01:10 EDT Yep, off the shelf hardware is cheaper - which is why dragging out development cost for a new, has-to-be-marginally-better-than-the-last-one airliner is irrelevant, since by definition that has to shave weight and increase reliability over current off-the-shelf equipment. Do we disagree on this? We've studied SSTO's and reusable launchers in general to DEATH for the last thirty years. We have extrapolated engineering data up the yinyang, at least those of us who care to look for it. If I thought it would help to two-finger type in entire engineering studies, I would, but I suspect you'd find something else to carp about... NASP has effectively DIED because they elected to simulate everything on supercomputers rather than fly hardware and measure the actual effects. You mention Lunar orbit rendezvous in this connection. First, recall that we worked up to THAT gradually. Or have you forgotten Gemini's development of extended duration spaceflight and orbital rendezvous techniques before we ever tried flying an Apollo? Or Apollo 8, where we flew around the Moon but didn't land because we were still refining things? Furthermore, orbital dynamics are SIMPLE compare to aerodynamics. Hell, I can do simple orbital problems on my pocket calculator - try that with even a simple 2D turbulenmt flow problem and you'll die of old age first. The best wind tunnel is flight, the best practice is the real thing. Maybe this attitude is a bit extreme - but the study-it-to-death syndrome we're stuck in NEEDS a bit of overreaction. Time to seek a proper balance once we've blasted out of the current never-fly-anything impasse. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 404 Sat Apr 17, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 04:14 EDT So you concede off the shelf is cheaper than custom building. Now we are getting somewhere. Remember that the mission of an X-plane is to extend the edge of the envelope. This is never a cheap proposition. Compare the cost in constant dollars of the X-1 compared to the X-15. You will see that the X-15 was a lot more expensive. Yet there are those trying to tell us that to extend the envelope all the way to mach 25 at orbital altitude is going to be cheaper to do than assemble a new commercial aircraft from off the shelf hardware. This may well be true, but I have serious doubts. Yes, we have studied SSTO for 30 years. And you know what? No one has stepped up to the line, signed up for the program and built one. This should tell us something. It tells us that if the things were as cheap to assemble, as cheap to operate, and the market existed they would have been built. Yet we have not built such a craft. Either they are not as cheap to develop, build and operate as the advocates of the system claim, or there is simply not enough profit to be made in space as we would like to think. My personal opinion is a combination of both of the above factors. Oh sure, some will claim politics prevented the normal progress of science, but this utterly ignores the power of large sums of money to drive political realities. If Boeing, to name just one example, were to make the grand leap and build such a system as either a proof of concept system or a profit making venture, they would unleash a host of people to argue their case. They would have their spaceship one way or another, you can rest assured of that. Yet no spaceships are built, the slips of the new space yards remain empty, the concepts gather dust along with high button shoes and whalebone corsets. There is an important lesson to be learned there. We will not get into space in the same way as John Carter, by looking at the heavens with great longing and wishing very, very hard. As for carping, well you may wish to call it that, I would not, but men of goodwill may reasonably disagree. I simply do not have time, energy or inclination to brew one more aerospace ulcer unless I am damned sure I am brewing it in a cause with some reasonable chance of success. You do not have to two-finger type engineering reports; a simple synopsis and a citation will suffice. I am glad someone figured out why NASP died, aside from a lack of critical support, uncertain economic times, an administration hostile to technology, and a host of technical challenges. I am glad someone figured out all those nasty computers killed it. Henry, that is a nice statement, but sorry, no cigar. NASP will fly someday, but right now the concept and the technology need to mature a lot. But I suppose a case can be made for ad hoc engineering. After all that is how the Wright brothers did it, and shoot, they never bent one piece of hardware did they? When systems get as sophisticated and costly as NASP you simply do not take chances by building something, flying it until it breaks and then beefing up the offending part. You do that and you will spend a lot of time with a spoon and a bag at the bottom of a smoking hole in the ground to recover the remains. This tends to upset the folks with the deep pockets paying for your fun. Offending these folks overmuch is to be avoided. We had to do Gemini because we elected to do the LOR approach to the moon. It was immediately understood by those who were paid to understand that the leap from Mercury to Apollo was simply too much. Thus a fairly cheap, rapidly developed step. The LOR work was started in 1959, and reached a head in 1961. See _APOLLO_ by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly for a very readable account of the history, or for the technically inclined, David Baker's _HISTORY OF MANNED SPACEFLIGHT_. Your comment of working up to a lunar landing is correct, but in this context it has little bearing. Going into orbit is a do it or not proposition. It is like being pregnant: You either are or you are not. We have seen there is reason to doubt the ease and low cost of SSTO, because none have been built. Ad hoc engineering is fine with an Estes rocket in the local park, but you should avoid it with billion dollar programs if you expect someone else to pick up the tab. Now if you can get a billion or two with few strings attached, fine, go bend tin in the desert, make a few holes smoke, and have fun. I will applaud, but I dont expect to grow many blisters on my palms any time soon. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 405 Sat Apr 17, 1993 A2.LUNATIC [Lunatic] at 05:18 EDT I seem to see something missing between your two arguments. One seems to be saying "Just do it" means "grab a bunch of tin and start bending it tomorrow," while the other seems to be saying "Just do it" means "take the studies and plans that have been sitting around unused for years, and finally DO SOMETHING with them, leading up to and including finally bending tin." There are a lot of plans and studies sitting around that haven't been used, yet, simply because no one wants to be the first. No one wants "untested technology," but then no one wants to be the one who tests it! Someone has to be first. Hopefully, DC-X will give us some of that testing that keeps so many people shy of the concepts it uses. -= Lunatic (: ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 406 Sat Apr 17, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 14:32 EDT Art, Studies for SSTO type craft have been around for thirty years, and, yes, we've done nothing with them. This does tell us something. It tells us that NASA won the turf wars for the shuttle (remember, these people also took a complete, _man-rated_ Saturn V and laid it down as a lawn ornament to avoid competition with the Shuttle.) Also, advances in a number of fields have changed the practicality of SSTO type vehicles. For instance, look at the computers in the Shuttle, and look at the computer on my desktop (and mine's not even state of the art in PC's.) Then there's slush hydrogen (being developed for NASP and SSTO can piggyback onto the research). Also, we are much more experienced in using "exotic" materials than we were 30 years ago. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 408 Sat Apr 17, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 15:18 EDT You bring up good points Lunatic, but think about a couple of things. First, we have generic studies which define the nature of the problems and points the direction for a few answers. Some of the studies in question are not worth the paper they are printed on. Others are more valuable. But that ignores the real thrust of the problem: These are generic studies, based upon generic vehicles. Look at the problem this way: Assume you want to build a fancy two seat sports car. You want to design everything from scratch, engine, transmission, suspension, the works. There are plenty of books of automotive engineering out there to tell you how to do the job, but there is not one thing written on your particular car. You are the creator, you have to do the entire design job from scratch. All the books and papers simply tell you how to do it in generic terms. There will be plenty of unique problems to solve, plenty of new ground to plow. In short you end up with a lot of paperwork dedicated to your new car design. It is much the same with a spacecraft. There is plenty of stuff out there to guide your efforts, but little, if anything, specific to your problem. Also, there is a matter of cost that reasrs it ugly head yet again. Cost can be plotted on a graph. Imagine the horizontal axisrepresents to amount of study done on a problem. The vertical axis shows cost. What you get is something interesting. Assume over on the far right of the horizontal axis you have the NASA space station approach of studying the problem, and studying the studies then studying the studies of the studies. This results in very high total cost. Of course you dont produce anything but paper, but someone has to fill all that paper in with something, and that costs money. Everyone agrees this is not what we desire. Over on the other end of the horizontal line is the make it up as you go along, dont study just do something school of thought. They too end up with high cost. Why? Because in the lack of study, in the basic ad hoc make it up as you go along atmosphere these folks end up breaking a lot of hardware learning the things that are cheaper to learn at a computer terminal or drafting board. They dont have a lot of paper, they substitute graphite and aluminum for paper, but their costs are just as high and they really dont learn any more. In the middle costs take a dip. These are folks who do a rational amount of study, bend metal where metal bending is appropriate, write on and study paper where that is the most rational thing to do. Their costs are far lower than either extreme. No, it isnt as fast in the short run as the folks who make it up as they go along, but in the long term these rational engineers make more progress. And it goes without saying the study it to death folks never fly anything. Well, perhaps a paper airplane from time to time. I have no arguement with Vanderbilt. He is a sharp guy, he is also my friend. But we disagree as to exactly where along the graph his views lie. He would say it lies in the middle with the rationalists, and I will say it is closer to the make it up as you go along school. Men of goodwill have plenty of room for reasonable dispute in this area. I agree with you 100% about DC-Y, I wish them all the success in the world. I doubt we will see a followup program anytime in the next four years. The Clinton administration has made it clear they are not all that interested in space or boosters. They nominally support space station, but only because Al Gore made an issue of it in the campaign, and to slam the door on it looks like a slap to the Vice President. The only way any of us are going into space is via the one tool we know works: Private enterprise. ------------ ---------- ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 409 Sat Apr 17, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 15:32 EDT Yes, we have had SSTO studies around for years, and yes, a lot of folks seem to think NASA somehow managed to prevent private industry from building them. Now NASA doesnt need defense from me, after all they managed to make not one but two man rated Saturn Vs into bird condos. These folks have a lot to answer for. But think about this: If SSTO was as cheap, quick, easy, and as profitable as the advocates want us to believe they are, where are they? Again, large sums of money make their own politics. If Boeing anted to build an SSTO they would have a host of lawyers and special interest types argueing on their behalf. Yet we dont see that happening. We dont see the aerospace industry climbing aboard some ground swell to build SSTOs. Why? The easiest answer is they are not as cheap, easy or profitable as the fanatics want us to believe. You see, there is a ground truth that has been lost here. paper rockets are ALWAYS cheaper, easier, and more profitable than metal and composite rockets. It is just a fact of life. Look at the shuttle system for an extreme example of this. Yet the folks who want us to build SSTO the most (or are at least the loudest about building them) are the folks who have never built a real spacecraft so they have not learned the lesson of the paper rocket. So if the fanatics think we can build the system in 3 years, double it. if they think it can be done for a billion dollars, more than double that. Some pretty smart folks with whom I have talked seem to think that a factor of 5 to 10 is the right multiplier for cost. Perhaps. Anyone have a spare 5 billion to spare for a good cause? ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 410 Sat Apr 17, 1993 RSEVERY [Randall] at 16:13 EDT Hello everyone, I uploaded this morning a ZIP file containing a collection of GIF files and text information files relating to the DC-X program. Chris Johnson at the University of Texas at Austin has set up an archive of Delta Clipper information on the bongo.cc.utexas.edu anonymous FTP server on the Internet. The ZIP file DCXINFO.ZIP, which should appear as file #2985 in a few days, contains all of the Delta Clipper-related files from that server, with the exception of the set of slide GIFs that have already been posted here. I'll keep an eye on that server and as new stuff shows up I'll upload it here. Cheers.... Randall ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 411 Sat Apr 17, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 16:29 EDT Thank you randall, we appreciate the effort. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 412 Sat Apr 17, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 16:48 EDT Art, I never meant to imply that NASA prevented private industry from building an SSTO, although a good argument could be made for it. (NASA and the Air Force are the Government's launch services. Compare that with the early contracts for mail delivery. Had the government contracted out launch, instead of handling it "in house" would we have seen an SSTO type vehicle? I suspect so, but can't prove it.) The turf wars are only part of the reason, the other is the advancing state of the art in a number of key fields. Many people who should know now believe it's possible where it wasn't a few years ago. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 413 Sat Apr 17, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 17:08 EDT Perhaps david, but somehow I have a feeling that too much has been made of those studies which support the view these things are cheap, easy and profitable, and no attention is paid to those which contradict that conclusion. We all agree we need to get cheap reliable space access. We all agree NASA isnt going to provide it. Now we have to figure out how to talk to the banker in the language they understand, show them hard and fast numbers as to profit, and treat the program like any other large scale profit making engineering project. It isnt enough to wish it so. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 414 Sat Apr 17, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 17:40 EDT Art, I can't really comment on individual studies, but I'd want to know the dates of those studies that say that an SSTO will be expensive, and how do these trends compare to those that say it will be inexpensive. Is there a trend there? (The state of the art _has_ advanced.) Also, what about the organizations that sponsered the studies, or paid for them. OTOH, my own particular favorite for launch is laser rockets. (High initial capital cost, but low operating costs depending on the the level of usage.) David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 415 Sat Apr 17, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 18:33 EDT I dont have many studies saying they will be expensive, I suspect they tend to not get written. One of the better works was all the effort Boeing put into looking at SPS and thelaunch requirements. they designed the BIG ONION booster. It wasnt cheap, but it was designed with a strapping big payload. I am simply questioning the conventional wisdom repeated by those with axes to grind saying they are cheap. I see no compelling evidence to believe they are cheap vehicles, in fact quite a bit that suggest just the opposite. Yes, technology does advance. But the latest stuff is always a fairly expensive operation. Graphite car chassis are more expensive than aluminum or steel for example. So here is my objection in a nutshell: There are those who say build now, it will be cheap. Build now, and we will make up the engineering as we go along. Build now because we wish the work to be done, but we are unwilling or unable to do the complex homework. Build now because i want it now. Sorry, I dont see that is the wise way to proceed. Of course neither is the study, and study the studies and study the studies of the studies. The correct path lies in the middle. I am more than willing to be swayed to the position that designing a vehicle that doesnt make orbit is the cheap way to build one that does. I am willing to agree that ad hoc engineering is the true path. I am willing to agree that SSTO is cheap, easy, and profitable. But not without compelling data to support those views, and thus far we simply have not seen the data aside from self arm waving and statements that yes, these folks do know what they are doing. Oh well, just call me the eternal skeptic...;-) ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 416 Sun Apr 18, 1993 D.HARTSOCK [Dana] at 00:01 EDT Well, we are about to begin collecting some of that data, and it is long overdue. I think we are long overdue for a paradigm change on the spaceflight front. If the same approach to heavier than air flight had been adopted I shudder to think what general aviation would be like today. The DC-3 might JUST be getting off the ground. I do not profess to "know" what the correct approach is to achieve economical, reliable access to space. My gut feeling is some sort of SSTO will prevail. Without a clearcut economic benefit for exploiting space innovation will be long in coming. I daresay most of us do not doubt the benefits will materialize with time. But without such a carrot space transportation development lags, and without reliable economic space transportation benefits will not be realized. I never could figure out what came first, the chicken or the egg? As far as space flight is concerned I think the answer is, "neither." ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 417 Sun Apr 18, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 00:43 EDT Dana, I agree with you 100% that eventually SSTOs will e the backbone of a lot of space transportation. The only question in my mind is when. Perhaps the time is now. perhaps these things are cheap, easy to build, and hold great profit potential. But perhaps they do not. The downside of failure of an SSTO is seldom mentioned. Folks assume it will work as designed. But imagine some aerospace company raises the money, hires the best folks available, builds an SSTO and the thing is an uter failure. Perhaps even as big a failure as the shuttle. In an era of economic uncertainty and tight budgets such a failure might very well be viewed in the boardrooms as an excuse to never try an SSTO again. Thus we need to be very, very careful what claims are made, and when it comes time to bend tin, the finished product delivers the goods. I dont think the technology is quite mature enough yet, but it is changing fast. the natural impulse is to attack too soon. this can be a deadly failure. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 418 Sun Apr 18, 1993 A2.LUNATIC [Lunatic] at 09:36 EDT I think there definitely is a place for those "it'll be really cheap!" arguments. Those are simply the pitch. Look around. The number of projects that actually ARE as cheap as they were made out to be when proposed is miniscule when compared to the ones that aren't. If you want to get people actually interested in doing the work that will lead up to a working design (the studies that follow the initial studies), you HAVE to tell them at the very outset "it'll be really cheap!" Sure, your final design is probably going to be orders of magnitude more expensive than the original idea said it was going to be. Still, orders of magnitude greater than the cheapest design has a good chance at still being the cheapest design when they're all compared at the end. -= Lunatic (: ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 419 Sun Apr 18, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 15:20 EDT Are you SURE that is what you want to do, Lunatic (And are you SURE that is your name? I feel like I am insulting you when I type it. But if that is what you want to be called, who am I to say anything? Not my business...;-)? Assume you sell an SSTO to a private concern on the basis it is a cheap profitable venture. Assume you tell them it is a billion dollar project, and all the profit projections are based on a billion dollar project. If the thing costs 10 billion I suspect it will never get built at all. Long before you reach the final price tag the funding will be cut off, and the program killed to prevent it from eating more funds it can not pay back. I do not advocate an untruth to get something running. But some business folk make telling such lies into an art form, and do quite well at it. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 420 Sun Apr 18, 1993 D.HARTSOCK [Dana] at 21:33 EDT Well, I don't believe cheap but do believe less expensive. I know we have beaten "operations driven" to death but the airline paradigm is something we must work towards. If there is not a system in place to put moderate payloads in LEO that can be launched every few days our progress in space is going to remain very slow. We do not know how to build it now. We are finally in a position to get some real data. Still I cringe to think about the possible loss of the only DC-X in existence. Do you think we would see another built anytime soon. This for all the talk and promises is a very conservative program. I just want to see us learn something and not be afraid to make some mistakes along the way. Dana ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 421 Sun Apr 18, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 22:36 EDT I would like to believe cheap, Dana, I would like to believe less expensive. But thus far I see no compelling reason to believe either. That does not mean it wont be cheap, or even less expensive, but the real question is more basic: What are we using as a baseline to compare costs? The shuttle? Seems that most anything would be cheaper. Saturn V? Mighty big shoes to fill. Soviet boosters? Who knows what they cost? So to say an SSTO is cheaper is to leave the rest of the question unasked. I agree I would hate to see anything happen to the tiny toehold we now have, but that is simply a chance we take. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 422 Mon Apr 19, 1993 A2.LUNATIC [Lunatic] at 03:56 EDT I'm not saying that you should intentionally mislead people about a design's cost to get it off the ground. What I'm saying is that MOST designs have a very different cost estimate at the concept stage than later on when it's more fully investigated. You simply can't tell people "I'm absolutely, positively SURE that it'll cost x dollars or less" at the very beginning. Even if you do, the people who actually believe you are fools enough to get what they deserve. What you can do is give them your best initial cost estimates, and use that as the pitch for further studies and investigation. That's where I'm saying the claims of "Look, it'll be cheap!" come into play. There is simply no incentive for people to fund further studies if you tell them that every design you present to them "will be expensive and won't give you a return on your money" (unless they're NASA or the DoD :). My real, full, legal name is Lunatic Johnathan Bruce E'Sex. I changed it almost three years ago. Most of my friends call me either Lunatic or some derivative such as Looney/Luni/Lune/etc. FYI, I'm one of the "Original 24" attendees of the very first session of Space Academey Level II at the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center, which is where I originally got Loony/Luny/etc. as a nickname. EVERYONE there, attendees as well as counselors and the center director called me and knew me as Looni/Luney/etc. or Lunatic, and they contined to do so the second time I was there for Academy Level II. I've been to Space Camp Level II (now Academy Level I) twice, and Academy Level II twice, and I've received the Right Stuff award once in each program. -= Lunatic (: ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 423 Mon Apr 19, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 13:37 EDT The choice of name is up to the individual, I just wanted to make darned sure I wasnt being insulting. But I have to tell you the story is interesting. I agree you can not know the cost exactly before you go into a project. But you can make your best estimate. The commercial aircraft industry seems to do a very good job of estimating cost, and we keep hearing how we need to think of these things as the analog of airliners. OK, fine idea, I agree with it 100%. So why not apply the tools from commercial aviation to this problem and see what happens. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 424 Mon Apr 19, 1993 RSEVERY [Randall] at 18:07 EDT From: Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Space Clipper Launch Article X-Sender: newtout 0.08 Feb 23 1993 Date: 16 Apr 93 22:35:44 To All -- I thought the net would find this amusing.. >From the March 1993 "Aero Vision" (The newsletter for the Employees of McDonnell Douglas Aerospace at Huntington Beach, California). SPACE CLIPPERS LAUNCHED SUCCESSFULLY "On Monday, March 15 at noon, Quest Aerospace Education, Inc. launched two DC-Y Space Clippers in the mall near the cafeteria. The first rocket was launched by Dr. Bill Gaubatz, director and SSTO program manager, and the second by Air Force Captain Ed Spalding, who with Staff Sgt. Don Gisburne represents Air Force Space Command, which was requested by SDIO to assess the DC-X for potential military operational use. Both rocket launches were successful. The first floated to the ground between the cafeteria and Building 11, and the second landed on the roof of the cafeteria. Quest's Space Clipper is the first flying model rocket of the McDonnell Douglas DC-X. The 1/122nd semi-scale model of the McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper has an estimated maximum altitude of 300 feet. The Space Clippers can be used in educational settings to teach mathematics and science, as well as social studies and other applications. The Space Clipper is available either in the $35 Space Clipper outfit, which includes everything needed for three launches, or as individual rockets for $12 each. Both are available through hobby shops or by calling 1-800-858- 7302." By the way -- this is not an endorsement to buy the product nor is it an advertisement to buy the product. I make no claims about the product. This is posted for public information only (hey, I found it amusing...), and is merely a repeat of what was included in the MDSSC Huntington Beach Newsletter. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Wales Larrison Space Technology Investor --- Maximus 2.01wb ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 425 Mon Apr 19, 1993 T.MCGAHA [Deacon Blues] at 20:56 EDT Does anyone have any info as to the weights and dimensions of the Delta Clipper? DB ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 426 Tue Apr 20, 1993 H.VANDERBILT at 01:02 EDT Various points... Art, these days, politics drives large sums of money in the aerospace game, not vice versa. The government is the only game in town in the space business for all practical purposes, so investment in new space transport is driven primarily by politics. When did you last see the US government decide a big-bucks program purely on financial return considerations? Hence no space transport investments that would upset established political applecarts such as the massive NASA employee base in a number of key political regions. Not until quite recently, at any rate, and then only low-budget, nibbling-around-the-edges types of developments, like Pegasus (which simply provides expendable launch in smaller packages at the same old price, upsetting no applecarts) and a couple other small expendable solid boosters. DC-X was a tiny project at $60 million total, and in me 'umble opinion deliberately crippled to boot - all the other Phase I competitors proposed flying the initial testbed a whole lot higher and faster for the money - and NASA still tried to kill it last summer. Feeling a bit threatened, they were. But here's why it may well be SSTO time NOW, after thirty years of shelved proposals: NASA couldn't kill it this time. They've lost too much credibility over the last seven years; they can no longer play dog-in- the- manger in space anytime it suits their institutional interest. The very real possibility exists that we might get sufficient political backing to fund an orbital SSTO testbed over the next few years. Yes, I know the Clinton administration really doesn't want to hear about new space boosters. But the Clinton administration has already made it quite clear that they'll give Congress whatever it wants on the minor matters in exchange for help on their major priorities. And a billion or so over several years is, alas, a minor matter in DC in this day and age. Clinton doesn't *have* to care; George Brown and Dana Rohrabacher already do. You've no doubt noticed that I'm addressing the political case and ignoring the technical and commercial cases. I have my reasons. Technically, nobody even bothers to argue any longer that reusable SSTO can't be done. The only point of contention is where it is on a scale from do-it- totally-off-the-shelf to all-new-hardware-and-not-flying-till- 2005. The latter was NASA Langeley's position last summer, BTW; even *they* think it can be flying in twelve years. I figure the optimists say three years, the pessimists twelve; I'll bet we can do it in six to eight years depending on circumstances. I'll shoot for three, mind; you have to give the engineers tight deadlines so they don't make a career of masturbating with the CAD and CFD programs, as apparently taught in too many schools these days... Commercially, as I pointed out, the government is the proverbial 800-pound gorrila in the space launcher market. Government whims can make or break a launcher company. Nobody in their right mind would bet a major established aerospace company's existance on a reusable SSTO without government approval and money both. Not when the government provides them with a huge chunk of their existing cashflow and has proven itself quite capable of cutting off contracts and money for far lesser offences. Boeing, the least dependent of the lot, still gets something like 40% of its revenue from the government. Culturally, the big aerospace companies have grown risk-averse. Boeing hasn't bet the company on a commecial venture since the 747, and that was a pretty safe bet, just a bigger and cheaper way to provide a known salable commodity, subsonic jet transportation. So where are the small entrepreneurs, if the established buggy, er, aerospace manufacturers won't take the risk? Still waiting for the entry cost to get down to where the investors will roll the dice. $50 million is about the max for a pure speculative venture capital startup, and nobody yet believes it could be done for that who has the fifty million. Startup al will have to wait for either more confidence in the technology so they can risk larger sums, or for more knowledge of the techniques so they can confidently expect lower costs. Both of these conditions can be advanced by a government X- vehicle demonstration... ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 427 Tue Apr 20, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 01:33 EDT Nice statement, Henry, but no cigar. Government money equals government oversight. And that leads to exactly the situation you outline: NASA attempting to kill anything that threatens the established order. I think we can all agree that NASA is to be kept out of the loop. NASA Langley says 12 years, fine, I will buy six of the 12. But certainly not all 12 and no way do I buy three. Shoot it takes longer than that to do a business jet on the order of the Cessna Citation X or Gulfstream. Sorry, but that number is too compressed for my tastes, but we both agree that tight schedules do need to be maintained. But not at the expense of doing the job right. I think 3 years will cut corners, but I freely admit that is a personal opinion. You have ignored the central thrust of my arguement which is simple: If these things were as cheap and easy as some will have us believe they are, why rely on government at all? The Alaska oil pipeline was built about the same time as the space shuttle, and it ran a billion or so dollars. Business is willing to invest real money on a project they are reasonable sure will turn a profit. This tells me one important point to ponder: We, as a group, have been saying for many years space was a good thing, space was the direction humanity ought to go, space could make a profit, and make at least some of us very rich, and improve the life of the rest. Seems to me that to depend on government money proves either we were wrong (I hope not) or we have done a really lousy job of making our case. Are we REALLY sure there is a profit to be made NOW? Are we really sure that business has the message? Seems clear that either we are wrong, or they just dont know what we want them to know. The real points here are not if we can build SSTO, but how much it will cost and how long it will take. You think a few years, and one can assume from that time frame, rather small amounts of money as these things go. I maintain that while you may well be right I have seen no data to suggest you are. That does not mean I think you are wrong, it simply means you have failed to present your case in such a way that there is no question in the reasonable persons mind that you are right. So one more time, how much does it cost for an SSTO (Pick the configuration), and how long does it take to get there, and what data supports your claim? ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 428 Tue Apr 20, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 21:14 EDT Deacon, There are at least 13 GIFs of the DC-X in the libraries here, and a good article in the JERRYP RT library. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 429 Tue Apr 20, 1993 RSEVERY [Randall] at 22:48 EDT Hello everyone, I've just uploaded two more Zip files of DC-X information to the library. They should be available in a few days. File #2996 will be DCXINFO2.ZIP, which contains some additional GIF files and text information files that were recently posted on the bongo.cc.utexas.edu anonymous FTP server on the Internet. One of the GIFs shows the DC-Xs engines and another shows the fuel tanks. Another GIF file is an artists conception drawing of the DC-X vehicle in flight. Some of the text files describe the recent rollout. The second Zip file is File #2997, which will be DCXINFO3.ZIP. This Zip file contains the complete collection of presentation slide GIFs that Greg already uploaded individually to the library. They also came from the bongo FTP server. If you have already downloaded the separate GIF files (DCXxx.GIF), then you won't get anything new by downloading DCXINFO3.ZIP. These files now include everything that was stored in the delta- clipper directory on the bongo server as of noon today. To get the complete set of DC- X information and GIFs, download DCXINFO.ZIP (#2985), DCXINFO2.ZIP (#2996), and DCXINFO3.ZIP (#2997). As more stuff shows up on bongo and other Internet sources, I'll post it here. Enjoy! Cheers.... Randall ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 430 Tue Apr 20, 1993 DAVESMALL at 23:28 EDT [ I wanted to mention that Gary Hudson is off-line @ PRESS-8 at the moment; that signon has a limited lifetime for press access. Gary will be back as soon as he can; last I spoke with him, he was wrestling with the Dragon Form 1040, you know how much fun that is, and had schedule conflicts. ] I'm working over the SkyRocket design that Gary and his friends did in AutoDesk 3-D Studio. You'll have to forgive me if the renderings are not perfect; I'm not a perfect 3-D-S operator! But I'll try to get some reasonably good .GIF's uploaded; I've been up to my neck in alligators trying to put out a brushfire. (See: Form 1040). Now, if I can just find the time to get through the manual... ] More on the subject, I wonder how much time we have to make SSTO go, before funding is completely pulled from space/aerospace projects and thrown away into things like "National Health", which we can't possibly pay for. If DC-Y flies and we build a few, then perhaps we can show the viability of a solar satellite for power. Same thing for SkyRocket. But I have a real bad feeling about all of it; that we peaked in the early '70's with Apollo and threw it away. My first son will be entering college in the year 2001. That is one damned weird feeling. I wonder if there will be anything left but whatever Mir is by then. With the current administration, it sounds like we have 3 years to think and plan for the next one. Simply this. SSTO is cheap and can be done. You know, and I know, that we need to get into space. How do we sell the general public on the idea? JerryP's "Fallen Angels" book is well worth a read about the future. (Larry Niven & Flynn co-authored). Heck, Gary Hudson is in it. I read it to my kids as part of the Small Family Reading Program (along with Heinlein, Eddings, and such). One of the my favorite memories is when my daughter (10) asked to talk to Gary when he was on the phone. You have just never seen someone so awed to be on the phone with a Famous Person! Again -- how do we sell any sort of cheap, re-usable transport to the public? -- thanks, Dave Small / Gadgets ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 431 Wed Apr 21, 1993 D.THORNBURG [Doug] at 02:10 EDT Bozlee, I've been lurking about on this topic for months but your post (427) deserves some commentary. I think that your question about whether or not space is useful enough to justify our mutual current desire for growth in the industry is exactly on target. Thinking through the issues I am forced to (sadly) conclude that no, currently, space isn't a high priority for us. Think about it, we've got ample technology for the core space activities that we're undertaking such as weather and communications satellites. What do we really expect to be able to get out of space merely because we can get their more cheaply? Solar power satellites are in all probability an unlikely occurrence. The cost (even with a SSTO) would be very high and frankly I seriously doubt that an American public which is mystified by their VCR's will allow us to beam serious quantities of energy through the atmosphere (and they might just be correct about that, I'd have to see some serious numbers before I was confident is SPS's). Besides, with electricity running maybe 10-12 cents per Kw-hour you'd have a hard time being economically competitive once you factor in the amortization of the startup costs plus the maintenance costs. We aren't going to be colonizing the solar system for quite some time either. There is little incentive to think of colonies living at L-5 or on the surface of the Moon. The costs are huge and what do you get for it? Microgravity has some potential to be sure for manufacturing but even if every prediction of super proteins and the like were true (which they've proven not to be and an alarmingly high rate) that would still be a thin incentive for the extensive space industry that we are all envisioning. I expect I'll take some heat for this but that's all right. We are like the proverbial child who wants to run before learning to walk. We can imagine all the great things that we can do (and please understand that I fully expect that we will do them...in time) and we're impatient to be on our way. Things rarely work that way, think of how long it took between the time when the Europeans had the essential technology to reach the America's to the first permanent settlements and regular shipping was established. -Doug ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 432 Wed Apr 21, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 02:52 EDT Your points are well taken Doug. I like to think of another analog. During the summer of 1911-1912 10 men stood at the South Pole. Know when number 11 set foot there? 1957. We are in the sled dog and sailing ship era of space, when we need aircraft and icebreakers. Will the current SSTO concepts provide them? I have my doubts, but I have to admit I am NOT sure. I am sure that before I sign on the dotted line for either my tax dollars, or private investment dollars are spent on an SSTO I want to know what the costs and technical details are. I hoped we would get some of them from the folks who are beating the bushes in support of the concept, but they seem unwilling to provide them. Perhaps they dont have technical details, and that is fine. Just say so. We can agree that we need a different mind set toward doing space. We can agree we need cheap, reliable space access. We can agree that the airline model provides some clues about what we need to do. In short there is much we do agree on, and these points have not been the object of debate. Our only debate not is cost, time schedules, and profitability. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 433 Wed Apr 21, 1993 RSEVERY [Randall] at 18:23 EDT Newsgroups: sci.space From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) Subject: Re: DC-X update??? Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 12:34:16 GMT In article schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) writes: >Would the sub-orbital version be suitable as-is (or "as-will-be") for use >as a reuseable sounding rocket? DC-X as is today isn't suitable for this. However, the followon SDIO funds will. A reusable sounding rocket was always SDIO's goal. >Thank Ghod! I had thought that Spacelifter would definitely be the >bastard Son of NLS. So did I. There is a lot going on now and some reports are due soon which should be very favorable. The insiders have been very bush briefing the right people and it is now paying off. However, public support is STILL critical. In politics you need to keep constant pressure on elected officials. Allen -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Lady Astor: "Sir, if you were my husband I would poison your coffee!" | | W. Churchill: "Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it." | +----------------------57 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX-----------------------+ ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 434 Wed Apr 21, 1993 RSEVERY [Randall] at 18:24 EDT Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) Subject: Re: DC-X update??? Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 12:45:39 GMT In article dragon@angus.mi.org writes: >Exactly when will the hover test be done, Early to mid June. >and will any of the TV >networks carry it. I really want to see that... If they think the public wants to see it they will carry it. Why not write them and ask? You can reach them at: F: NATIONAL NEWS MEDIA ABC "World News Tonight" "Face the Nation" 7 West 66th Street CBS News New York, NY 10023 2020 M Street, NW 212/887-4040 Washington, DC 20036 202/457-4321 Associated Press "Good Morning America" 50 Rockefeller Plaza ABC News New York, NY 10020 1965 Broadway National Desk (212/621-1600) New York, NY 10023 Foreign Desk (212/621-1663) 212/496-4800 Washington Bureau (202/828-6400) Larry King Live TV "CBS Evening News" CNN 524 W. 57th Street 111 Massachusetts Avenue, NW New York, NY 10019 Washington, DC 20001 212/975-3693 202/898-7900 "CBS This Morning" Larry King Show--Radio 524 W. 57th Street Mutual Broadcasting New York, NY 10019 1755 So. Jefferson Davis Highway 212/975-2824 Arlington, VA 22202 703/685-2175 "Christian Science Monitor" CSM Publishing Society "Los Angeles Times" One Norway Street Times-Mirror Square Boston, MA 02115 Los Angeles, CA 90053 800/225-7090 800/528-4637 CNN "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" One CNN Center P.O. Box 2626 Box 105366 Washington, DC 20013 Atlanta, GA 30348 703/998-2870 404/827-1500 "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" CNN WNET-TV Washington Bureau 356 W. 58th Street 111 Massachusetts Avenue, NW New York, NY 10019 Washington, DC 20001 212/560-3113 202/898-7900 "Crossfire" NBC News CNN 4001 Nebraska Avenue, NW 111 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Washington, DC 20001 202/885-4200 202/898-7951 202/362-2009 (fax) "Morning Edition/All Things Considered" National Public Radio 2025 M Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202/822-2000 United Press International 1400 Eye Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 202/898-8000 "New York Times" "U.S. News & World Report" 229 W. 43rd Street 2400 N Street, NW New York, NY 10036 Washington, DC 20037 212/556-1234 202/955-2000 212/556-7415 "New York Times" "USA Today" Washington Bureau 1000 Wilson Boulevard 1627 Eye Street, NW, 7th Floor Arlington, VA 22229 Washington, DC 20006 703/276-3400 202/862-0300 "Newsweek" "Wall Street Journal" 444 Madison Avenue 200 Liberty Street New York, NY 10022 New York, NY 10281 212/350-4000 212/416-2000 "Nightline" "Washington Post" ABC News 1150 15th Street, NW 47 W. 66th Street Washington, DC 20071 New York, NY 10023 202/344-6000 212/887-4995 "Nightline" "Washington Week In Review" Ted Koppel WETA-TV ABC News P.O. Box 2626 1717 DeSales, NW Washington, DC 20013 Washington, DC 20036 703/998-2626 202/887-7364 "This Week With David Brinkley" ABC News 1717 DeSales, NW Washington, DC 20036 202/887-7777 "Time" magazine Time Warner, Inc. Time & Life Building Rockefeller Center New York, NY 10020 212/522-1212 -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Lady Astor: "Sir, if you were my husband I would poison your coffee!" | | W. Churchill: "Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it." | +----------------------57 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX-----------------------+ ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 435 Wed Apr 21, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 20:38 EDT Dave, Can you convert that to a 3D2 format? (and why are you using Autodesk instead of CyberSculpt, traitor ) ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 436 Wed Apr 21, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 22:28 EDT Thank you Randall, the addresses are MOST useful. Good work! ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 437 Thu Apr 22, 1993 D.THORNBURG [Doug] at 00:06 EDT Bozlee, Well stated again. The problem with DC-X is that even if it works it is a solution in search of problem rather than the other way around. I would love to see it work to be sure but we must honestly review it as just one of many possible big science projects and it will have to balanced against other projects like the human genome project and the Texas SSC. In all of these cases for instance what we are really talking about is about R&D...not product. We will need to eventually learn how to do SSTO for instance but we aren't ready to make much use of it commercially. At least, I'd say DC-X offers no more commercial impact than SSC or human genome...all will lead to new technologies and new spinoffs some predictable and some not. Frankly with the cuurent administration we'll be lucky if there is any significant R&D in the country for the next four years. -Doug ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 438 Thu Apr 22, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 00:31 EDT Remember, Doug, a lot of things that cost a lot of money, the Alaska oil pipeline springs to mind, are done by private industry if there is a profit to be made. Space will probably go the same route. One thing I think we can all agree on: NASA is not going to fly the likes of us any time soon. So, when do we learn the language of the banker and broker and show them there is money to be made? ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 439 Thu Apr 22, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 00:45 EDT Doug, Do you perchance own a CD player? Know anyone who does? Not all that long ago lasers were a "solution in search of a problem." There are um-gazillion things we can do in space, practical things, _if_ we can get the cost of reaching space down. SSTO is one of several projects that may just do that. This world has limited resources. While there is some argument about whether we've reached critical levels in expending them, there is none about whether they will eventually be gone. If we do not get off this planet before the resource base grows too small to do so, then we never will. If that happens mankind's decendents will be condemned to crushing poverty . . . forever. But, hey, instead of taking the long view why don't we just toss the money at some short term band-aid fixes and hope the problem goes away. After all, who cares if our descendents curse our memory. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 440 Thu Apr 22, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 01:04 EDT Bozlee, Re #438, I'm doing the best I can (see my posts in the ESS topic). David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 441 Thu Apr 22, 1993 H.HILLBRATH [Henry] at 01:10 EDT > Message 431 Wed Apr 21, 1993 > D.THORNBURG [Doug] at 02:10 EDT I've been lurking about on this topic for months but your post (427) deserves some commentary. I have been doing some lurking around here, myself, for a while, there have been a few other things going on, and I think I was doing quite a bit too much talking there for a while, but I think that I should make a few inputs to this, of a sort of general nature. > What do we really expect to be able to get out of space merely because we can get their more cheaply? Probably nothing, near term. One of the hottest markets that anyone has been able to come up with is tourism, and it doesn't seem that the government will, or should, promote that (except on a very limited scale, and there has been some of that, and the Space Station has, or has had, who knows what it "has" now, some of that flavor to it.) > Solar power satellites are in all probability an unlikely occurrence. > allow us to beam serious quantities of energy through the > atmosphere (and they might just be correct about that, I spent as much time working SPS as most, and I have had some reservations about that, from the beginning. Of course, the "classical" SPS scenario considers the "first order" effects. The power density is low enough so that birds are not zapped, not if they behave as they are suppose to, and keep flying right across. (If they decide they like roosting on the rectenna, well, they might find it comfy, but they might not.) And sail planes, all plastic ones, can make it across, etc. And, every one assumes that some existing standard will have to be met "out side the fence". Of course, there are three or more orders of magnitude difference in what that might be. The SPS proposals were based on not exposing the general population to any more radiation than the TV stations, power lines, microwave ovens, etc. can do now, not to say that those limits are safe, or are always met. > Message 432 Wed Apr 21, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 02:52 EDT > During the summer of 1911-1912 10 men stood at the South Pole. > Know when number 11 set foot there? 1957. Hummm. Lets see now, (1957-1913)+1967=..... > We are in the sled dog and sailing ship era of space, Some of my colleagues and myself have this discussion, about once a week or so. I like the analogy of the trans Atlantic aviation market in 1937 or so. At the time, airplane designers knew of several ways to get across the ocean, one way was bigger airplanes ("Square Cube Law", not exactly, but something like that. The effect of size on range is very weak, but there is one, and the biggest airplanes of the late Thirties, early Forties, were getting close to trans Atlantic capability.) Another was better materials, engines, etc. Eventually very small airplanes were able to fly the Atlantic, and beyond. Another way was just to wait. Sooner or later, the 707-320 was bound to come along, even if it wasn't needed. We have already waited at least that long in the Space Transportation field, with not too much to show for it. And, the way that was generally adopted, was "staging", using intermediate stops, which were eventually made redundant. And, in a way, there was an "inefficiency" in unneeded "infrastructure". How much business do places like Gander and Shannon do these days? One of the arguments for sea planes like the Boeing 314 (which everyone calls, incorrectly, the "China Clipper", which was built by another, nameless, aerospace firm.) was that it avoided building a lot of expensive landing fields at places like Midway, Wake, Guam, etc. which PanAm couldn't afford, and which would soon be completely unneeded. The era of the big seaplanes hardly began before it was over, not that there was anything wrong with the theory, or the planes, WW II intervened, and the fact that sea planes were dead was not apparent to everyone until much later (some aren't sure, yet, apparently). Other people, or the same people on other occasions, say that the trans Atlantic model is false, that the Antarctic Model is the correct one, or the Sea Floor Model. The Atlantic already had people on both sides, and some were going back and forth, already, and it was obvious what you were going to do on the other side, once you got there. In Antarctic, and the Sea Floor, you had to get there, to invent the purpose of going, and then justify the means of doing it efficiently, unless you just happened to inherit some useful technology from somewhere else, C-130's say, but the Antarctic would not have paid for the development of the C-130. Right up until now, probably. What does all this mean? Ask me in 50 years, and I will tell you. Santayana said "Those that cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it." We, some of us, remember the history, but that really does no good, all the possibilities are there, and we ARE going to repeat something. Which, is the question. In the military, they say "Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics." In the Launch Vehicle business, amateurs want to talk configurations, technical trivia, but the big question is REQURIEMENTS. Who is the customer, will he please stand up? And, what will he pay for? Believe me, that is a hotly discussed topic, and one for which there is not clear cut answer. There are two possible government customers, anyone that believes that they can be integrated into one is a hopeless romantic dreamer. Neither of them is really sure what they want, and both have a considerable commitment to doing what the government does best, what they are already doing. Government participation really pretty much eliminates the possibility of a "self interested" private enterprise effort. If there is one, it will have to be "disinterested". "Real" investors are scared silly by the theat, a very real one, that the government may change the rules, at any time, even after the fact, as they have done, repeatedly, in the past. Everyone likes to talk about cost, and how we are much smarter now than before, and therefore we can get much more "bang for the buck". Everyone, including me, tells that story. But, one "model" of the Shuttle program is that its design criteria was to keep a certain number of NASA people employed, to "preserve the institution" (for what purpose, I can't say). If that is the case, I guess that it must have been one of the most successful programs ever. However, that defines the "bucks", the only question is what, if anything, is going to be gotten for it. Schemes that presume that the government is going to change its spots, and suddenly start doing business in an entirely different manner, which even some government people talk about, seem pretty much in the SciFi category to me. Every one wants to talk about the "X-planes" and the "Blackbirds", but those programs did not put a ton of already in place civil servants, and contractors, too, out of work. One thing I do know, all this technical bickering, among different concepts, is very damaging to getting anything done. And, I, for one, am perfectly willing to stop this self destructive practice, just so long as MY scheme is the one that everyone agrees on. And, everyone else has the same idea. I can assure you that SSTOs are not the scheme that everyone will agree on, not in this century, maybe not the next (although some form of SSTO, or SSTO like thing, is feasible, eventually.) Another thing I am sure of. Nobody, but nobody, is going to get money, for the SSTO, or any other scheme, not out of the Congress, the OMB, the PDQ, XYZ, etc. to "see how it works," or to develop "scientific information." The well for that has already been poisoned by a horde of people and programs (I won't name names, or point fingers) who have already promised "the Moon" and more, and didn't perform. Who ever gets money now, is going to have to promise even more wonderful things, no matter how distasteful that may be, those that won't promise, won't get a shot (there will be plenty that will). And, when the program size gets big enough, so that it is a threat to the status quo, those excessive claims, are going to be subjected to a lot of scrutiny. The question that is going to be asked most often is: "What is in this puppy for ME". Any program that doesn't have a lot of satisfactory answers for that is not going to go far (why does the Shuttle have some liquid and some solid propulsion? Engineers couldn't make up their mind? Guess again. More Congressional delegations? Hummm... Interesting idea, I hadn't thought of that.) Any program that can provide those answers is, by definition, going to be HUGE. Now, one can hope that one might also get HUGE returns, but, don't count on it. In fact, don't count on anything happening, at all, not for a while. Particularly, the CIS has to be sorted out, and who knows how that may go, next week, or tomorrow. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 442 Thu Apr 22, 1993 H.HILLBRATH [Henry] at 02:16 EDT > Message 437 Thu Apr 22, 1993 > D.THORNBURG [Doug] at 00:06 EDT > it will have to balanced against other projects like the human genome project and the Texas SSC. The genome project already looks to be overtaken by technology, and in particular, there is this cat in France, who seems well on the way to completely scooping that boondoggle, before it even gets off the ground. The SSC, and particle physics in general, look to me like a worst case nightmare of run-a-way pork barrelism, and inbreeding between the bureaucrats and the physics community.; And, I am a BIG supporter of pure science. I can't imagine what the "person in the street" thinks about SSC, I can only imagine they haven't heard about it. > Message 439 Thu Apr 22, 1993 > D.BURKHEAD [David] at 00:45 EDT > Not all that long ago lasers were a "solution in search of a problem. Yes, that is true, and there was a day or two, after the invention of the laser that even the inventors didn't know of anything that it was good for, but, very soon, they, and others, started thinking of a lot of things. There was very, very little spent on lasers before there were applications. And, for ever laser, a solution that finds its problems, there are a dozen others, that consume a lot more money, and never find a problem. Remember "Bubble Memory"" Remember "Rolomites"? The flops are harder to remember than the successes, no one ever heard of them, but there are a lot more of them. > If we do not get off this planet before the resource base grows > too small to do so, then we never will. If that happens > mankind's decendents will be condemned to crushing poverty > .forever. > After all, who cares if our descendents curse our memory. As I recall, you are a historian. I am an engineer, but history is maybe my first love. And, I know something of the history of technology. Heck, a bunch of it is now "Current Events" old mossy backs like Bozlee and me. I have head this "we owe it to our descendents" bit before, in support of every scheme that anyone was selling at the time. In the 1600's, the "conventional wisdom" in Great Britain was in "diminished expectations" because the "resource base had gown too small", and their "decendents will be condemned to crushing poverty .forever". Great Britain had already, in that view, lost its chance to be a major industrial power, before the "Industrial Revolution" ever began, because it had squandered its one irreplaceable requirement for that, fuel wood, with out which iron could not be made. My father, who was not much educated, but who was very well read, was quite concerned that our precious coal was being squandered for fuel, when we should be saving it as a feed stock for various chemical industries. In the early 1900's, there were chemicals that were made only from coal, particularly coal tar. Today, you can't give coal, most especially coal tar, to the synthesis industry, and, trying to use coal tar for some of the things that it was used for then, like shampoo and hand soap additives, would probably get you put in jail. I can tell you, with a lot of assurance, what our descendents are going to do about our most serious concerns. They are going to just what we do about our ancestors, laugh their heads off because we were worrying the wrong things. Now matter what we worry about. . ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 443 Thu Apr 22, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 12:00 EDT David, we all agree that space is useful and required. Hell, I bet we have all agrred that Earth is too small a basket for all the eggs. But this is a point of philosophy. Large sums of money are not handed out for philosophy. At least not hundreds of millions or billions. You have missed my point by >< this much: Yes, we need space access, it is something the race needs to do. Now we need to learn the language of the banker and broker so they see the dream in the terms they understand. Thus far we have utterly failed to do that. Until we do we dont get the bucks. And as the man said, no bucks, no Buck Rogers. Henry, well said. Thank you. I think the Antarctic analog is quite appropriate in this case. It is a place of great scientific value, totally indifferent to man, and just easy enough to get to that we are not discouraged. I think we are saying the same thing about requirements. I want to know how much profit you can make with these neat toys, and what we make that profit from, and you want to know the requirement. It amounts to much the same thing looked at from slightly different angles. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 444 Thu Apr 22, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 12:32 EDT Thank you again Henry. I agree with you 100%, and how many times does that happen? History seems to be driven by crisis. Every age has its crisis that will end it all if SOMETHING ISNT DONE (emphasis implied...;-) Going into space for our children and grandchildren is really a philosophical position. It is a philosophical position I think we all agree with. But, the banks dont make large loans on philosophy. Philosophy doesnt pay the interest. Business empires are seldom built by selling philosophy. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 445 Thu Apr 22, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 12:50 EDT Britain regained its chance to be a major industrial power by moving its resource base _off_ the British Isles. Seems to me the parallel is clear. BTW, I am not a historian. I am a writer specializing in science and technical issues. I wonder if in Iceland several centuries ago the "pro" side won the debate "resolved, the voyages of Lief Erikson are a waste of time and money." David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 446 Thu Apr 22, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 16:29 EDT I do not think think space is a waste of time or money, a position I am sure the vast majority of people here agree with. But the simple fact of the matters seems to be ignored: You will not get private investment money for space if it is presented purely on philosophical grounds. We know government is not going to get us into space, thus the one remaining tool is private enterprise. To get the money to make our dreams reality we must learn to speak the language of the banker and capitalist. We have to present hard data about what we want to do, how much it will cost, how much will be made from the investment, and how long will it take to pay back the investment with interest. So far no one seems to want to address these issues in any rational manner. We are too stuck on the philosophy, too hung up on "vision" to see where the solutions to the problems lie. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 447 Thu Apr 22, 1993 M.HUTCHINSO2 [Mardy in YUL] at 20:52 EDT Ok, let's talk about how to commercialize space. Who knows, we might come up with something. About the only viable alternatives that I can immediately think of are power, material-processing, science, and tourism. Power: Personally, I think this is a dead fish. It's really *much* cheaper to put 20 times as much solar collectors on the rooves of each person's house. That's just as cheap. Only it doesn't have the backing of big industry, since then there would be so many independent producers. Materials-Processing: There might be some need for the hard vacuum of space, or the micro-gravity conditions. For this to be competitive with earth-bound factories, the transport costs have to out-weigh the difficulty of doing it on earth. At $5,000 per pound, you can do a lot of work here on earth. Besides, LEO vacuum will become 'polluted' in short order once there is any significant traffic there. As for micro-gravity, well, you'll need a special facility for that. "Ed" is simply going to be too noisy for that. Science: Face it, scientists are poor and/or cheap (thrifty?). No money there. After the 100th payload, how much more will there be to study? (See also negatives re materials processing -- scientists typically want either purity and/or stability => further out) Tourism: At $5,000 per pound, with one week's stay costing about 500 pounds for person with consumables, that's $2.5 Million. Some vacation. Of course, if you can get the cost to LEO down to $100 per pound, that will make both materials processing and tourism more attractive. (One week is now *only* $50,000 -- %cheap% ) Comments Please! How do we get the bankers in on this? Regards -- Mardy ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 448 Thu Apr 22, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 21:57 EDT How do you get the bankers in on the action? Learn to speak their language. Show them they will get their money back, within the time limits of the contract, and how much interest they will make. In short treat space like any other capital intensive business. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 449 Thu Apr 22, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 22:39 EDT Bozlee, I don't think we have any real disagreement actually. My own view is that the money to be made is there -- we just need to be able to get into space at considerably less than $8 million per ton (from the best and most recent price figures I have). Delta Clipper is one possible way, as is NASP (although I have my doubts about _any_ NASA project), even the laser launcher I'm working on. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 450 Thu Apr 22, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 23:17 EDT Bozlee, Re #448 Working on it. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 451 Fri Apr 23, 1993 H.HILLBRATH [Henry] at 00:05 EDT > Message 445 Thu Apr 22, 1993 > D.BURKHEAD [David] at 12:50 EDT > Britain regained its chance to be a major industrial power > by moving its resource base _off_ the British Isles. Seems > to me the parallel is clear. Well, if you remember the stamp act, the Boston Tea Party, and all t jazz, one of the big issues was that, in fact, the British refused to move any industrial production off the British Isles, at all, most especially iron, glass, textiles, etc. The particular resource that was going to cause the collapse of the system was fuel wood, and they certainly didn't base the industrial revolution on imported fuel wood. The mostly unforeseen innovations that turned around the fuel wood crisis, were the discovery of how to make iron with coke, from coal, which had been tried, unsuccessfully, for a long time, but finally came good, and the same for pumps for draining the mines, which had been discussed for a long time, and the basic ideas for had been around "since the Greeks", but which "came together" at just about the same time (1712) as the iron form coke scheme (1708?). > I wonder if in Iceland several centuries ago the "pro" side > won the debate "resolved, the voyages of Lief Erikson are a > waste of time and money." Well, the Norse moved west from Iceland to Greenland, and that was generally considered to be a practical payoff. So, I guess not. Then, the Greenlanders moved even further west, which looked to be somewhat promising, but, before an thing could come of it, one way or the other, the climate turned so cold that the colony in Greenland failed, and with out the Greenland base, they, no way, could support "Vineland" from Iceland, and so they pulled back. So, given the facts, I don't see how that debate would have taken place. Sort of distantly related to the topic, but a causal inspection of a globe, or polar projection chart, will indicate that at the arctic, the whole land mass of the earth sort of runs together. It is only sort of a convention that Labrador is "America", and Greenland isn't. It wouldn't have taken the Greenlanders long to notice that the climate got balmier, further west. They would have been back, if the climate hadn't gotten them. (Although I fully concur with the theory of plate tectonics, the present configuration, with the Arctic Ocean remarkably neatly centered on the north pole, and the Antarctic centered, fairly much, on the south, is a very unusual coincidence. So strange that there are some out there with bizarre "pole shift" theories which attempt to explain that.) Due to this arctic connection, while the Southerners, like the Spanish, Portuguese, etc. were off agonizing over how to get to Japan, the Northerners, from both directions, were spreading out into all the continents, with really very little trouble, or "high technology", successive waves came around CCW, from the west to east, in the amerind and Eskimo migrations, and the Norse were going CW from the east to the west. There didn't have to be any great conceptual leaps, like the figure of the earth, studies of arcane ancient documents, observation of the astronomical bodies, just keep keep moving into the sunset (or sunrise) looking for new land. The fact that the Norse, and Eskimos, found the land already inhabited, slowed down their rate of expansion into the "vacuum," of the empty Americas that the amerinds did, and, the climate pushed the Norse back, but more waves of expansion were inevitable, so, While Chris C. was off in Spain, telling Isabella, "This is the very last chance that we have to get of this continent, and if we wait any longer, resource depletion is going to doom us to eternal poverty". The Norse were just waiting for better weather. (Of course, that isn't what CC told her, he wouldn't have gotten a peso on that cockamany argument, what he told her was that there was a quick profit to be made. One of my theories is that "real" development in space, won't happen, until someone figures out something that one can do there that is both profitable, and illegal, or would be on earth.) If we just wait, we may, in fact, get off the planet, anyway, who knows what is coming around the other way to meet us? (The biggest unsolved question about extraterrestrial intelligence is not "Do they exist?" but "Where are they?") Another example, of the bogus "act before midnight tonight, or face eternal poverty" scam was the nuclear breeder reactor push of the mid '70. According to the NBR lobby, there was only just this very narrow widow, and if we didn't hurry quick like, and gather up all the worlds uranium, and get it in those breeder reactors, right away, there would never be another chance. Fortunately, we didn't bite on that one. Now some people are trying to sell the "we have to have a maximum effort to get lunar 3He, immediately, or we are doomed to eternal poverty. We have to do this for our descendants." I don't intend this as a personal attack, and I am not trying to say that you, personally are using a bogus argument to further a your particular scheme, which happens to be one that I support, it is just that you are using an argument that has had bad associations. I try to think back to any preceding generation and think "Just what was it that they HAD to do, for me, now, that made any difference?" Charles Martel against the Arabs? Columbus got his arithmetic right and concluded that he would die at sea trying to said to Japan (which he would have, if the way hadn't been blocked.) Apple didn't fall on Newton? Whatever, I don't buy any of those. I think that our descendents will probably not find their situation much altered by our actions, and that all that "your children will hate you" is just an attempt at using a guilt trip for some sales advantage. I don't bite on any of them. (I hope.) At best, those are very weak arguments, and not the sort of thing you convince investors, or even congressmen with. Those are the sort of thing that they might like to talk about, AFTER they are already convinced on some other grounds. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 452 Fri Apr 23, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 01:13 EDT Doug, If the DC-3 would make money on the Block III contract for McDonnell Douglas, that might be a solution. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 453 Fri Apr 23, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 01:32 EDT You have clearly seen the need for a mixed fleet, David. I have a feeling that all of those systems will find some application. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 454 Fri Apr 23, 1993 RSEVERY [Randall] at 10:18 EDT From: jkatz@access.digex.com (Jordan Katz) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: SSRT Roll-Out Speech Date: 21 Apr 1993 22:09:32 -0400 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA SSRT ROLLOUT Speech Delivered by Col. Simon P. Worden, The Deputy for Technology, SDIO Mcdonnell Douglas - Huntington Beach April 3,1993 Most of you, as am I, are "children of the 1960's." We grew up in an age of miracles -- Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles, nuclear energy, computers, flights to the moon. But these were miracles of our parent's doing. For a decade and more the pundits have told us - "you've lost it!" The "me" generation is only living on the accomplishments of the past. You and I have even begun to believe the pessimists. We listen in awe as the past generation tells of its triumphs. Living history they are. We are privileged to hear those who did it tell of it. A few weeks ago some of this very team listened in awe as General Bernie Schriever told of his team's work - and yes struggle - to build this nation's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. What stories can we tell? Blurry-eyed telescopes? Thousand dollar toilet seats? Even our space launch vehicles hearken only of that past great time. They are and seem destined to remain Gen. Schriever's ICBMs. I find it hard to swell with pride that the best new space-lifter idea is to refurbish old Minuteman and Poseidon ballistic missiles. Well - The pessimists are wrong. The legacy is continuing. This event is proof. To our technological parents: We've listened to your stories. We've caught your enthusiasm and can-do spirit. And we've learned from your achievements - and your mistakes. Let me honor one of you who was part of that history and the impetus behind this history - Max Hunter. You are one of the greatest engineers of the firts great age of space exploration. Your insight and discipline built the Thor ICBM - later incorporated into today's most successful launch vehicle - The Delta. You told us in the 60's that a new form of launch vehicle - a single stage reusable rocket - can and should be built. You advocated this idea tirelessly. It was elegantly simple, as are all great breakthroughs. You showed us how to build it. You convinced us it could be done. You are working by our side to weld its components into place. Most important - you reminded us of a prime engineering principle - undoubtably one you learned from the generation before you - the generation that built transcontinental aviation in the 1920's and 30's - build a little and test a little and Max, you passed all of this on to people like Pat Ladner who started this program for the SDI. Douglas Aircraft didn't start with a DC-10. They didn't even start with a DC-3. Our grandfathers built a little, tested a little - even sold a little and made a little money - before they moved on to the next step. They didn't take a decade or more before putting the first "rubber on the road." Max Hunter - you didn't take ten years to build Thor, and by God we're not going to take ten years to show that low cost, single stage, reusable aerospace transportation is real. We ended the cold war in a few short years. It took the same team here today but a few years to show through the Strategic Defense Initiative that the cold war must end. We - you and us - launched a series of satellites - The Delta experiments - in about a year apiece. This, more than anything else signaled our commitment to end the impasse between ourselves and the Soviet Union. Those who made the decisions on both sides have underscored the importance of our work in bringing about a new international relationship. But it is the same team which is now putting in place the framework for an aerospace expansion that is our legacy for the next generation. We will make space access routine and affordable. We built this magnificent flying machine in two years. This summer a true rocket ship will take off and land on earth for the first time. Then we can and surely will build in the next three years a reusable sub-orbital rocket. It will allow us to use space rapidly, affordably, and efficiently as no other nation can. And yes - we'll make a little money off it too! Then - and only then - we'll spend another three years to build a fully reusable single stage to orbit system. The DC-3 of space will be a reality! We may even be able to use some of the rocket propulsion breakthroughs of our former cold war adversaries. What a wonderful irony if this SDI product and Russian efforts to counter SDI merge to power mankind's next step to the stars! To be sure, we must guard against the temptations to leap to the final answer. Robert Goddard's first rockets weren't Saturn V's! If we succumb to the temptation to ask for just a few extra dollars and a few more years to jump immediately to a full orbital system - we will fail. Max Hunter and his colleagues showed the way. Three years and a cloud of dust - in our case rocket exhausts. There is no short-cut. If we expect to reshape the world again - we must do it one brick at a time. Minds on tasks at hand! This project is real. The torch of American technological greatness is being passed. We are Americans. This machine is American. Let's go fly it! ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 455 Fri Apr 23, 1993 RSEVERY [Randall] at 10:19 EDT From: jkatz@access.digex.com (Jordan Katz) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: U.S. Space Foundation Speech Date: 21 Apr 1993 22:12:59 -0400 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Speech by Pete Worden Delivered Before the U.S. Space Foundation Conference Colorado Springs, Colorado April 15, 1993 What a delightful opportunity to cause some trouble. For providing me this forum I would sincerely like to thank the U.S. Space Foundation. My topic today is the Single Stage Rocket Technology rocket or SSRT. By I intend to speak of more. How to lower the cost and make rapid progress. SSRT is to my mind -- and I hope to convince you -- the erupting a new rallying cry for our generation in space -- Faster, Cheaper, and Better. Faster, Cheaper, Better and SSRT represent the passing of a torch from one technical generation to another. It is a new thing to be sure -- but it is also a relearning of old things from past masters. When we rolled out the SSRT baby two weeks ago, so called experts told us it violates the laws of physics -- it made no sense. For example, Dr. Eberhart Rachtin - former president of the Aerospace Corp., said of SSRT in the L.A. Times that it, "defies the best principles of launching payloads into space." Well Dr. Rachtin -- you've made us mad! What are these principles that SSRT defies? Well I'll tell you. It violates the principle that you need a giant program office to build space hardware. It violates the "fact" that it takes 20 years to build something new. And it violates the truism that you cant do anything significant for less than many billions of dollars. It took some of the last generation's experts to teach us some new/old lessons. Werhner Von Braun's first rocket was not a Saturn V. General Schriever's ICBM's didn't take ten years to demonstrate. And the X-1 airplane didn't cost $1 billion. It took one of the great engineers of the 1950's to remind us of these truths -- Max Hunter. Max, to remind you, was a senior engineer in the Thor IRBM program, and old faster, better, cheaper success story. Max has been persistent in a vision of a single stage reusable space launch system since the 1960's. Because he knew it had to be done in affordable steps - Build a little, Test a little. Next he persuaded us to do a technology demonstration. We didn't solicit a bunch of requirements -- they'd just change every few years anyway. [ not included in the speech -- The ALS/NLS has such ephemeral requirements that it would better known as "Shape Shifter" than "Space Lifter." We didn't spend a lot money -- this X-Rocket only cost $60 million. When's the last time we even built a new airplane for that? And it didn't take a lot of time to build -- McDonnell Douglas completed it in 18 months. Finally, the government program office consisted of one very over-worked Air Force Major -- motivated in part by the threat that he'd get to ride on it in a strapped-on lawn chair if it ran over cost or schedule. As I described what SSRT is -- and isn't keep in mind its only a first step. There are several more steps -- and steps that can easily fail -- before the U.S. can field an SSTO. But each step should follow the same principles -- a small management team -- a few years technology demonstration -- and a modest budget. Let me show a few details on SSRT and how it might evolve: (See charts) I'm embarrassed when my generation is compared with the last generation -- the giants of the last great space era, the 1950's and 1960's. They went to the moon - we built a telescope that can't see straight. They soft-landed on Mars - the least we could do is soft-land on Earth! But we do have an answer. We can follow their build a little, test a little philosophy to produce a truly affordable and routine access to space. I know there are nay sayers among you -- those who say SSRT is a stunt. It needs more thermal protection, the engines are wrong, it would be better to land horizontally, etc, etc. I say to you -- we'll see you at White Sands in June. You bring your view-graphs, and I'll bring my rocketship. If we do what we say we can do, then you let us do the next step. [ not included in the speech: If we fail -- you still have your program offices, staff summary sheets, requirement analyses, and decade long programs.] I bet on my generation and Max Hunter's idea -- Any Takers? ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 456 Fri Apr 23, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 19:15 EDT If a Norse invasion fleet like that that Olaf or Gutrum launched against England had set out to Vinland, (via Iceland and Groenland) they would have survived and suceeded, the reason that Vinland failed was due to there being very few Greenlanders who went there, and they only went there to look for supplies to sell back in the West Colony. The incident with the Beothuks didn't help any either. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 457 Fri Apr 23, 1993 D.THORNBURG [Doug] at 22:03 EDT Random replies: SPS's: I understand what you are saying about the technical aspects of low power density distribution. My main points about this were actually, (1) it is doubtful that this can compete with existing electrical power sources on a dollar per Kwatt-hour basis and (2) regardless of the low power densities you were talking about can you honestly say you expect the modern environmental movement to let you do the beaming? In other words, many things that are technically doable can't be sold to the public at large for reasons that are not always rational. Any rate, I just wanted to clarify my position on that. CD players vs. SSTOs: Yes, I do own a couple of CD players and quite a few other gizmos. What I am saying is that I do not buy into the idea that space exploration/exploitation is in and of itself such an overwhelmingly good thing that we "go for it", without considering our actions. Just because we can build an SSTO (which we probably can although it is an admittedly open debate as to whether it would be a useful vehicle) does not mean that there is a good reason why we should. We can build B-2 bombers and Seawolf submarines but other than the ones that are already in the pipe it seems that we aren't going to be making any more of those either. Bozlee has got it right. Until you can show businesses why they should spend billions on SSTOs they aren't going to do it. It is hard for those of us who are excited about space (and I am certainly one of those) to admit it but space is a long way from being explored or developed. You talk about taking a long term approach instead of a short term one, I'm all for that but realistically we are probably a generation or more away from serious commercial exploitation of space because no matter how you slice it the dollars just don't add up. SSC, Human Genome, SSTO My point with regard to these ideas was related to the fact that we will learn something from each of these endeavors. The first two will require the development of sophisticated new computers for instance which will filter down to other projects. Obviously, the long term implications of the human genome project on medicine and health are large but the payoff there is a going to be a long time coming. The SSC will till us new things about physics but it may be a lot of money just to find the "God particle" for some aging physics heavyweights. My point was that all of these projects (and many others) have similar traits. We do benefit from each of them but they all cost a LOT of money and they all have payoffs a long way in the future. Before you go spending a $1 billion on SSTO instead of a lower level of funding for a longer term approach you will need to justify why SSTO is so much more important. -Doug ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 458 Sun Apr 25, 1993 T.OBRIEN9 [Squire] at 08:00 EDT One of the primary reasons for European expansion into the East was trade. We need ETs to trade with. Not likely to happen? OK The English developed colonies partly to provide crops. We have a food surplus. No solution there. Another English reason for colonies was penal. Two American colonies were penal, as was Australia. Even with the current inmate population in the U.S. it's cost ineffective to ship then into space. The Spanish Empire spent a lot of energy plundering the new civilizations they found. Once again no ETs available, and thank providence! It's most likely cost ineffective to recover natural resources from space currently. No help there. Last on my list is colonies of the persecuted. Several colonies were founded by religious minorities. Although we have more minorities than they, I doubt any wish to move to Mars to live peacefully. A common science fiction theme is the Escape from Overpopulation. That seems far-fetched currently. Colonies wouldn't help that either. We can't ship people out fast enough to match the growth rate, and established colonies populate faster than source communities, due to need for workers. Just working it out.... ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 459 Sun Apr 25, 1993 K.BULLOCK [KenB] at 13:40 EDT Instead of looking at the New World analogy from the Europeans' point of view, how about looking at it from the Native Americans' point of view? See pp. 30- 32 of Douglas Adams's _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, where an alien race suddenly shows up to demolish Earth to make way for a "hyperspatial express route." The alien commander curses humanity for not visiting the local planning department in Alpha Centauri to view the plans: "Apathetic bloody planet, I've got no sympathy at all." Sure, it's humor, but there's some truth there. As long as we restrict ourselves to the planet's surface, we won't be in control of our destiny. And the decentralized photovoltaic concept (was that discussed in this topic?) is not a true alternative to space-generated power. The reason we need space power is that the energy needs of the planet are likely to continue to increase exponentially as developing nations strive to achieve our standard of living. Space- based power and fusion are the only sources I've heard of that have the potential to generate that amount of energy reliably. The problems with fusion are (1) it isn't feasible yet and (2) it will, contrary to some claims, create considerable radioactive waste. Space-based power generation is largely within our technical capabilities. We just need to reduce launch costs to make it feasible. (See, I came back to the topic!) ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 460 Sun Apr 25, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 13:54 EDT Good job Squire, thank you. So, we are back to working space like any other capital intensive operation. Seems to me that they folks who say we will make all sorts of money out there ought to right a simple business plan and show it to us so we can follow the logic. That is what the banker would want. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 461 Sun Apr 25, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 16:16 EDT Bozlee, So, Lewis and Clark should never have explored westward because we didn't know how to make money out there? There are too many unknowns just yet to be able to say definitively that "we can make money _this_ way." But if we don't go out there and try some things they will _always_ remain unknowns. And anyone who thinks we can solve future problems of energy and material resources by "conservation" or "developing new resources here on Earth" simply does not understand the second law of thermodymanics. Space has energy. 1360 watts passing through each square meter normal the the sun in the region of Earth. Space has resources. If we considered the per-capita production of metals in the US from _all_ sources, including recycling, and applied that to the entire world's population, then a 3% yield ore would make a rock about 4 km in diameter. There are more than 100,000 asteroids larger than 5 km in diamter. Space has an environment highly conducive to a number of industrial processes. Population problems? Take a piece of graph paper. Along one side list figures for per capita gross national product, along an adjoining side list figures for birth rate per thousand. Plot one against the other for the world's nations using figures from the latest world almanac. The trend is clear wealth = low birth rate. Now, do the same thing plotting energy use against per capita gross national product. Energy = wealth. Space has energy -- far more than will _ever_ be available on the Earth. The sun releases more energy in one _second_ than all of mankind would use at current rates in over 600 years. Pollution? With enough energy we can convert all pollutants into harmless or even beneficial compounds. But so long as we rely on Earth based power sources producing the energy to do that will produce more pollutants than it cleans. I have said, and I continue to say, that the key to space, and the wealth of Midas, is access to space at reasonably cost. Unfortunately, building space enterprise is a longer term proposition than businesses today, or even governments (perhaps especially governments) are willing to consider. Sometimes, usually when I'm alone in the dark, I don't think we'll ever move off earth as a civilization. I look at the future that results from that abandonment of space. I look, and I cry. 350 million years ago, a small and intrepid group ventured out into a new and hostile environment to stay. Their peers remained behind. Those that remained behind are still there, and they are still fish. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 462 Sun Apr 25, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 17:59 EDT David, either you misunderstand, or more probably, I am being unclear. Permit me to rephrase and try again. Government funding is not the way to get us off-planet. With government funding comes government oversight and government regulation. This is the road to high cost space access. That is what we have now. I doubt any of us here are very happy with that state of affairs. Since government funding is not the best way to go only private funding is left. To get that private investment you will need one of two things to happen: Either you get some very VERY wealthy person to back your efforts (And remember that for the most part the very VERY wealthy did not get that way by taking too many chances or by being foolish with their money.) or you go to more conventional financial backing. Either case requires, to one degree or another, that you demonstrate that you are not wasting the money you are given, and that you are capable of paying back the loans you are given. Of course we all believe space is a Good Thing to do. But we believe it from philosophical not financial grounds. We hear phrases like "Earth is the cradle of humanity but one can not remain in the cradle forever," "What man has done he can aspire to," or Earth is too small a basket for all of humanities eggs." These are wonderful turns of phrase. They stir the imagination of those who are leaning toward the view we all share. But at their core they are simply phrases. They carry no meaning when it comes to getting the money that is required to build a space infrastructure. Go into the bank, ask for a loan based upon philosophy and be prepared to be shown the door. Go in and ask for the same loan and tell the banker you need the money because you do not know what you will find out there and you do not know how much you can make and same result, a fast tour of the exit. Go in with a business plan written in the manner that a banker expects to see outlining how much you need, where the money will be spent, how much you will make, when the bank will be repaid and how much interest the bank will make and you have some chance of getting a check. That is the root of the problem: We have a lot of folks who are very good phrase turners and too few tin benders, money manipulators and machine tuners. Space does not need any more fancy "visionaries", it needs people who see what they want, understand the real world, including the money end of it, well enough that they can get the bucks needed and then and only then go out and build. So far, with a few exceptions, all we have are the self styled "visionaries" and darned few of the others. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 463 Sun Apr 25, 1993 FLACK [John & Anne] at 19:12 EDT Bozlee - I agree that the Antartic analogy is the right one. Any interest in Space beyond pure science is going to have to wait until we've been there long enough to explore what can be done there to make money. Once we find a profit in space there will plenty of money to help get us there cheaply. In the long run, I think this will happen, but what do we do in the short run to make sure that we have at least as much presence in space as we now have in Antartica? Oops - I think we have a chicken and egg situation here. Only having a permanent presence in space will get us the information we need to figure out what we can do there. To get that presence, we need cheap ways of getting there, maybe SSTO, maybe something else. But to get cheaper ways to get to space, we need to have a money incentive to get people with money to invest it. Which brings us back to the beginning. --John ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 464 Sun Apr 25, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 19:16 EDT Bozlee, And _that_ is why I cry. It seems the attitude that led man to climb the hill to see what was on the other side is dead. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 465 Sun Apr 25, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 20:41 EDT John & Anne, you have to identify a market, figure out how to service that market, and then make the money types agree with your vision. This is much the same sort of thing that is done with a lot of other capital intensive enterprises. David, the attitude of exploration is not dead, it is not even ill. The problem comes from people remembering history the way it wasnt. For example, we have all heard of the Pilgrims, but how many know their migration to the New World was intended as a profit making venture? Freeman Dyson wrote about this in _Disturbing_the_Universe_. James Burke made much of the fact that while history doesnt repeat, the forces that drive history do. We seem to forget that the grand voyages of exploration of the past had to be paid for just the same as modern spaceships. So, how was the trick done back then? Does that provide any clues about how to do it today? ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 466 Sun Apr 25, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 21:06 EDT Bozlee, Are you trying to say that Corneilius Vanderbilt lived by the quarterly earnings report (that's the driving force behind modern business)? Why did Danial Boone go West ("More elbow room")? Maybe most of the "exploration" was with the idea of making money. A good argument could be made for that. But at least they were willing to _gamble_. _That_ is what's dead. Nobody's willing to spend money on space because we don't know how to make money there. But since we can't get out there in any significant way we can't learn the things we would need to know to make money there. But since we don't know those things we can't say how to make money there. But since we can't say how to make money nobody's willing to spend the money to get out there. And around and around. Here lies the spirit of the human race. May its rest be ever troubled by dreams of what might have been. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 467 Sun Apr 25, 1993 J.FILPUS ["Dr. John"] at 22:05 EDT Dave Small: >>My first son will be entering college in 2001. Cartoon I saw in September 1988: Caption: "What all children entering kindergarden this year will have in common." Child standing in doorway: "Our prom theme will be 'Also Sprach Zarathustra!'" -- "Dr. John" Filpus ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 468 Sun Apr 25, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 22:47 EDT I do not know if it was a quarterly earnings report Mr. Vanderbilt lookedat, but you can rest assured of one thing: If a venture did not make money steps were taken to find the problem and fix it. You do not make the kind of money he made by not minding the store. I will agree that we pay too much attention to near term profits at the expense of long term gain, but at least some of this can be accounted for by a host of rules, regulations and laws Mr. Vanderbilt never heard of. As for gambling being dead I disagree. A lot of folks gamble on new business ventures every year. they hock everything but the spare pair of socks to start a business, and sometimes they are a success, sometimes not. You will not pry a billion out of the cold fingers of a banker by telling him he is taking a gamble. If he wants to gamble he will go to Vegas or bet on the ponies at the local track. The spirit of adventure is alive and well. It is only the understanding of how to play the game for very high stakes that is lacking, not the adventursome spirit. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 469 Sun Apr 25, 1993 M.HUTCHINSO2 [Mardy in YUL] at 23:31 EDT KenB, I was the one that brought up the subject of decentralized Photo- voltaic power generation. (although I don't know if it was here..) I still think that the SPS (Sun Power System/Satellite) proposal is not as viable as people would like: You still must have land to put your rectennas on. Admittedly, the power density is more like a kilowatt per square metre, but this land is not very useful for anything else. With the distributed solar collectors, the power density is at best 10 percent, but only when the sun shines, which is about one quarter of the time. Even so, given all the capital equipment required, and the transport to space, I don't see SPS as being any more profitable to society than colletors on every one's roof. About the only thing that will DRAW us into space, from whence we can start a space-based economy, is Tourism. And perhaps a little bit of Science. Regards -- Mardy ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 470 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 00:04 EDT Bozlee, I've looked at many new business ventures, and the investors I've been able to learn about want a profit, a large one, in five years or less. Any new project with a payoff farther down the road only has a chance if you can find "true believers" to support it. So far there have not been the true believers with the necessary capital for space. Vanderbilt built a railroad empire, a process that took decades. I don't think that can happen today, for many reasons. If people are willing to gamble on the long term, why isn't anyone doing it? Davud ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 471 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 00:36 EDT Mardy, SPS's have two advantages -- 1) The power density _under_ the rectenna is virtually nil. The rectenna itself could use mesh reflectors to focus the microwaves so that sunlight can pass through them so that the land beneath is usable as either farmland or pasture. 2) The best way to use the SPS's power is _at the source_. Combine solar power with space resources: Power + resources +ingenuity = wealth. OTOH, all of this requires more time than anyone seems willing to give it. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 472 Mon Apr 26, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 02:02 EDT David, many firms do take a long range view, sadly not all, or even a majority of them are US firms. Many computer companies are looking far down the road in their planning. One reason banks and other institutions are unwilling to take a long view is simple: If they get caught in another round of runaway inflation as happened during the Carter years they will not make anything on a loan in terms of inflation adjusted dollars. So they tend to avoid time frames where they can not predict with some certainty what will happen. Thus, short term loans and emphasis on near term gains. This points out that government policy on a variety of levels has an effect on business, and that only with stable sustainable government can we expect to see any hope of long range planning. The days of the 1.5 trillion dollar federal budget must end or we will never get off planet. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 473 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 02:13 EDT Art, Once upon a time, I believed we would get off this planet. It is a goal I believe in with every fiber of my being, with an intensity I cannot put into words. Most of the time I no longer believe it will ever happen. I still try, not being one to quit on a goal I believe in (if you get the distinction) despite my lack of belief in the outcome. Once in a while something will happen that rekindles my faith. SSX -- a system _outside_ NASA -- did that, for a while. But then we get Clinton saying "No new launchers" (You mean the ones we have now are sufficient?) and sigh with resignation. Biology teaches a simple lesson -- grow or die. Looks like mankind has chosen the latter. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 474 Mon Apr 26, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 02:48 EDT It does not require more time than anyone is willing to spend, it requires more money than anyone has. Now, how would you write a business plan to make the banks believe you can make money with the concept, and how much will you need? ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 475 Mon Apr 26, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 03:25 EDT Never is a very, VERY long time David. I can well imagine someone in 1950 saying the same thing about the South Pole or the Moon. Yet these are now places where people have visited, and in the case of the Pole, live. SSX sounds nice on the surface, and I will freely admit that he idea of running a space operation like an airline is no doubt correct. But I am also reminded that we bought into the airline analogy once before with shuttle. We know how that turned out. Thus the emphasis I place on making darned sure we do not repeat the mistakes that lead to the shuttle being where it is today. I have a much brighter long range view than you for exactly the same reasons. Someone will be the first to live in space permanantly. It does not have to be an American. The analog to commercial aircraft works here as well. The 707 is generally though to be the aircraft that put jet travel on the map. But it was not the first jet airliner. It just had the advantage of knowing where the other guys went wrong, avoiding their errors, and making darned sure you understood the market and what it was willing to pay before going ahead with the program. Sure there were doubts, and countless ways to fail. But they did their homework as best they were able and the rest is history. Most folks here believe as you do that space is a good thing to do. I will not argue with that, I believe it myself. Since we have agreed that what we want to do is the correct thing to do, what steps must be taken to achieve the dream? This is where most folks exit the bus. They see the task as too big to tackle. Clearly it is not, we just have to put some more tools in the bag of tricks. Tools we have not had to use before. But we will learn to use them. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 476 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 03:29 EDT Bozlee, No one knows how to "make money from space" because we have no real experience in doing industry in space. But, since we don't know how to "make money from space" no one wants to invest in space. So, since no one wants to invest in space, we cannot get real experience in doing industry in space. And since we cannot get real experience in doing industry in space, we will not learn how to "make money from space." Which brings us back to the beginnings. Since no one wants to break that circle, the game is over, finis, kaput. Why bother breathing? David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 477 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 03:43 EDT Art, When DeHaviland brought out the Comet, they could do so because it did something they knew could make money take people from one place to another more quickly and easily than they could go by other aircraft. But they already had the people wanting to go from one place to another. Contrast that efforts of which I am familiar in putting together a business plan to develop a launcher. To do so, you have to prove to the investors satisfaction that there's a volume market for launches into space. But there _is_ no such market. Why is there no such market? Well, you see, launches cost 8-20000 dollars per kilogram. But won't the market be larger if you bring launch costs down? Sure. Will it be enough to justify the capital expense? Maybe, but try to prove it. I can't and I've tried d*mned hard. Before you can anything profitable in space it seems there are at least a dozen other things you have to do first, half of which are impossible. I wish somebody could prove me wrong. Truly I do. But I no longer expect it to happen. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 478 Mon Apr 26, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 13:39 EDT We do know how to make money David. For example commsats. Tourism offers another profit motive. If we take your philosophy as a given we just do not try. I maintain it is possible to get into space, it is possible to make money, but I guess you are right. Lets just close down the topic, curl up and die. What is the world wide market for launch services? If the SSTO vehicles we are discussing are anywhere near as cheap to operate as the fans claim you are then in a position to capture a large fraction of that market. But again, you seem to advocate giving up because the job of geting this market is not easy. So be it. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 479 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 15:21 EDT Art, What is the world wide market for launch services? Depends on if you mean dollar value or tonnage delivered. If you mean dollar value, then capturing about 20% of the market share would be enough to justify the capital cost of developing a new launch system. According to _every_ source I could find, the market for comsats launches is saturated -- new launches mean taking them away from someone else. As a result a new launch service would be in direct competition against people like McDonnel Douglas, General Dynamics, and Martin Marietta. None of these companies will take kindly to losing business and unless you either have the finances to go head to head with them or are cheap enough to win a price war with them you're not likely to last long (of course, the lower you run prices, the bigger slice of the market you need to take to justify those capital costs). Then there's the small LEO launcher, the region my efforts have been in. How large is the market there? Almost non-existant. Why? Very few people have any payloads to go up in that size range at current prices. Will a drop in prices encourage more launches. Basic microeconomics says it will. Will it be enough? Impossible to determine, at least if the data is out there, I haven't been able to find it. Some _very_ rough estimates say that it would cost $50-100 million to develop a new, small-payload launcher (Scout class, about 250 kg) with low enough operating costs to make a significant difference. If you have to repay that investment over 10 years at 12% interest you need to make on the order of $1 million per year, plus depreciatioin, plus labor, plus fuel costs, plus taxes, plus legal fees, plus insurance. At a launch cost of $100 per kg (a figure usually cited as low enough to encourage "mass transit") that comes to 40 launches a year just to repay the capital costs, double that as a WAG to cover other costs. Are there enough payloads to make 80 launches per year? I don't know, and I haven't been able to find out. Delta Clipper, at least, will carry larger payloads. Since a ship that can carry large payloads can carry small ones too, it will have a larger customer base almost by definition. In history the early railroads (Remember Corneilius Vanderbilt?) had government assistance in the form of land grants and contracts (i.e. mail delivery) that provided a guarantee of at least some return on investment. Civil aviation got a boost from mail delivery contracts that helped pay for the nationwide (later worldwide) net of airports that were so necessary to air transport as well as insuring that flights would earn _something_ even if passengers and cargo did not work out. Even Columbus made his first voyage on a government grant. Would these things have happened without government assistance. Maybe, even probably, but they would have been much delayed. If they had relied on current business practices we might _still_ be waiting for Christofo to set sail. Space transport is radically different from both aircraft and railroads. Both of those were _improvements_ in transportation. People and goods were already travelling between the points they linked so entrepreneurs could show that a market for transport existed and that their new means would be faster and easier. With space transport, the markets won't exist until the transport system is in place. Trying to demonstrate how large that market would be is very difficult. I have not yet been able to do it. Now, my last couple of days posts represent a pretty severe fit of depression, but much that I have said remains true. I've been pounding against the wall in this for some time now. It may be that I'm just incompetent in the field and shouldn't waste everybody's time. It may be that the cracks are already appearing in the wall, I just can't see them yet. And it may be that the wall is too thick to breach. (I don't like to think so, but that possibility _is_ there.) David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 480 Mon Apr 26, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 17:06 EDT David, I fully understand the depression, I am subject to the same feeling for the same reason from time to time but I do not think all is lost. Think about this: There are those who tell us SSTO vehicles will be fairly inexpensive to design and build, and much cheaper to operate than existing vehicles, and that all this can be done in time frames that are remarkably short when compared to such things as commercial aircraft and space launchers. OK, lets assume they are right. What does this mean? In short it means you CAN go head to head with existing launch suppliers. Assume you have a comsat to launch. What do you do, select a Titan launch at 150 or so millions of dollars or a much cheaper SSTO boosters? I think the answer is clear. Of course all this assumes that SSTO booster are indeed cheap, fast to develop, and are capable of being operated at a profit. Thus far no one seems to want to step up to the line and show us that these things are so. This leaves one with the question that are the folks advocating cheap SSTOs right? I honestly do not know. But it does strike me as odd that they seem to be pretty lax in demonstrating their claims. They may well be correct, but at this stage we either blindly accept or reject the claims. This is not, in my humble opinion, a very desireable state of affairs. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 481 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 19:04 EDT Art, Every SSTO design I know of only reaches LEO. Since comsat's go to GEO they're not even in the running as carriers. Further, no current design can carry the payload to launch a comsat and "upper stage" booster, at least not that I'm aware of. BTW, you may want to take a look at my posts over in the ESS topic (down in the support groups CAT) if you haven't already. I have been working on the matter of low cost launch and my results to date are down there. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 482 Mon Apr 26, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 19:40 EDT David, we launched a lot of comsats with shuttle (I know, I know bad choice, but what the heck, we did do it) and it did not reach GEO either. Now we hear of 20,000 pound to LEO SSTOs, are you saying you can not put a comsat and upper stage in a 20,000 pound mass budget? Seems to me (And I will freely admit my memory may well be off, if so someone will tell me and I will issue humble apologies) that was about what we were talking about in terms of mass for a shuttle launched comsat. If these things are as cheap and easy to operate (Just line an airline folks. Flights every day...;-) you could, if need be, launch a comsat one day, store it in an on orbit garage, and launch the upper stage the next day. Gee, they told us they were cheap and easy. Were they wrong, or did anyone really stop to think about what was being said? Thanks for the heads up, will check it out. The system is getting too darned big to check everything every day. ESS slipped my attention. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 483 Mon Apr 26, 1993 S.SCHAPER [Meneldil] at 19:42 EDT The South Africans would love to move to Mars and live peaceably, if they only could. They'd make it bloom. on industrial presence, Clemantine is a good first step (note the name). We have a chicken and egg situation, as we know that we can make money out there, but takes tens of billions to get up and running (although the Lunar Society says they can do it for much less). Bozlee, The Pilgrims didn't come here as a profit-making venture, but the company with the ships were interested in a profit-making venture, and the Pilgrims agreed to the contract, in order to get where they wanted to go. Hmmm, a Homestead Act for the Moon and Asteroids? Every nation with a permanantly manned base gets all territory in a 200 mile rhomboid (on a sphere, to fit the map)? Every corp or private individual doing the same would get some smaller region. Ideas? It would be a while before this payed off, but it would give corporations and countries some hope that if they got there and were able to stay there, it would pay off in some way. A rectenna in the drier, southern, farming areas might increase the dwell- time of dew and by shading, also help the crops do better. Depending on the crops. How about a welfare program for the aerospace industry and `military industrial complex'? Clinton is putting 2.7 million such workers out of work, while supposedly creating 500,000 burger-flipping jobs for them. Why not spend the defense reduction on space? (not politically feasible, but the `money' is there). ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 484 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 20:06 EDT Bozlee, I just checked my notes and it's possible _if_ Delta Clipper has that 20,000 lb payload capacity. Aerospace projects have a history of mass growth that eats into payload capacity. I don't know how much they've allowed for that in the design. I was basing my earlier assessment on an earlier article I'd seen which claimed a 10,000 lb payload -- too small to launch current comsats along with an upper stage. In this, I think you and I are in agreement. We don't know enough about this Delta Clipper. BTW, I found an article that mentions a hull section that was built, how much it weighed, and how much it cost. It worked out to $5,000 per pound. Does anyone know how much the Delta Clipper is supposed to weigh? That should give an estimate of the cost of the airframe (cut it, say, in half for a production airframe). David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 485 Mon Apr 26, 1993 M.HUTCHINSO2 [Mardy in YUL] at 21:07 EDT David, Unfortunately, using Space Power in situ will take a large amount of 'presence' in space. You will have to have substantial numbers of people and equipment _working_ and _living_ in space. I don't think that we should think of how nice it will be after we have a critical mass in space, but of how to get people there. In other words, what do we use to DRAW people into space? On what application can I expect a reasonable return on investment? Once you have that, the rest will follow. Regards -- Mardy ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 486 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 22:58 EDT Mardy, See my forthcoming article in High Technology Careers David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 487 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.HARTSOCK [Dana] at 23:21 EDT When an economical launch sytsem is operational, SSTO or otherwise, there might be a lot of folks that can think of some way to take advantage and maybe even profit from such a capability. Current costs discourage such thinking. Dana ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 488 Mon Apr 26, 1993 D.THORNBURG [Doug] at 23:44 EDT David, We both would like to see the conquest of space proceed but on occassion you still seem to be grasping at economic straws. SPS's are DOA not because they can't be done technically but because they can't be done economically (at least not today...maybe when SSTO are a MATURE technology). How many billions is it going to cost you to put them up? Over what period to think you're going amortize this cost? A century? You're competeing against power running an average of less than a dime per kilowatt - hour in the current market. Tourism is not going to be available for anyone other than Bill Gates due the costs. All this aside, I am convinced that we will develop SSTO's and their successor's when the time is right. For now I think that we will have to be patient and probably that means that we will have to wait for big science and other research oriented programs develop the technology further. -Doug ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 489 Tue Apr 27, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 01:00 EDT Doug, I told Orville, and I told Wilbur, and now I'm telling _you_; that contraption will never work. Is that what you're saying? I've run some of the numbers. With launch costs down to about $100 per kilogram (design goal of all three of the main launch systems under development -- Delta Clipper, NASP, and laser launchers) the cost to put up an SPS in the gigawatt class, amortized over 10 years (12% interest) and depreciated over the same period comes to about $.02 per kwh. You tell me if it's economical? Use of lunar resources and orbital processing of solar cells (again, at the same launch costs) can bring that down even further. At $100 per kg, a ticket to space would run about $10,000 -- on the same order as a one week cruise on the QE II. Accomodations and support will run that higher, of course, but we're far from talking about Bill Gates. I'm over my depression for the time being so I'm thinking a little more clearly. There are _lots_ of ways to make money in space. It may be difficult to prove the viability of any _one_ of them, but, in aggregate, the odds of profitability approach unity. The equation is relatively simple. Energy + Resources + ingenuity = wealth. In space you can find nearly unlimited amounts of energy and resources, and I refuse to believe we've run out of ingenuity. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 490 Tue Apr 27, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 02:12 EDT Ok, assume your systems meet design spec, how do you write a business plan to get the money from private sources? Again, you can NOT depend on government funding and expect low costs. Shuttle and a host of military programs ought to be proof enough the government could make anything expensive. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 491 Tue Apr 27, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 02:27 EDT Bozlee, That's one of the things I'm looking at now. The key hangup is "market research." Capital costs are high, so you need a good volume of business if it's not going to drive your operating costs back up. That's where I'm hung up right now -- trying to find something that I can point to and say "This tells me that we will have a minimum of XXX payloads going up." Once I have that I expect the rest to fall nicely into place, but that's the catch right now. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 492 Tue Apr 27, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 03:09 EDT I see your point David. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 493 Tue Apr 27, 1993 FLACK [John & Anne] at 23:07 EDT Lets make one thing clear: If Solar Power satelites are viable (which I doubt) they can be put in orbit by unmanned launch vehicles. Unmanned launch vehicles are also too expensive right now, but they will always be a heck of alot cheaper than manned vehicles. And ultimately, isn't manned space flight what Delta Clipper is all about? -- John (no Anne here - look for her in Show Business) ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 494 Wed Apr 28, 1993 D.BURKHEAD [David] at 00:43 EDT John, SPS's will be much to big to launch in one piece with either manned or unmanned launchers. What is needed is A) a low cost way of reaching orbit. and B) the means in place to assemble them in orbit. A preferable method is to manufacture them in place using space resources -- silicon, aluminum, glass -- mostly from the moon. Again, I've run some preliminary numbers and these materials look to be about 150 times cheaper than Earth based sources (even including amortizing the cost of the lunar base over 10 years) this is at current launch costs. Reducing launch costs will also reduce the difference in prices, but lunar materials would remain cheaper. In either case you'll need a significant manned presence in space either from Delta Clipper or from something else. David ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 495 Wed Apr 28, 1993 D.HILL28 [Centaurus] at 02:35 EDT Flack> One thing is for certain: Delta Clipper is not Shuttle. Lower cost to orbit is what Delta Clipper is all about; it is planned to be operated either crewed or not as mission requirements dictate. Versions might be built to be strictly automatic to minimize weight and cost, and maximize payload; given the state of available technology, I don't know of any reason why it HAS to be crewed--and I don't know of any reasons why a crewed Delta Clipper has to be prohibitively expensive. Cost is relative; the cost of a _reusable_ Delta Clipper and ten missions might work out less than ten expendible launch vehicles. After twenty launches, the economics are obvious. Certainly that's Mcdonnel-Douglas' intention, not to mention the goals of the various teams and persons working on SSTO concepts for the past several decades. We'll have to wait and see what the actual operational costs will work out to be; after all, Shuttle was intended to be cheaper by reusability, but in retrospect, Shuttle was never capable of achieving this goal. If Delta Clipper is successful, it will likely trample the expendibles into near-oblivion in a decade or so as the technology matures and increasingly larger SSTOs are built on the presumed success of Delta Clipper. The immediate generation or two Delta Clipper or any other SSTO won't help make SPS practical, they're simply too small and SPS will be depending on a lot of other factors as well. SPS will have to be astonishingly large to generate enough income to be worthwhile, and that will require an astonishingly large launch capability. That's where Sea Dragon might come into its own, but I don't expect that for another 25 years at an absolute minimum. I think D.BURKHEAD is right; SPS will likely be built on the moon from lunar materials. But building that infrastructure is going to be almost as large an undertaking. I'm seeing a problem here: people have trouble in thinking imaginatively. I repeat, Delta Clipper is not Shuttle, and doesn't have to work with the same old assumptions and limitations. --Damon ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 496 Wed Apr 28, 1993 T.OBRIEN9 [Squire] at 10:36 EDT Hmmm... As real estate rates go up and environmental concerns go up, I can see where Space has an advantage over Earth. You can build vastly larger plants in space, after all. Still, things will have to get pretty bad here to make that viable. I think the dog-sled approach is the way to go for lng term development, no question. Mighty BIG sleds, mind you. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 497 Wed Apr 28, 1993 RSEVERY [Randall] at 14:29 EDT From: games@max.u.washington.edu Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Words from the Chairman of Boeing on SSTO type stuff Date: 27 Apr 93 20:48:50 GMT Yesterday, I went to the Boeing shareholders meeting. It was a bit shorter than I expected. Last year (when the stock was first down), they made a big presentation on the 777, and other programs. This year, it was much more bare-bones. In any case, I wanted to ask a question that the board of directors would hear, and so I got there early, and figured that If I didn't get to the mike, maybe they would read mine off of a card, and so I wrote it down, and handed it in. After the meeting started, Mr. Shrontz said that he would only answer written questions, in order to be fair to the people in the overflow room that only had monitors downstairs. Naturally, I was crushed. So, when question and answer time came, I was suprised to find my question being read and answered. Admittedly near the end of the ones that he took. Presumably getting there early, and getting the question in early made all the difference. So, on to the substance. The question was Is Boeing looking at anything BEYOND the high speed Civil Transport, such as a commercial space launch system, and if not, how will Boeing compete with the reusable single stage to orbit technology presently being developed by Mcdonnell Douglass? Well, he read it without a hitch, and without editing, with impressed me, then he answered it very quickly treating it as a two part question, last part first. This is to the best of my recollection what he said. As far as single stage to orbit technology, we think that we have a better answer in a two stage approach, and we are talking to some of our customers about that. As far as commercialization, that is a long ways off. The High speed Civil Transport is about as far out as our commercial planning goes at this point. So, this tells me that Boeing still considers space to be a non-commercial arena, and for the most part this is true, however it also tells me that they consider there to be enough money in building space launchers for them to persue work on their own. Now, I do have a friend on the spacelifter program at boeing. Actually, this is a mis-nomer, as there is no spacelifter contract for the work that this guy is doing, however, he is doing work in preparation of a proposal for space lifter contracts. He won't tell me what he is doing, but maybe this is where the TSTO action is taking place at boeing. At the very minimum, the chairman of the board of boeing said that they have an approach in mind, and they are trying to do something with it. Anybody know anything further? Is this really news? Does this threaten further work on DC-? ? John. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 498 Wed Apr 28, 1993 BOZLEE [Bozlee] at 15:23 EDT I can not see how work on a TSTO vehicle will threaten DC-whatever in any way. There is plenty of room for various approaches to space access. If SSTO systems are as cheap and easy as some have told us they will show their merits. If TSTO is the way to go with existing technology, that will be the way to go. We need work on all sorts of approaches to the problem to make sure we have the right one. ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 499 Wed Apr 28, 1993 C.IRBY1 [cirby] at 20:47 EDT Want to make money with a LEO-capable SSTO? That new Iridium satellite-based cellular phone system will be based in a relatively low orbit, and will need quite a few launches to get up to speed (since the target is complete worldwide coverage). Especially since the SSTO could also bring back a dead satellite on the same trip. Ham radio operators would probably chip in to launch a few dozen radio repeater satellites. A good-sized network of lightsats with the single purpose of reporting signals on the international emergency bands would be easy to sell. Ten or fifteen low orbit weather satellites under private ownership could be an option. If the owners wanted to put a colony on the Moon, they could just toss a few dozen payloads up, and refuel the SSTO in space for a "Moon Shuttle." ...and there has to be more uses than these, which are just the most obvious. ...and don't you think the people with launch contracts with NASA would rather get their loads up *now*, instead of "sometime?" ------------ Category 3, Topic 17 Message 500 Wed Apr 28, 1993 K.BULLOCK [KenB] at 21:22 EDT When we consider the cost per kwh for a space-based power system, comparing it to _current_ energy prices is pointless; we have to compare it to probable energy prices at the earliest time SPS could become operational, which is at least twenty-five years from now. And I don't think you could amo the costs over a century. The government SPS study estimated the lifespan of the systems at thirty years. David: any chance we could see the numbers-crunching you've been doing? ------------