Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[Nibb31]

3 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Demand is not quantity of demand. A lot of people would be willing to buy a spacecradt and launch it, but the price is prohibitive. That and a lack of good advertising... Plus the difficulty of the paperwork to launch something.

We're talking about the cost of launch services, not spacecraft. That is a whole different kettle of fish. Spacecraft are typically an order of magnitude more expensive than the launch cost. 

Demand for spaceflight is not driven by the price of the launch. It's driven by need. Unless you bring launch costs down by a factor of 1000, which isn't going to happen without copious amounts of magic, you're not going to invent a new business need to justify spaceflight.

 

[Kryten]

2015 is a poor representative year, because the launch rate was heavily affected by launch failures. Assuming we don't get another failure cluster, the general trend of of increasing numbers of launches continues,and smallsat launchers like Electron come online, I would expect roughly 100 launches this year.

[tater]

I think tourism would actually be a new demand stream that is sort of bottomless... if the price is right.

A BA-330 has a nominal crew of 6. So less than a full D2, and at least 1 would have to be staff. Their lease rate is 25M$ for 60 days, so if we assume a star of 6 days, that's $500,000 a person in hotel costs, and then something like 1.5 million in transportation costs.

2 M$ is a lot cheaper than the 20-40 M$ people have paid the Russians, but it's not a huge market.

[Kryten]

Bigelow modules aren't intended for tourism, at least in the near-term; they're intended for commercial microgravity research. Problem with that is, nobody's found a commercially compelling research area that's actually easier to do in space; there's no 'killer app' for space research. Trying to find one is basically most of what CASIS is trying to do on ISS right now.

[tater]

4 minutes ago, Kryten said:

2015 is a poor representative year, because the launch rate was heavily affected by launch failures. Assuming we don't get another failure cluster, the general trend of of increasing numbers of launches continues,and smallsat launchers like Electron come online, I would expect roughly 100 launches this year.

There were 88 in 2014, 78 in 2013... I don't see the number as vastly changing. Note again that national launches (national security payloads, among others) are off the table for SpaceX (except US payloads).

[Kryten]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

There were 88 in 2014, 78 in 2013... I don't see the number as vastly changing. Note again that national launches (national security payloads, among others) are off the table for SpaceX (except US payloads).

I'm not saying it's about to explode, but the number has been growing reasonably steadily since the early 2000s slump; we're already over 50% above where we were in 2004.

If you want some numbers for the kind of thing you've been talking about, the does an analysis of the commercial space market every year, including figures on how many launches are actually open to international commercial providers .

[Nibb31]

43 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Perhaps this is worth mentioning: I remember reading an article about Bigelow not too long ago (the guys who built the BEAM module that was just put on the station), they say their biggest stumbling block to further expansion at the moment is simple lack of manned launches.

And the slight fact that there are no customers interested in buying or renting it.

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At the time, and now, the Russians are the only ones with the capability and their dance card is already full. With a semi-reusable low cost way to put commercial astronauts in space like the D2, I could foresee a significant increase in demand. 

Dragon 2 is an offering, not demand. To generate demand, you need a business case that produces a ROI.

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Then there's Skylon, Dreamchaser, etc... they wouldn't be under development if their developers didn't see some sort of demand for them...

Dreamchaser is chasing commercial cargo delivery for the ISS.

Skylon's business plan doesn't close.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Nibb31

[tater]

Even Skylon plans require current F9 sorts of prices, right? There is not a huge need for an order of magnitude more satellites, so it seems like the only possible growth market would be people (tourism), but I think that that needs to be in the hundreds of thousands range at most to be much of a market. Given the risk vs the incredibly safe act of flying on aircraft, it's likely to attract the kinds of people that spend large sums getting short-roped up Everest, and even then, that's merely 10s of thousands of dollars. For millions, it's not a business model that will work. For hundreds of thousands... maybe (first class RT airfare for long haul is 10s of thousands already).

It's like SLS... a solution in search of a problem.

[Kryten]

The hope for Skylon and similar SSTO concepts is usually a new market of 'Big LEO' communications constellations; that's part of why they were so popular in the 90s, when 'Small LEO' constellations like Iridium and Globalstar were being established and Big LEO providers like Teledesic seemed just around the corner. Now the Big LEO concept has been resurrected; most notably OneWeb is in development, but a lot of other companies have their own in the works, including SpaceX.

[Nibb31]

But those constellations can be launched in a few dozen launches on a medium launcher. It isn't worth developing a new vehicle for that. Only the replenishment missions are going to require a small launcher.

[Kryten]

7 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

But those constellations can be launched in a few dozen launches on a medium launcher. It isn't worth developing a new vehicle for that. Only the replenishment missions are going to require a small launcher.

For stuff like OneWeb sure, but that's only the first step for Big LEO. Thales have a filing with the ITU for a 72,576 sat constellation.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Kryten

[PB666]

 

Quote

Thales have a filing with the ITU for a 72,576 sat constellation.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35983735
Thales is one of the involved companies  . . .

.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

The legs aren't designed to fold back. They probably have a one-way latching system for safety and to save weight, so they would need to remove them and reassemble them in a folded position.

 

Actually, after the Jason-3 failed landing attempt, I looked up what a collet was.  A collet works just like drill chuck- it uses a couple loose pieces of metal squished together to hold a rod in place- so it should be feasible to loosen the collet and swing the legs back to the "up" locking system.

[Bill Phil]

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

We're talking about the cost of launch services, not spacecraft. That is a whole different kettle of fish. Spacecraft are typically an order of magnitude more expensive than the launch cost. 

Demand for spaceflight is not driven by the price of the launch. It's driven by need. Unless you bring launch costs down by a factor of 1000, which isn't going to happen without copious amounts of magic, you're not going to invent a new business need to justify spaceflight.

 

Demand of a product or service is based on utility relative to income. Quantity of demand is different.

LVs are technically spacecraft.

There'd be no launch services with no spacecraft.

Also, demand is driven by how much it costs and ability as well as need. Almost no single individual has the ability to pay for a decent launch of a small payload.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Bill Phil

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Demand of a product or service is based on utility relative to income. Quantity of demand is different.

utility relative to income = need. We are in agreement here.

4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

LVs are technically spacecraft.

Not in space industry lingo. The spacecraft is the payload.

4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

There'd be no launch services with no spacecraft.

And the lack of need for spacecraft is why there is more supply than demand. The only business cases for spacecraft, and therefore launch services, are:

• government launches (military, science, and resupply)
• commercial telecom satellites (mostly GEO)

Neither of those markets are elastic. The only way for demand to increase is to create new markets. There are several barriers to creating those new markets, some technological, but mostly economical. The cost of the launch services is only a fraction of the problem. The cost of building first stages is a fraction of that fraction.

The price of a launch can only come down significantly if flight rates increase dramatically, which can only happen by creating demand, not supply. 

4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Also, demand is driven by how much it costs and ability as well as need. Almost no single individual has the ability to pay for a decent launch of a small payload.

And I don't see that changing even if you brought the price of an orbital launch down to $10 million, which isn't going to happen anytime soon.

[kerbiloid]

12 hours ago, tater said:

I think tourism would actually be a new demand stream that is sort of bottomless... if the price is right.

The previous space tourists were visiting a real and working space station, living with its own life, a famous and fancy thing.
And there were just a few of them. To be one of the chosen ones also doesn't mean nothing, by the way, and this costs money.

What can offer a specialized space hotel?
- 10 minutes of animal fear (launch).
- 1 day of headache and vomit.
- 1-2 days of gazing at stars and tornados. And romantic starsets. 20 per day.
- A week of callisthenics in comfortless conditions, with limited water to have a shower. And books readng. Or gazing at stars and tornados.
- 20 minutes of animal fear (landing).

No sunny beach, no swimming, no skiing. No sports. In the best case: a volleyball in "baby with granny are playing a ball" style.
No basin or jacuzzi (zero-G, after all).
No palms (except "face-" ones), no exotic flora and fauna. No ancient ruins.

Poor menu of food and drinks, rehydrated and/or heated. Also the food taste is changed in zero-G.
So the best chef on the Earth doesn't know what's the real taste of his masterpiece in the space.
I.e. a space fastfood instead of a restaurant.
(Btw has ever somebody sacrified himself in the name of Science testing an orbital hangover?
When even being abstinent you need a special suit and an exercycle just to keep the blood out of the head).

Probably, no [censored]. Zero-G, after all, the third law of Newton, hard to argue.

So, what can gain a not-a-nerd from a space hoStel? Not much.
Are there enough much nerds ready to pay, let it be hundreds thousands, for two weeks of doing nothing inside an orbital aquarium (not even the REAL space station)?

So, the space tourism doesn't look very profitable thing.

Edited April 21, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Kryten]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

And the lack of need for spacecraft is why there is more supply than demand. The only business cases for spacecraft, and therefore launch services, are:

• government launches (military, science, and resupply)
• commercial telecom satellites (mostly GEO)

There's also entirely commercial remote sensing satellites, usually for agricultural purposes; LEO telephone satellites, MEO/LEO internet/data relay satellites, LEO dump-store communications satellites, and now GSO  satellite servicing. 

[Nibb31]

20 minutes ago, Kryten said:

There's also entirely commercial remote sensing satellites, usually for agricultural purposes; LEO telephone satellites, MEO/LEO internet/data relay satellites, LEO dump-store communications satellites, and now GSO  satellite servicing. 

Yes, I forgot the commercial Earth observation market. The others are still commercial telecom satellites. As for satellite servicing, only time will tell if the business model pans out.

The bulk of the industry is still GEO comsats.

[PB666]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The previous space tourists were visiting a real and working space station, living with its own life, a famous and fancy thing.
And there were just a few of them. To be one of the chosen ones also doesn't mean nothing, by the way, and this costs money.

What can offer a specialized space hotel?
- 10 minutes of animal fear (launch).
- 1 day of headache and vomit.
- 1-2 days of gazing at stars and tornados. And romantic starsets. 20 per day.
- A week of callisthenics in comfortless conditions, with limited water to have a shower. And books readng. Or gazing at stars and tornados.
- 20 minutes of animal fear (landing).

No sunny beach, no swimming, no skiing. No sports. In the best case: a volleyball in "baby with granny are playing a ball" style.
No basin or jacuzzi (zero-G, after all).
No palms (except "face-" ones), no exotic flora and fauna. No ancient ruins.

Poor menu of food and drinks, rehydrated and/or heated. Also the food taste is changed in zero-G.
So the best chef on the Earth doesn't know what's the real taste of his masterpiece in the space.
I.e. a space fastfood instead of a restaurant.
(Btw has ever somebody sacrified himself in the name of Science testing an orbital hangover?
When even being abstinent you need a special suit and an exercycle just to keep the blood out of the head).

Probably, no [censored]. Zero-G, after all, the third law of Newton, hard to argue.

So, what can gain a not-a-nerd from a space hoStel? Not much.
Are there enough much nerds ready to pay, let it be hundreds thousands, for two weeks of doing nothing inside an orbital aquarium (not even the REAL space station)?

So, the space tourism doesn't look very profitable thing.

When you've done all the beaches, spas, Antarctica, etc, you still have one item left on your bucket list.

Bigelow could easily create a space hotel, so why not charge folks with too much money for their own good.
I would set one precondition, no new space junk, everything should burn-in in  less than a year.

Imagine all the precious selfies of people throwing up in zero-G, priceless.

 

[tater]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

So, what can gain a not-a-nerd from a space hoStel? Not much.
Are there enough much nerds ready to pay, let it be hundreds thousands, for two weeks of doing nothing inside an orbital aquarium (not even the REAL space station)?

So, the space tourism doesn't look very profitable thing.

 

If you read what I said, the price needs to be right for it to be a reasonable market, and I enumerated why the price is likely too high for that to be the case (a couple million $). That said, if the price was lower, it would be more of a thing. Why do people climb Everest? That's vastly more uncomfortable.

The idea that it would not be the "real" space station is not an issue, people went to ISS because that was the only possible destination, not because they cared in the least about being on "real" ISS. It was about being in space, not about being on ISS. A hotel would be as comfortable as possible, and the water issue would not be a problem since they'd be resupplying every X days when they deliver new customers.

If I were to spend a few hundred grand or more to go up there... I'd expect that my in-room time would be occupied exactly as it would be in any other hotel room we book, and we'd test out Newton's laws... for science!

 

 

Only about 50% puke (according to the astronauts I've talked to), but my wife would certainly be one of that 50%, so she'd be a hard sell.

[CatastrophicFailure]

47 minutes ago, tater said:

 

If you read what I said, the price needs to be right for it to be a reasonable market, and I enumerated why the price is likely too high for that to be the case (a couple million $). That said, if the price was lower, it would be more of a thing. Why do people climb Everest? That's vastly more uncomfortable.

The idea that it would not be the "real" space station is not an issue, people went to ISS because that was the only possible destination, not because they cared in the least about being on "real" ISS. It was about being in space, not about being on ISS. A hotel would be as comfortable as possible, and the water issue would not be a problem since they'd be resupplying every X days when they deliver new customers.

If I were to spend a few hundred grand or more to go up there... I'd expect that my in-room time would be occupied exactly as it would be in any other hotel room we book, and we'd test out Newton's laws... for science!

 

 

Only about 50% puke (according to the astronauts I've talked to), but my wife would certainly be one of that 50%, so she'd be a hard sell.

I don't think $2 million is unreasonable at all, quite the opposite, actually. Rich folk regularly pay prices like that for automobiles, after all. Probably on par for an über-vacation too. It's certainly not unprecedented. It's also worth noting that Virgin Galactic has a few hundred $250g deposits already, and that's for a much much shorter flight.

And I quite agree, plenty of people will pay the price SPECIFICALLY just to go up there and bounce fruitlessly off each other.  Heck, they charter airplanes for that already, so...

 

[Nibb31]

54 minutes ago, tater said:

 

If you read what I said, the price needs to be right for it to be a reasonable market, and I enumerated why the price is likely too high for that to be the case (a couple million $). That said, if the price was lower, it would be more of a thing. Why do people climb Everest? That's vastly more uncomfortable.

The problem is that none of the strategies to lower the price can work until launch rates increase by several orders of magnitude.

Even if you managed to sell a few dozen space tourist tickets per year, that will not be enough to have a durable effect on launch costs.

 

 

[tater]

23 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I don't think $2 million is unreasonable at all, quite the opposite, actually. Rich folk regularly pay prices like that for automobiles, after all. Probably on par for an über-vacation too. It's certainly not unprecedented. It's also worth noting that Virgin Galactic has a few hundred $250g deposits already, and that's for a much much shorter flight.

And I quite agree, plenty of people will pay the price SPECIFICALLY just to go up there and bounce fruitlessly off each other.  Heck, they charter airplanes for that already, so...

I said for a reasonable market, and by that I mean a decently large number of tourists. 2 million is cheap compared to the price now (20-40 million), but it is still a vast amount to spend for 6 days. A few people doing this will not support the launch rates required for prices to drop in the dramatic way required for it to become less expensive.

18 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

The problem is that none of the strategies to lower the price can work until launch rates increase by several orders of magnitude.

Even if you managed to sell a few dozen space tourist tickets per year, that will not be enough to have a durable effect on launch costs.

This is basically what I am saying. That they can drop the price from 20 M$ to 2M$, but that's not enough to create a bottomless market. Like I said, that's possible, but the cost needs to approach Mt. Everest rates (50k I think is the current cost for that).

[Nibb31]

15 minutes ago, tater said:

I said for a reasonable market, and by that I mean a decently large number of tourists. 2 million is cheap compared to the price now (20-40 million), but it is still a vast amount to spend for 6 days. A few people doing this will not support the launch rates required for prices to drop in the dramatic way required for it to become less expensive.

The published price for a Falcon 9 launch right now is $60 million. That doesn't include a spacecraft or insurance or mission control or time at a hypothetical space station.

With reusability, they might be able to bring the price down to $40 or $50 million. Add a manned spacecraft and you're looking at $100 to $200 million, and that is a crazily optimistic scenario. Add a space hotel, and the cost goes even higher.

Quote

This is basically what I am saying. That they can drop the price from 20 M$ to 2M$, but that's not enough to create a bottomless market. Like I said, that's possible, but the cost needs to approach Mt. Everest rates (50k I think is the current cost for that).

It's simply not possible, under any current conditions, with any current vehicle, to even bring the cost of a ticket down to those levels.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Nibb31

[tater]

19 hours ago, tater said:

Yeah, tourism would certainly be a game-changer, but the costs would have to be vastly cheaper. At 10M a launch, that's 1.43 M$ a seat on D2. I have no idea where the market becomes meaningful... they talk about a few hundred grand in propellant costs, plus you need to amortize the LV. How much would people pay to go to a Bigelow Hotel, including transportation? A couple hundred grand? More?

^^^
Here's what I said, above. I was assuming a ridiculously low launch cost (10M) for the sake of argument, and it's STILL too expensive. 

Tourism would indeed be the sort of bottomless market that could use all the rockets you could make/launch (which is required for prices to drop), but the cost for that would have to be vastly lower. Orders of magnitude lower. 

For some reason I am being completely misunderstood here. Tourism works to drive rocket launches, but if and only if the prices become so low that it can lure a substantial number of customers. It's kind of circular, you need lower costs to attract the many hundreds (thousands?) of people per year you need to justify the number of launches it would take to drop costs.