Re: Space Access Update #112 9/19/05


Len wrote:
> Rand Simberg wrote:
> > On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 21:43:28 -0400, in a place far, far away, Josh
> > Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
> > such a way as to indicate that:
> >
> ....snip....
> > >I'm not thinking about NASA's budget, but rather about Congress's
> > >decision to build another orbiter. They are used to losses and
> > >failures, and know, I think, that at this stage they're an unavoidable
> > >part of space flight.
> >
> > Not when someone points out the stupidity in hindsight of putting all
> > of the mission eggs in a single basket (something that some of us are
> > pointing out in prospect). Would you like to be sitting in front of
> > some of our moronic representatives in a star chamber on the Hill
> > explaining why instead of losing a fifty-million-dollar launch of
> > propellant, they lost a multibillion-dollar payload, and a year of
> > schedule?
>
> I think a failure to deliver a propellant payload would
> be ever less consequential than your example, Rand. A small
> space transport should be able to deliver one or two
> tonnes of propellant for a price of $1,000,000. This

Where do you get that? That's a very imaginative number, given that the
cheapest market price for space launch to date is approx. 6 million
dollars for 1000 lbs. A little cheaper if you're willing to go Russian
and accept their ballistic missile reliability. Either way, you can't
even launch enough payload to launch a fuel tank up for 1 million.

It only gets worse if you're talking about a hypothetical reusable. In
fact, doesn't TGV want almost $100 mil from the government trough to
build 3 SUBORBITAL reusable vehicles, with a mere 1000 lb payload, and
no military or civilian government agency requirement for it?

I can't even guess what they want to build a single orbital reusable,
but based on a delta-v & mass scaling of the suborbital variety, it
can't be under $1 billion.

> price would include perhaps a couple percent for dispatch
> reliability or mission abort. It would also include an
> allowance loss for hull loss perhaps every 1000 flights,
> and a fatality every 10,000 flights. There would be no
> charge to NASA for failure to deliver a load of propellants.

unless in the attempt they irreparably damage the fuel depot, of
course...

> That is the launch company's problem. If schedule is of
> any concern, the launch company might schedule four flights
> the next day, instead of three. No commercial transportation
> system in the world operates in a way remotely comparable
> to the way NASA continues to operate as we approach the
> fifth decade of the space age. Aviation progressed
> immensely faster in its first five decades.

Because, as you know, it is immensly easier. You're also comparing
apples to fish. No commercial system in the world operates in a way
remotely comparable to the Air Force either, yet no commercial system
is offering to launch their own GPS, are they?

This whole farce that somehow NASA is responsible for the commercial
market's to this point complete inability to develop a space transport
industry is rediculous. No industry in the world sucks off the
government teat as fiercely as space transport. Only in space transport
is a system paid for by the government, designed for government
customers, with government loan guarantees, and then considered a
'commercial' system. In reality all profits made from space tranport
by Lockheed and Boeing should accrue directly to the US treasury.

If it weren't so sad it'd be hilarious.

>
> BTW, the insurance picture changes radically for the model
> that I suggest in the previous paragraph. With hull self-
> insurance and low-cost payloads, first- and second-party
> insurance essentially disappear. And third-party insurance
> should be way down with routine, proven, reliable systems
> that may still be relatively dangerous aircraft, but very
> safe space vehicles.

These are all predicated on the ability to design a reusable orbital
launch vehicle with high payload and with launch rates that far
outstrip the current payload market. Neat. That sounds easy and cheap.
Gee, why doesn't somebody do that?

Tom

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Space Access Update #112 9/19/05
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