Re: Branson and Bigelow to team up for a space hotel?

On 13 Apr 2006 02:58:17 -0700, "William Mook"
<william.mook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Cardman wrote:
That is partly correct, but you overlook that in the commercial market
it is not about moving the most amount of mass in one go, but about
obtaining the minimum cost for doing so.

hahaha... You're trying to win an argument and you don't have a clue
about the basics! lol.

Your enlightenment is a lot more funny.

Ah, sheez... haha.. You overlook the fact that the way to lower costs
is to move as much as possible with as little effort as possible!

No, to make the most of the resources that you have.

Commercial markets should they develop will have to deal with the
physical reality of what it takes to launch payloads into space. For
example, every time you operate a launch center to put up a payload
you incur a cost that's pretty much fixed! So, if your fixed cost is
say $3 million for launch center operations per launch and you have 20
launches - that adds $60 million to the cost of getting up given mass.

I guess you missed that SpaceX have their own launch control truck
that they wheel around to their launch sites. So it is not exactly
that expensive to fill it with a few people to handle the launch.

They certainly have some fixed costs per launch, but since they deal
in the millions anyway then these are not too serious. So it all comes
down to increasing their launch rate.

If you can do it in one launch that's a savings of $57 million every
time you use the vehicle - so, if the vehicle is reusable and costs
less than $100 million, you pay for it if you've used it twice! haha..

Yes, there is a saving to be had in launching more mass at once, but
building too large would also make it unproductive due to the much
higher handling costs.

For example the best value of the Falcon range is the Falcon 9 at $27
million for 9.3 tonnes into LEO. You can certainly move more mass with
the Falcon 9 Heavy versions but this is not as cost efficient.

And if they want to move more mass beyond that they would have to move
to a second modular system. That would mean incurring the expense of
retooling their factories, bring in new heavy lifting equipment, extra
high transport costs, and of course a whole new design.

You can hardly call SpaceX not cost efficient when they are already
selling for far less than the Delta and Atlas versions.

and this is only one aspect of cost that a commercial operator would
account for. lol.

Since NASA is already running a refueling depot competition then let
us see what rocket size they choose to do this work. They may find
better value in launching more fuel at once, but by using a modular
system they may find better value in multiple smaller launches.

The main point is to let the market decide how best to do this
refueling depot work. You simply ask for your 56 tonnes of fuel and
they can run some numbers and make you an offer.

So you are all on about doing things the NASA way,

Bull***. You made that up out of whole cloth because you have nothing
of substance to add to defend your stupid position. lol. Even so,
NASA like anyone is constrained by physics - so the answers will be
pretty much the same in broad terms.

By my comment I meant that NASA wants to go to the Moon. They intend
to move X amount of mass. Then they go off and plan 125 ton rockets to
do the job.

However, if you want to play with physics, then NASA also knows that a
refueling station in LEO would save them a *** load of money by being
able to move far more mass at once.

After all most of the fuel is actually used getting into LEO in the
first place. So if you optimise fuel use to only get into LEO, with
docking at the refueling station to get the fuel to go to the Moon,
then you have just moved far more cargo mass at once.

And a commercially maintained LEO refueling station, even at the cost
of many millions, would be far cheaper than anything NASA could dream
up anyway.

So there is your basic physics that would allow you to move a lot more
mass to the Moon and elsewhere than what their common jumbo rocket can
achieve alone.

which is why I have
to point out that the commercial market won't be into moving 56 tonnes
of fuel in one go for a long time yet.

You have said that, but you haven't really put any effort at all in
explaining why you believe that.

There is not the available infrastructure. The most mass you can move
at once is slightly below 25 tonnes. It is not cost efficient, but
that is a mass record that beats the EELVs.

And you've made another indefensible assumption, that privately owned
spacecraft won't be lofting 56 tonnes of propellant into orbit any time
soon - lol.

It is not an assumption. No commercial company with the available
funding has any plans to move 56 tonnes at once.

They will give you your 56 tonnes of fuel though.

You're dreaming - unless and until someone who knows what they're doing
sits down and figures out all the details along the lines I have done
here with my BOE calculations - nothing will get done.

I am not questioning the technical worth of your plan, even if I
suspect that you seriously understate the development cost. I am
simply saying that it will never happen when no organization would
fund it.

The likes of Musk, Branson and Bigelow would consider it a risky
venture for such a high cost. And all those billionaires you mention
would not fund it either when they just won't part with cash before
they see it flying.

So since it will never be funded, then it is a better idea to work out
how the future planned commercial infrastructure can "do" the Moon for
you. And as I said if you can make a good plan for a commercial Lunar
lander then just maybe one of these companies would fund and build it.

And that won't
get done unless and until aerospace firms are operated to fulfill
market needs rather than under cost-plus contracting.

Boeing and LM don't do space cheaply.

But that's not
going to happen as long as missile proliferation is controlled by
restricting the range of things aerospace companies can do. We've got
to control missile proliferation, but doing it at the cost of keeping
space hardware really more expensive than it needs to be is hurting
space development.

You overstate the case.

I calculated what that would be.

The NASA way...

The only way dude. lol. Like I said, Walmart and the USAF can
deliver a hammer to you, one costs 100x more than the other - it
doesn't change the nature of the hammer, only the way its handled and
accounted for - same here. NASA does good engineering, just as the
USAF delivers quality hammers. But, the cost is tremendously inflated
in both cases because of the way government agencies tend to do things
- lol.

Yes, so SpaceX and the rest are trying to be your Malmart.

And for no reason you said it was too big! lol.

It is too big.

haha.. I see you still have no reason for your statement.

Lack of infrastructure. Lack of funding. Understatement of your
development costs.

As NASA has been saying for a long time then obtaining a good dollar
per kg value is not about launching huge rockets but in multiple
launches of a smaller rocket.

That would be the NASA way you're talking about right! lol!

They just like to say nice things without actually doing it. And NASA
certainly knows all about its fixed overheads. Do they care? No...

And in the commercial sense then when you want 56 tonnes of fuel in
orbit then it is not your place to define how it is done.

Not my place? Dude, I'm a rocket engineer AND a business man - if I
want to invest my money in building a rocket business who are you or
anyone to tell me how I'm to do it? lol.

You don't have the millions to fund this. If you did then you would
keep it secret and already be building it.

And it is not the commercial way for customers to tell their suppliers
how their business should operate. So if you want 56 tonnes of fuel in
LEO then as a customer your job is to find a good price.

Anyway, either go find funding for your plan, or file it under that
huge pile of "rocket plans that were never funded". A nice idea to put
paying customers on the Moon though. Too bad that you cannot copyright
an idea.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.org
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk
.

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