The Rocket company and the Spacex bussiness plan

[kitty]

Okay this is really just a hunch, but it's one I want to air out on the internet. I finished reading the Rocket Company awhile back and it had me thinking it was strangely similar to Spacex. The difference being that Spacex had created a expendable launch vehicle first and is selling the launch service rather than the vehicle itself.

Looking at it in a bigger picture I think I have their overall business plan. First use the (rather small) development funding to create a expendable rocket that is built on reusable parts. Then by selling the launch services they can fund the development of the much more research intensive reusable launch vehicle. (which is where they are now)

Now having the reusable launch vehicle and the production facility to create them they start selling them, and they will sell fast. China, Russia and even India will most likely copy the design, but it will take years for them to catch up. This gives Spacex a head start building and maintaining them that will both give Spacex large profits, corner the market for at least a decade, and give Elon Musk the funding for Mars colonization.

This is just my hunch and please give me reasons why this isn't the case.

[MrDakka]

Don't forget the funding of his latest pipe dream, Hyperloop

[Simon_Jester]

The real question is: given a reuseable launch platform, does it actually lower launch costs enough to create demand for its services? The space shuttle, for example, did not. Which is not to say it was a bad idea, or that a different kind of platform couldn't do that- but let's be realistic, it did NOT cause a sudden massive surge in demand for payloads in LEO that would have in turn supported the creation of more shuttles, to support still further infrastructure buildup which would support even MORE satellite launches...

And that seems to be what you're counting on SpaceX's platform to do.

[Steel]

I spoke to a spacex engineer recently and he was sceptical that any of their rockets are actually cheaper than soyuz after the accounting is done. Why would people suddenly be more keen to go for an equally expensive platform when there is another with 50 years experience?

[K. A. Pital]

I think that a major cost reduction is only possible through a technology leap like the SSTO (and Skylon is damn close to a real-life SSTO for the first time in ages). If this works, then demand of course will be created - in fact, it would be massively expanded from what we have now.

The Shuttle failed to live up to its specifications, let us be honest about that. It was a dead-end all along. If it could really maintain the proposed launch intensity, perhaps something would have changed.

It is very hard to compete with Soyuz where R&D costs are fully sunk and reliability of the design is not questioned by anybody, so I think SpaceX is also a dead end. If they can really reach their claimed 2200 per kg costs, then of course I'd say they were right. However, so far they are around the same price as Proton, Dniepr and Soyuz, which is not a big breakthrough.

[PeZook]

SpaceX has one major advantage over Soyuz, and that is the Dragon's 7 person crew capacity, a bit over twice of the Soyuz. But yeah, it seems the Falcon 9 is about as expensive as the Soyuz. Which isn't a bad thing - that was a capacity the US lacked for a good, long time.

I'm having hopes of yet more advanced 3d printing techniques helping with the most expensive parts of the production process, but we're not talking orders of magnitude savings here, and SpaceX already uses that. A lot. But with the SLS looking into using the technique to make parts for the resurrected F1, maybe we'll see a quantum leap in capability thanks to the magic of big gubmint moneys...maybe.

[kitty]

I think that all your arguments are using what Spacex has right now. Spacex using expendable rockets will be about as expensive as Soyuz and they will have those expendable rockets for at least another 5 years. I am thinking about once Spacex goes from expendable to reusable. That's the big breakthrough that I'm watching for. Once they develop the fully reusable they can sell them and make a killing because it would be a cheap way to "buy" a space program.
I don't think Spacex will make the whole rocket reusable at first. Most likely the first stage like what they are doing with their "grasshopper" program. Successively developing the dragon spacecraft and second stage to be reusable afterwards, but using the profits from their contracts now to get to that point.

Pezook I will disagree with the SLS being the next launch great launch vehicle. It's way overbuilt and will cost a boatload of cash in just development and production. Not to mention all the senator's hands in it. Look at what they did to the poor space shuttle, and the F-35 which only got off the ground (almost literally) because it's parts are made in all 50 states and thus secured funding from all of congress.

Simon_Jester I think the Space Shuttle is a perfect case of great engineering that was given impossible specifications. The AirForce wanted a large cross range and then those heat tiles were a serious cost problem. The whole space craft had to be disassembled, inspected and then reassembled and the infrastructure was absolutely insane for all the work required to set it up again. Spacex needs quite a few more years developing before it has the "game changing" platform, but the incremental improving and using each launch as a test bed for the next is what's giving spacex such a fast development speed. That's why I would bet on this platform.

Steel I never had talked to a spacex engineer, but I will say that Soyuz right now is cheaper, but Spacex is American and that looks good on most US government programs not to have our old rival doing the rocket work.

Stas Bush I have to disagree with the SSTO being the best bet. Skylon looks great don't get me wrong, but when I see that paper thin heat exchanger I shudder at what a construction and maintenance issue that's going to be. Any SSTO I think personally is a bit on the "way too complex" side at present day.

[energiewende]

Looking at it in a bigger picture I think I have their overall business plan. First use the (rather small) development funding to create a expendable rocket that is built on reusable parts. Then by selling the launch services they can fund the development of the much more research intensive reusable launch vehicle. (which is where they are now)

Now having the reusable launch vehicle and the production facility to create them they start selling them, and they will sell fast. China, Russia and even India will most likely copy the design, but it will take years for them to catch up. This gives Spacex a head start building and maintaining them that will both give Spacex large profits, corner the market for at least a decade, and give Elon Musk the funding for Mars colonization.

Not that it matters, all those countries would attach so many megatons of red tape that it wouldn't compete without subsidy, but why? They're all interested in space for strategic reasons, and Falcon aren't ICBMs. They don't care about adding a few hundred million $ chump change to the cost of launching satellites; if they did they would just hire SpaceX to launch their radar satellites and so forth.

The biggest problem with SpaceX is that people believe their marketing. They've cut out all the bloat and made a competitive commercial satellite launcher that mostly receives money from existing state space agencies of the US and countries that are too small or uninterested to have their own launchers to do dull launches that would have happened anyway. The TAKE ME TO THE STARS AND COLONIZE THE MOON spiel is still lightyears from commercial viability. No one is commercially colonizing orbit, let alone the moon, let alone Mars, at least until we colonise the Saharah desert, Antarctica, and the oceans. Those are all much easier and better places for humans to live, and yet only Ron Paul supporters are even interested in the oceans.

[Dass.Kapital]

Linky through to another web-site with info on the NERVA Nuclear rocket with pictures etc.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/i ... cseen.html

[kitty]

energiewede I would agree with you on most parts. I don't see colonization of space being a commercial viability or even space tourism really moving that fast.
What I would argue is if you can bring the cost of space travel down to a certain point it then becomes affordable for organizations and governments to use space travel for the intangibles such as pride, prestige and image as well as create a sense of adventure.
Look we are talking about governments that create and pay entire battalions for drill and ceremony, or this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arktika_2007. If the cost get's down to say a million or two per flight (not impossible). That's too expensive for most tourists, but then it becomes a steal for any fairly wealthy countries to afford a space program in what is a very visible production.

Space even in my lifetime will never be about practical colonization, and I hopefully have another 70 years of life. It's going to be a racehorse game for governments, and business opportunities for a dozen different niche markets.

[PeZook]

Hey, American exploration was not exactly profitable for CENTURIES. Sure, colonizing the Moon or something is a way more complicated task, but all it really takes is technology improving enough to make going there affordable to most governments and the idea that there might be something worth exploiting there.

[energiewende]

I don't agree with the comparison to exploring the Americas. Parts of the Americas were much better places to live than known areas of Europe and Africa and colonies could quickly become self-sustaining. Middle or upper middle class people could self-fund their journey and then be independent. A moon or mars colony is going to be a gigadollar project that will require constant resupply of more or less everything from earth.

Prestige is the only reason, I think, and it's not a very good one.

What we need are 1-2 order of magnitude cost reductions and SpaceX's incrementalist approach won't provide that any time soon.

[PeZook]

I don't agree with the comparison to exploring the Americas. Parts of the Americas were much better places to live than known areas of Europe and Africa and colonies could quickly become self-sustaining. Middle or upper middle class people could self-fund their journey and then be independent. A moon or mars colony is going to be a gigadollar project that will require constant resupply of more or less everything from earth.

Except of course this flies in the face of reality. American colonies failed all the time with total death of everyone present, and the people who went there did not actually "fund their journey", but were either agents of a state, or indentured themselves to people with money in order to get there. And either way, even the colonies that didn't fail were being a huge net loss for a long, long time. It all depends on what happens to get us to rush into space, and it can be basically anything.

And of course everything is about a bazillion times more difficult on the Moon, but we also have vastly more resources, so the comparative difficulty is actually about the same. And compared to world GDP, space exploration has actually been almost trivially cheap. Americans have spent three times more money on blue jeans, FFS, than on all lunar exploration combined.

[energiewende]

Except of course this flies in the face of reality. American colonies failed all the time with total death of everyone present,

They did, and some succeeded. Every moon/mars colony organised on the same lines would survive every journey, if only because they'd never leave the parking lot of whatever bar inspired them to make the attempt. There's a huge and categorical difference between the level of difficulty involved, even accounting for much fewer resources available during US colonization.

and the people who went there did not actually "fund their journey", but were either agents of a state, or indentured themselves to people with money in order to get there.

Most were not state agents, and indentured labourers did pay their own way - that's the whole point. Promising to do 5 years of coolie labour on Mars is not going to cover the $billion cost of your trip.

And either way, even the colonies that didn't fail were being a huge net loss for a long, long time. It all depends on what happens to get us to rush into space, and it can be basically anything.

Apart from some military bases colonies were not constantly supplied at a loss from Europe. The inhabitants may have made less money than if they had stayed at home but they were able to support themselves.

And of course everything is about a bazillion times more difficult on the Moon, but we also have vastly more resources, so the comparative difficulty is actually about the same.

No, come on, we're adults here. We use quantitative comparison: how much more difficult, and how much more resources, not just qualitative "some more difficulty" and "some more resources" and assume they cancel each other out. The two have diverged spectacularly.

And compared to world GDP, space exploration has actually been almost trivially cheap. Americans have spent three times more money on blue jeans, FFS, than on all lunar exploration combined.

And for that money, in 60 years we've bought even less than Columbus' first journey.

[Simon_Jester]

The thing about lunar colonies (or Mars, or anywhere else in space) is that any change in technology that affects how well they can sustain themselves has huge knock-on effects. Being able to, say, fabricate big heavy metal parts out of lunar rock, so that you can assemble 100 tons of moon base from 5 tons of fabricator machinery plus a pile of rocks, means 95 tons of matter NOT sent to the moon. Suddenly that lunar base gets a noticeable percentage knocked off its overall cost, and becomes vastly, vastly more scalable than it would be if every block of habitat space required its own Saturn V launch.

This hasn't had much impact on cost estimates so far because we haven't invented technologies that would allow it. But there are several separate trends in technology that are headed that way (3D printing and sintering, nanotechnology maybe, automated sample processing and analysis equipment), and which stand a good chance of altering the situation.

[PeZook]

They did, and some succeeded. Every moon/mars colony organised on the same lines would survive every journey, if only because they'd never leave the parking lot of whatever bar inspired them to make the attempt. There's a huge and categorical difference between the level of difficulty involved, even accounting for much fewer resources available during US colonization.

The difference is not as big as you think, and could be feasibly sustained by any industrialized country such as the US, the UK or Germany. If the project is made international, the expenses involved become trivial, as % GDP. The US itself spends, every year, five times the total cost of the Apollo program on defence. Every. Year.

This is more or less proportional to the cost of equipping an ocean-crossing ship in the 10th century. As technology improves, the costs will drop accordingly thanks to ISRU techniques that will save launch mass and vehicle cost ; All we need is motivation, such as rumors of vast treasures that allowed Columbus to convince the Spanish crown to borrow a million maravedis and fund his trip. Which turned out to be a loss, BTW, for anyone except Columbus.

Most were not state agents, and indentured labourers did pay their own way - that's the whole point. Promising to do 5 years of coolie labour on Mars is not going to cover the $billion cost of your trip.

Immigration only became a flood once regular travel to the new world became possible.

Apart from some military bases colonies were not constantly supplied at a loss from Europe. The inhabitants may have made less money than if they had stayed at home but they were able to support themselves.

They had to trade raw materials for manufactured goods, so yes, they were supplied. The difference is that a planetary colony will need more technology to enable even basic self-sustainability. Just like, well, everything else we do in modern times.

No, come on, we're adults here. We use quantitative comparison: how much more difficult, and how much more resources, not just qualitative "some more difficulty" and "some more resources" and assume they cancel each other out. The two have diverged spectacularly.

The world's total GDP in 1000 A.D. was a measly 140 billion dollars (more or less, of course, it's an estimate by necessity). Today it's 70 trillion, or two orders of magnitude higher. It took a sizeable portion of a rich man's fortune to fund a trip to America in 1000 A.D., and it would likewise take a sizeable portion of a modern company's assets to fund a trip to the Moon today.

The difficulty is about the same, to within an order of magnitude. Apple, for example, could outright fund a lunar base using its liquid assets (it won't because people don't see any money in it, but that can change in the future).

And for that money, in 60 years we've bought even less than Columbus' first journey.

Actually the money was spent in less than 10 years and the program was more equivalent to first Viking journeys. They didn't set up a permanent or semi-permanent base, but Constellation was aiming to do exactly that for about the same amount of money.

[energiewende]

They did, and some succeeded. Every moon/mars colony organised on the same lines would survive every journey, if only because they'd never leave the parking lot of whatever bar inspired them to make the attempt. There's a huge and categorical difference between the level of difficulty involved, even accounting for much fewer resources available during US colonization.

The difference is not as big as you think, and could be feasibly sustained by any industrialized country such as the US, the UK or Germany. If the project is made international, the expenses involved become trivial, as % GDP. The US itself spends, every year, five times the total cost of the Apollo program on defence. Every. Year.

The Apollo program delivered 24 people and less than 250t of material to the surface of the moon. What makes you think that even sustaining a colony that has already been built would cost less than 5x the total Apollo budget every year, or even not far more than that?

This is more or less proportional to the cost of equipping an ocean-crossing ship in the 10th century.

Regardless whether that's true, I grant that in 5-6 centuries we will be able to build moon colonies. That is probably even an overestimate of how long it will take.

Apart from some military bases colonies were not constantly supplied at a loss from Europe. The inhabitants may have made less money than if they had stayed at home but they were able to support themselves.

They had to trade raw materials for manufactured goods, so yes, they were supplied.

They paid the market rate for the import of manufactured goods, which were useful but not necessary for survival. A moon colony would have to be supplied at a huge loss.

No, come on, we're adults here. We use quantitative comparison: how much more difficult, and how much more resources, not just qualitative "some more difficulty" and "some more resources" and assume they cancel each other out. The two have diverged spectacularly.

The world's total GDP in 1000 A.D. was a measly 140 billion dollars (more or less, of course, it's an estimate by necessity). Today it's 70 trillion, or two orders of magnitude higher. It took a sizeable portion of a rich man's fortune to fund a trip to America in 1000 A.D., and it would likewise take a sizeable portion of a modern company's assets to fund a trip to the Moon today.

The difficulty is about the same, to within an order of magnitude. Apple, for example, could outright fund a lunar base using its liquid assets (it won't because people don't see any money in it, but that can change in the future).

I would like to first be clear that the existence of America was not common knowledge in Europe in 1000 AD. I don't know if you are honestly unaware of that, or trying to fudge the figures. But regardless.

To produce a steady flow of immigrants to a self-sustaining colony the journey has to be affordable on an individual basis, so we are interested in per capita not absolute GDP values. They increased by a bit more than one order of magnitude. We know from the fact that indentured labourers were a viable business model that 3-5 years' wages (and remember some was spent on subsistence still) of low skill labourers could pay off a trip. Today, that's about $250,000 for an average (not low) American wage. $250,000 will buy you about 100kg to LEO or 20kg to the moon. Enough to launch one of your legs. In this regard the analysis is actually not yet terrible for moon colonisation - the problem is what you land on...

[K. A. Pital]

The Apollo program delivered 24 people and less than 250t of material to the surface of the moon. What makes you think that even sustaining a colony that has already been built would cost less than 5x the total Apollo budget every year, or even not far more than that?

The fact that the colony would be an almost self-sufficient biosphere (see BIOS-3 - that was achieveable with 1980's tech, now we can do better)?

Regardless whether that's true, I grant that in 5-6 centuries we will be able to build moon colonies. That is probably even an overestimate of how long it will take.

Considering the advances in robotics and a reasonable radiolag of several seconds, I think a feasible humanless colony is only decades away.

A moon colony would have to be supplied at a huge loss.

Unless it mines something useful.

[Guardsman Bass]

Colonization of the Americas was very profitable, at least for the actual colonists and Spain. The reason why people would continue going to Jamestown despite the absolutely horrific death rates in the first 50 years of the colony was because the survivors could make colossal profit margins on producing and selling tobacco (to the point where the Virginia Company was trying and failing to force them to grow food as opposed to tobacco). There were similar stories in the Caribbean with sugar cultivation, and with silver mining in South America. The Spanish crown got tons of revenue from this, which unfortunately were not even close to enough to cover the massive costs they were running up in the 16th century.

There's really no comparable "cash crop" in space, unless you can bring in a bunch of platinum group metals without completely wrecking your profit margins from dumping them on the open market. That said, this alone shouldn't foreclose the possibility of space colonies being founded by interested groups a la the Separatists and Puritans, at least if the colonial mission is something they could pay for. Space travel is still too expensive for most non-governmental groups to do that, but that won't be the case forever even if we don't get advances in ISRU and robotics that make it easier to set them up*.

*Assuming people want to set them up. Without some major economic or other imperative to emigrate to a space colony, your colonies will have a hard time attracting waves of colonists beyond the initial "Let's go live on Mars! Yay!" crowd, unless that crowd is enough to make your colony big enough that it in of itself becomes a job draw.

On the bright side, I don't think your colony would necessarily have to export anything physical back to Earth to make money. We're in an increasingly digitized service economy already - maybe they could do digital work and sell it back to companies on Earth, like 22nd century "gold-farming".

[kitty]

These are some really good ideas! I have a productive idea for this thread.
The major hurdle to space boils down to pound or kilo to orbit. That really is the major problem with any space travel.

Let's make a scale showing what could be afforded by who and where. Right now it's about 4.5 grand a pound or 9 grand a kilo. That's doesn't really afford a whole lot of space travel.

Now how much would that cost if the average was brought down by a grand? at 3 grand a pound it's still in the realm of "cost is no problem" area of big government.

Let's really hit the scale down to 1 grand per pound or a 2.2 grand per kilo that's 1/4 current prices. Now that opens up more things like maybe big government willing to pull more manned NASA operations. still a grand per a pound of water or food is really expensive.

Now let's go below a thousand per pound and you start to feel anything is possible. At 800 we are at less than a 5th of current costs, and at 600 it's less than a 7th. 500? it's a 9th of cost.

Now at a 9th of today's cost I can see a lot more. Private manned missions, Smaller governments trying to get in, and big government and military really looking for a reason to be seen in space.

Now it just gets better. At 400 a pound to orbit it's less than a 11th of today's cost a full order of a magnitude. Below 500 a pound feels like the breakthrough price for me. That's a ticket to space for less than 5 million. I kinda making half educated guesses. http://www.futron.com/upload/wysiwyg/Re ... s_0902.pdf I'm using this since was about 10 years ago and we weren't in the current manned space crunch.

I could be completely off with this scale, but that's why I hand the floor back over to everyone else.