tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61157315345419686912024-02-20T07:55:42.404-08:00Al's Space SettlementAl Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-79519868922216691132014-01-12T10:00:00.000-08:002014-01-12T10:01:40.557-08:00Space Tourism and Atmospheric CO2I wrote this in response to a Wall Street Journal piece attacking space tourism on carbon footprint grounds. The article is <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304325004579296781320668314">here</a>.
<p>
Eliminating space tourism completely would have no measurable effect on atmospheric CO2 levels for decades, if then. At the highest imaginable flight rate, the current space tourist vehicles under development will produce a negligible fraction of global carbon production, of no consequence for climate change. In the long run there are excellent zero-carbon rocket fuels; specifically, hydrogen/oxygen which produces only water. One such vehicle is under development by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ company.
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The environmental benefit of leading members of society seeing the Earth as a single entity with a thin layer of life, from space, with their own eyes, is likely to have tremendous benefits — just as the image of Earth from space taken by the Apollo astronauts had an enormous impact on environmental consciousness. As the price of a trip to space drops, this experience will inform ever larger parts of society.
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Space activities have had huge positive impact on environmental policy, primarily through satellite observation. Space tourism is an important step forward in space development which can reasonably be expected to pay additional environmental dividends.
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In any case, banning this or that activity, particularly small ones like space tourism, is a lousy way to protect the atmosphere. It limits freedom unnecessarily and doesn’t work. The core of the problem is that in most of the world dumping large amounts CO2 into the atmosphere is free. The solution is to charge appropriately for the privilege, providing the price signals necessary for the world’s economy to adjust and protect the environment.
Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-4235338272330742372013-11-10T10:03:00.001-08:002013-11-15T10:16:52.489-08:00The Threat From Space May Be Much Greater Than We ThoughtWe have known for some time that Near Earth Objects (NEO) are a serious threat to civilization. We also know, more-or-less, how to reduce that threat significantly at very reasonable cost. We have thought, however, that comets were much less of a threat which is a good thing, as they are much harder to deal with.
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Unfortunately, it appears that a large comet may have missed Earth by only a few hundred kilometers in 1883. If the comet fragments "had collided with Earth we would have had 3275 Tunguska events in two days, probably an extinction event" [<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425780/billion-ton-comet-may-have-missed-earth-by-a-few-hundred-kilometers-in-1883/">MIT Review</a>].
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We know that comet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9">Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9</a> struck Jupiter in 1994. Comet C/2013 A1 is currently believed to have a 1-in-8,000 chance of striking Mars in October 2014, passing within 120,000 km. That's close enough to endanger satellites orbiting the Red Planet.
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It appears that either we are in a period of unusually frequent close encounters with comets, or cometary threats to our existence are fairly common. Defense against comets is much more difficult than against NEOs. Comets spend most of their lifetime in the far outer portions of the solar system where they are hard to observe, and when they do come through the inner solar system they are usually moving very fast, giving little time to respond even if we detect the threat before a collision.
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NASA spends about $20 million/year of NEO detection, most of which pays for ground telescopes. For one percent of NASA's budget ($160 million) we could have an absolutely outstanding NEO detection and deflection program. The immediate need is for an infra-red space telescope to find most of them, for example, the <a href="http://b612foundation.org/sentinel-mission/overview/">B612 Sentinel</a>. As NEO defense is essential to our survival, it is a little silly, and potentially criminally negligent, that we spend orders of magnitude more money on very interesting, but much less important, projects.
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Cometary defense, however, is not cheap. Detecting a cometary threat in time to do something about it requires extremely capable telescopes. Comets are dirty snowballs which tend to break into pieces making them very difficult to deflect. If further analysis finds comets to be a significantly greater threat than currently believed, be prepared to open the checkbook.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-43430609874243813762013-10-27T10:38:00.003-07:002013-10-27T10:38:48.560-07:00Space Debris, an Interesting Number"On-orbit, predicted conjunctions vary based on the debris density at the altitude of the vehicle. For
altitudes of 350-400 km, approximately 3 maneuvers would need to be made annually." from the FAA's <a href="http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/media/Draft_Established_Practices_for_HSF_Occupant_Safety_with_Rationale.pdf">Draft Established Practices for Human Space Flight Occupant Safety</a>.
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This gives one an idea of the impact space debris is having right now: an average of three maneuvers per spacecraft per year to avoid collision. As space debris is expected to increase, the costs associated with dealing with space debris will undoubtedly rise. We can also expect the destruction of more operational satellites, which has happened twice so far.
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The most dangerous space debris is the thousands of large pieces, mostly Russian upper stages, in polar orbits. When these have collisions, tens of thousands of pieces of debris are created. Indeed, we may be currently in a very slow motion chain reaction of collisions creating debris that in turn creates collisions which create debris ... The debris is moving at very high speeds, so even a small piece can destroy a satellite. The film 'Gravity,' while not particularly accurate technically, highlighted this quite effectively.
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What to do: the single easiest and most effective act would be to get rid of the large pieces. It's been estimated that removing 10 per year would be sufficient, statistically, to start reducing the total amount of debris in LEO assuming other activities don't add much. We should get started on serious debris reduction. Otherwise, given enough time we could easily pollute Earth orbits with enough debris to end the space age.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-68333302532348717702013-10-20T21:32:00.000-07:002013-10-21T19:02:39.303-07:00Launching Commercial Space Enterprises WorkshopThis workshop was put on by <a href="http://www.iss-casis.org/Home.aspx">CASIS (Center for the Advancement of Science in Space)</a> and the <a href="http://www.svsc.org/">Silicon Valley Space Center</a> 18-20 October, 2013. Highlights (for me) included:
<p>
<li>CASIS will fly your ISS (International Space Station) payload <strong>for free</strong>. You can also get free astronaut time. You can even have materials returned to Earth, again, for free. By law, CASIS can give away up to half of the US resources on the ISS. Although CASIS is not allowed to charge for ISS resources, in practice you'll probably pay a small amount for one reason or another. To get (almost) free access to the ISS you can either compete in periodic CASIS calls for proposals or submit an unsolicited proposal. If you don't need power on the trip up or back there are ample resources right now.</li>
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<li>Through CASIS you can get ISS <a href="http://hico.coas.oregonstate.edu/">Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean</a> images for free. They aren't on the web, but you can make requests. You can also ask that the instrument look at specific locations.</li>
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<li>CASIS has a small amount of money (about $3 million a year right now) to fund proposals. Not only can you fly for free, you can even get paid!</li>
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<li><a href="http://www.madeinspace.us/">Made In Space</a> will be flying a 3D printer on the ISS in the next year or so. It will be able to print objects up to the size of a cubesat (10x10x10 cm). They are interested in ideas about what to print.</li>
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<li>BBC Aerospace has a 3d printer for any weldable metal using an electron beam. They say they can make very large objects. Currently they can produce 20 lb/hour and expect to double that soon.</li>
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<li><a href="http://www.blueorigin.com/">Blue Origin</a> said that they intend to fly a hydrogen/LOX orbital vehicle by 2018. If all goes as planned, this vehicle will have a reusable first stage! They also mentioned a recent study that found a market for about 500 sub-orbital seats per year, 80% filled by tourists.</li>
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<li><a href="http://www.s-3.ch">S3</a> received $250 million from private investors to develop a launcher based on a half sized version of the European reusable Hermes space plane design. The first stage is an Airbus (a commercial jetliner) which carries the space plane to 40,000 ft or so. The space plane gets up to space altitudes (100km or so) and returns for an airplane-like landing. It can carry an upper stage that will get small sats into orbit. Alternately, it could carry sub-orbital tourists. However, their target market is point-to-point high speed human transportation. They are creating a presence world-wide that they hope to develop into destinations for very fast intercontinental transportation.</li>
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<li><a href="http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/pdf/DragonLabFactSheet.pdf">DragonLab</a>, which is a Dragon capsule flight on a Falcon 9, costs $100 million/flight with a maximum of 2,175 kg of returnable pressurized cargo, a maximum of 3,310 kg of unpressurized cargo (which won't return) with a cap on total payload of 3,310 kg to an ISS-like orbit. You can probably get more mass to a lower inclination orbit. For ISS inclinations, that works out to about $30,000/kg.</li>
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<li><a href="http://www.zerogsi.com/">Zero Gravity Solutions</a> presented their work on the ISS showing that micro-g strongly affects gene expression. They believe they have ways of manipulating that expression to improve plant species without genetic modification, just turning on and off genes that are already there. One target is a plant that grows in the tropics and produces jet fuel. They are working on modifying gene expression of this plant so that it can grow in colder climates; for example, Texas.
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<li>There is quite a lot of protein crystalography work on the ISS.</li>
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<li>There are a number of small companies that offer bundling of launch services. The idea is to do the paperwork and other mundane tasks associated with launching a payload to allow the customer to focus on the spaceflight itself.</li>
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<li>Alan Gassan presented some software that predicts exactly what the ISS can see on the ground depending on time. This is being used by the astronauts to take photos. There is also a crowd-sourcing app to register the images to the ground (the place is known by the time stamp on the photos but not the orientation of the camera).</li>
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<p>I had a couple of not-very-well-formed thoughts while there:<p>
<li>One could use Gassan's system combined with the programmable communication testing equipment already onboard to test space solar power related energy transmission. Gassan's system would tell you when power can be transferred to ground receivers.</li>
<p>
<li>There might be an educational market for cubesats with hardware to grow plants. Hardware would include LED lights, camera, nutrient and water delivery and an API to command it. Sensors for temperature, atmospheric water content and so on would be good too. Such a cubesat has been flown, but the idea here is to make it easy for students to fly different seeds. A major problem is delivering enough water over a long enough period to get more than seedlings before the water runs out.
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I attended the conference hoping to find new killer apps for space settlement, something other than tourism and space solar power. I didn't find any, but I did see a lot of small-step progress in many directions all heading toward the commercialization and industrialization of near-earth space which, in turn, is probably essential to building the first free-space settlements. See <a href="http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/NSSJOURNAL_PathsToSpaceSettlement_2012.pdf">Paths to Space Settlement</a>.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-37058683783793236762013-08-11T10:05:00.002-07:002013-08-11T10:26:15.491-07:00If you like Space Settlement, go see Elysium!I saw the new sci-fi movie <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)">Elysium</a> with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster a couple nights ago. First, it's a good movie, not a great movie, but a good movie that held my interest, made me care about the characters, had a good message, and included a goodly bit of drama, humor, and excitement. Three days later I'm still seeing scenes in my head, a good sign.
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Elysium is set in a world with an over-populated, dirt-poor Earth and a wealthy, beautiful, wonderful and extremely large free-space settlement in Low Earth Orbit called, you guessed it, Elysium. The movie answers one of the great questions of space settlement: why would anyone want to live in space? Because it can be a really great place to live. There's another important pro-space settlement message but I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't tell you what it is.
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Some in the space movement have criticized Elysium because, among other things, it is a haves vs. have nots movie and they don't like such things. To me, that's like complaining that dogs bark. It's a movie, and this is one of the standard stories of the entertainment business (going back, at least, to Cinderella). Other's complain about technical inaccuracies, of which there are plenty. To which I say, it's a movie, folks, not an engineering project!
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So if you want to see a beautiful depiction of exactly how great living in space could be, and have a good two hours of entertainment to boot, go see Elysium!Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-80601154843181194162013-04-05T12:12:00.000-07:002013-04-05T12:25:23.712-07:00A Gutsy Asteroid Move!"NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request will include $100 million for a new mission to find a small asteroid, capture it with a robotic spacecraft, and bring it into range of human explorers somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon," according to Aviation Week and Space Technology. For more detail on the concept behind this mission see
<a href="http://space.alglobus.net/papers/AIAA2012AsteroidAstronauts.pdf">A Comparison of Astronaut Near-Earth Object
Missions</a> by the Asteroid Mining Group (including yours truly) and/or the more detailed <a href="http://kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_report.pdf">Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study</a> by the Keck Institute at JPL.
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If successful, I believe this is a game-changing mission. There would be roughly 500 tons of asteroid safely stored in a convenient, easy-to-get-to orbit. It is reasonable to expect that the government would lease mining rights, which is done all the time with federal lands on Earth, at little or no cost. Thus, one of the hardest parts of space mining would be accomplished, the first delivery of large amounts of extra-terrestrial material much closer to potential customers (i.e., people on Earth and the satellite industry). The asteroid mining industry would get a huge lift not only from the materials delivered, but the fact that a second (or third or ...) delivery would cost much less.
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Furthermore, put enough of these missions together and you have the materials to build the first space settlement in Earth orbit! Admittedly, this would requie a lot of missions and/or returning larger asteroids. Still, this mission would be a significant step on one of the <a href="http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/NSSJOURNAL_PathsToSpaceSettlement_2012.pdf">Paths to Space Settlement</a>, my vision of the most effective approach to space settlement.
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If you think this mission has merit, consider contacting your elected representatives.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-69287039456495947872013-03-02T10:31:00.001-08:002013-03-03T10:26:25.190-08:00A Small Step Toward Space Hotels On January 11, NASA announced a $17.8 million contract with Bigelow Aerospace to provide an inflatable BEAM module to attach to the ISS in 2015.
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The eighth ISS SpaceX Dragon flight is expected to deliver the module in 2015, and it should stay at least two years before being released and sent to burn up in the atmosphere. Interior pressure, temperature and radiation levels will be monitored and compared to conventional rigid modules. Folded up, the BEAM can ride within the “trunk” section behind the SpaceX Dragon capsule. The BEAM is 4m long and 3.2m in diameter when inflated. That’s slightly shorter and a somewhat wider than the two Genesis modules currently in orbit.
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This is a nice step on the way to a private space hotel!
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BTW: current prices for Bigelow's to their in-work Alpha station, consisting of two BA-330 modules are:
<li> Astronaut flights: $26.25 million/seat via Dragon/Falcon 9
<li> Leasing volume: 1/3 of a BA-330 (110 cubic meters) for $25 million for 60 days, which works out to $150 million for the whole facility.
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This would work nicely for a Space Olympics! See <a href="http://space.alglobus.net/papers/ISU/SpaceOlympics.pdf">a space olympics educational proposal</a>
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Space hotels are, of course, part of one of the <a href="http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/NSSJOURNAL_PathsToSpaceSettlement_2012.pdf">Paths to Space Settlement</a>.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-80235429435342222522013-02-15T13:02:00.000-08:002013-02-15T14:09:52.746-08:00We Just Got a Warning Shot, More ComingThis morning a small asteroid streaked through the Russian sky and exploded, breaking windows, damaging buildings, and injuring about 1,000 people, 40-50 of whom needed hospitalization. See the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/world/europe/meteorite-fragments-are-said-to-rain-down-on-siberia.html?_r=0">New York Times article</a>. There have been at least <a href="http://fallingstar.com/historical.php">three other hits like this</a> in the past few years.
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Here's some of my favorite videos of today's hit:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uKwFwVwBag">Video 1</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE54T1XGxRI">Video 2</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFBtfR54Svk">Video 3</a></li>
</ul>
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There is a truth that needs to be told: there are thousands of much larger asteroids out there that will hit us, we just don't know when. Before the next big one hits, we need to find it and deflect it. Finding and deflecting asteroids is not particularly expensive as space projects go, but the current NASA funding is pathetic, about $5 million/year (in a $17,000 million budget). We have to find these killers some day, why wait and risk disaster? Why not do it now?
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If you want to help, consider donating to the <a href="http://b612foundation.org/sentinel-mission/">B612 Foundation Sentinel Space Telescope</a>. If successful this project will find 100 times more potentially dangerous asteroids than we have found so far (about 10,000). Once we find the next good sized incoming asteroid, funding for a deflection mission should be easy to come by :-)
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To see how this relates to space settlement, see <a href="http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/NSSJOURNAL_PathsToSpaceSettlement_2012.pdf">Paths to Space Settlement,</a> Al Globus, NSS Space Settlement Journal November 2012.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-88150689621052769202012-08-26T12:23:00.003-07:002012-08-26T12:23:47.931-07:00Best Way to Honor Neil Armstrong<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">"For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">simple </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink." -- Armstrong's family</span>Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-65296523280220160952011-11-14T18:48:00.000-08:002011-11-14T19:19:41.747-08:00Space Tourism, Space Solar Power, and ITAR DevelopmentSome good space news has surfaced in the last fews days.<br /><br />First, the International Astronautical Associated released a report on Space Solar Power. The <a href="http://www.wfs.org/content/space-based-solar-power-could-arrive-ten-years-and-create-millions-jobs-says-researcher">first news report</a> talks about ten years and millions of jobs. Also, see <a href="http://iaaweb.org/iaa/Studies/sg311_finalreport_solarpower.pdf">the full report</a>.<br /><br />Second, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8889154/Breathtaking-view-of-Earth-as-seen-from-International-Space-Station.html">a breathtaking video of the Earth from Space</a> was created from pictures take by ISS (international Space Station) astronauts. Do not miss this!<br /><br />Finally, in a little inside but very important news, A bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives that seeks ITAR reform relative to "commercial satellites and related components" (HR3288). The bill is called the "Safeguarding United States Satellite Leadership and Security Act of 2011", and is being co-sponsored by a bi-partisan group of Congressmen. This is important because current law severely restricts the ability of American companies to export satellites and satellite components, even to close allies.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-23661435263451605792011-10-30T10:05:00.000-07:002011-10-30T17:55:07.993-07:00A Big, Big Step Towards Space Settlement Soon?The key to space settlement is inexpensive, reliable launch from Earth to orbit. The least expensive, and IMHO most exciting, vehicle today is the SpaceX Falcon. The Falcon 9 has flown a couple of times and is priced at about $5,000/kg, which is well below other launch vehicles. The Falcon Heavy is in development and promises to lower costs even more, to as little as $1,500/kg. The Falcon 9 and Heavy are expendable launchers, meaning the vehicle does not survive the launch and a new vehicle must be built for the next payload. If it were possible to use these vehicles over and over, without too much refurbishment between launches, costs could be dramatically lowered.<br /><br />I just listened to a <a href="http://www.c-span.org/Events/National-Press-Club-The-Future-of-Human-Spaceflight/10737424486/">talk</a> by Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX. He says that analysis and simulation suggest that they can fly the Falcon 9 first stage back to the launch pad and, with a heat shield and aerodynamic exterior, get the upper stage back as well. He also says that it will be difficult and they may fail, but they intend to try. He estimates the reduction in cost at about 100x. That means SpaceX thinks they can get costs down to around $60/kg.<br /><br />They could easily be wrong, but if they are even in the ballpark this is revolutionary -- and the 1,500 employees at SpaceX are going to try.<br /><br />Wow.<br /><br />Is there something you can do to help? If you are a US voter, yes. Contact your congressional representatives and ask them to insist that the air force buy launch services with a free and open competition.<br /><br />Background: The air force launches many satellites into orbit. They are proposing a sole source, non-competitive contract with a consortium of Lockheed and Boeing to buy all of their launches through 2018. If this contract goes through, SpaceX, or any other company, would not be allowed to bid. This is in spite of the fact that SpaceX is cheaper and the Falcon vehicles are built entirely in the U.S. whereas one of the vehicles in the sole source contract, the Atlas V, has a Russian-built main engine! In other words, the air force is insisting on buying Russian engines rather than American products!Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-65428537214783729722011-09-24T09:43:00.000-07:002011-09-24T10:22:32.923-07:00It's Time to Take the Training Wheels Off and FlyI learned to ride a bike with training wheels. They kept me from falling over. They also slowed me down. After a month or two, I took the training wheels off and really started to ride. For decades, American companies have flown people into space under the strict government supervision, training wheels that got us started and, most of the time, kept us safe.<br /><br />It's time to take the training wheels off and fly. This means NASA's top human space flight priority should be the <a href="http://commercialcrew.nasa.gov/">Commercial Crew Program</a>. This program is helping American companies develop privately owned space taxis to take people from Earth into Low Earth Orbit, especially the International Space Station (ISS). The primary alternative is the <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/sls1.html">Space Launch System (SLS)</a>, a program to pay private companies to develop a <a href="#NOTE">much larger</a> 100% government owned vehicle with strict government oversight -- training wheels. It should be noted that right now, American astronauts travel to the ISS on Russian vehicles. <br /><br />With today's massive federal debt and deficit, choices must be made. In the case of human space flight, I believe that the Commercial Crew Program should be fully funded first because:<br /><br />1. Commercial Crew is far, far cheaper than the SLS. Total cost is around $6 billion for the largest Commercial Crew proposal vs. the $35 billion estimated for the SLS. Furthermore, Commercial Crew uses fixed price contracts and the SLS will be traditional cost-plus accounting, an approach that rewards cost over runs. The lower cost is fundamental, Commercial Crew takes advantage of market forces. <br /><br />2. Commercial Crew vehicles are expected to fly humans many years sooner than the SLS. Thus, less money will be paid to the Russians.<br /><br />3. The SLS is too large for efficient transportation of people to the ISS. This also increases cost.<br /><br />4. Commercial Crew is intended to develop multiple space taxis by multiple companies. No longer will America depend on a single launch vehicle for human access to space. In the shuttle era, each accident was followed by years of cancelled flights. Multiple vendors will reduce this risk substantially.<br /><br />5. Commercial Crew is intended develop space taxis that can sell rides to others. For example, Bigelow Aerospace has put two small space stations in orbit and once a space taxi is available is prepared to fly a full sized space station to host astronauts. The Commercial Crew vehicles are perfect for space tourism, a market that is currently a Russian monopoly. Space tourism has the potential to vastly increase the number of people in space.<br /><br />If Commercial Crew is fully funded and Congress wants to fund the SLS or other human launch alternative, I support that. But, only when the best alternative, Commercial Crew, is fully funded.<br /><br />For fifty years American companies have built and operated human launch vehicles under strict government ownership and supervision. It's time to take off the training wheels and let private enterprise fly.<br /><br /><a name="NOTE">NOTE</a>: While the SLS is a much larger vehicle than those proposed for Commercial Crew, at least one private company is prepared to build similarly large vehicles at much lower cost. Specifically, SpaceX believes the can build a vehicle with a greater payload than the SLS for approximately $2.5 billion in five years (<a href="http://alspacesettlement.blogspot.com/2011/02/spacex-heavy-lift-fixed-price.html">link</a>).Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-64581955308707469752011-09-15T18:30:00.001-07:002011-09-16T10:27:28.010-07:00Space Launch SystemThe much anticipated plans for the Space Launch System (SLS) were unveiled today. It will cost (at least) $18 billion to get to the first unmanned test launch in 2017 of a 70 ton payload version and, according to Space News, the launch rate will be one every two years. If the system lasts for 20 years, that means a total of 10 launches. If the system cost nothing after the first test launch, the SLS would cost $1.8 billion per launch -- more than the space shuttle.<br /><br />Now suppose we spent that money on private launch services. Right now SpaceX is advertising $125 million per launch for the Falcon Heavy, which will lift 53 tons. That means we could buy 144 Falcon Heavy launches with the money needed for a single test launch of the SLS. <br /><br />Furthermore, in a letter to the Space News editor on February 7 SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said: "we .. develop a heavy-lift launch vehicle with a 150 metric ton to orbit capability ... We can do so for no more than $2.5 billion, within five years, on a firm, fixed price basis with payment made only on achieving hardware milestones." The SLS is eventually supposed to lift 130 tons, so for 1/7th of the money and a year's less time SpaceX thinks they could do the job. <br /><br />But perhaps SpaceX can't! What is the record? SpaceX has developed two vehicles in the last few years, Falcon I and Falcon 9, both of which have flown successfully. In the last 20 years NASA has tried to develop four vehicles, the aerospace plane, X33, Ares I and Ares V. None have made it into space. <br /><br />Of course, the SLS is intended to be human rated, however, the Falcon series is designed to be human rated too.<br /><br />The short story? From the point of view of space development, the SLS is fiscally insane and there is no reason to believe it is technically superior.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-86342377653489525672011-04-08T09:50:00.001-07:002011-04-08T09:52:08.002-07:00China's Space ProgramThis was written in response to an article in Space News.<br /><br />In the March 26 issue, Dean Cheng complains that the Obama administration regards China's expanded space activities as a potential threat while advocating cooperation with the Chinese space program. Mr. Cheng sees this as inconsistent and confused. Perhaps Mr. Cheng has not considering the fact that the Soviet Union's thousands of nuclear tipped ICBMs and stated goals represented an imminent mortal threat to America, but a series of U.S.-Soviet/Russian cooperative space programs has played an important role in reducing that threat significantly. President Obama's Chinese space strategy is not confused, as Mr. Cheng asserts, it is intelligent. It recognizes that short of the mutual suicide of nuclear war we cannot destroy the Chinese space program, or even slow it down much. We can forge cooperative links with this program, as we have with the Russian program, to our mutual benefit while simultaneously reducing the threat to America.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-41729700315437149842011-02-13T10:58:00.000-08:002011-02-14T20:33:14.785-08:00SpaceX, Heavy Lift, Fixed Price!In a letter the Space News editor on February 7 SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said: "we .. develop a heavy-lift launch vehicle with a 150 metric ton to orbit capability ... We can do so for no more than $2.5 billion, within five years, on a firm, fixed price basis with payment made only on achieving hardware milestones."<br /><br />Contrast this with the 2012 budget proposal for NASA's new, traditional, cost-plus contract heavy lift booster: $1.8 billion for ONE YEAR of a five year development plan! Don't for get that these cost-plus contracts almost always go over budget.<br /><br />Bottom line: Congress should change the heavy lift development program to a fixed price program similar to the very successful COTS program which helped develop the SpaceX Falcon 9 (on which the heavy lift vehicle would be based) and an Orbital Science vehicle. It would b a lot cheaper.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-55548229410665818052011-02-06T19:49:00.000-08:002011-02-06T19:56:33.580-08:00Bigalow's National Customers Revealed!"The company [Bigalow Aerospace] plans to lease space aboard the stations to foreign nations, research organizations and businesses (Aerospace DAILY, May 6, 2010). Seven clients in The Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Singapore, Australia, United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirate of Dubai have signed memorandums of understanding." From <a href="http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news%2Fasd%2F2011%2F02%2F04%2F02.xml">Bigelow Floats Plan For Florida Space Coast</a> Aviation Week, Feb 4, 2011. This is the first time I've seen a list of potential Bigalow customers. Very interesting!<br /><p>If you are not familiar with Bigalow Aerospace, they are building inflatable space stations. They have two sub-sized, pressurized stations in orbit right now. Their target market is national space programs for countries that can't afford to build everything themselves -- they can lease a Bigalow station. I think this is a pretty good way to get started on orbital hotels.<br /><p>Bigalow's plans will not work without some kind of private, commercial human launch capacity, the kind that President Obama is trying to create. See <a href="http://alspolitics.blogspot.com/2010/02/obamas-brilliant-space-policy.html">Obama's Brilliant Space Policy</a> for details.Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115731534541968691.post-20194966996867051262010-11-01T10:49:00.000-07:002010-11-01T12:20:13.922-07:002010 SSI ConferenceThe 2010 Space Studies Institute conference just ended. I had a great time. The best part was hanging out with 100+ folk who love to talk about space settlement, many of which have done a lot to bring that dream a little closer to reality.<br /><li> My favorite presentations were by Joe Carroll, Tether Applications, on tethers; which he has successfully flown four times in orbit. While he described a number of extremely interesting, and just plain fun, concepts; the most important, to my mind, was a rotating electro-dynamic tether to retrieve intact spent upper stages and abandoned satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). It turns out there are <strong>thousands</strong> of these in LEO with a combined total of thousands of tons of aerospace-grade aluminum -- a very large, easily-accessible extra-terrestrial resource! This is far, far easier to exploit than either the Moon or Asteroids. The electro-dynamic tether provides no-reaction-mass propulsion by interacting with the Earth's magnetic field; passively to reduce altitude and actively (firing electrons) to increase altitude. As an added extra bonus, each one of these that is secured is no longer a potential source of hundreds of thousands of smaller but deadly pieces of space debris should there be a collision (which has happened once already).<br /><li> One of the most important developments presented was by Greg Baiden, Laurentian University and Penguin Automated Systems. He and his company have played a major role in automating mining to the point that a few major mines are now teleoperated from the surface. Furthermore, some of these operations take place with a few seconds delay -- analogous to lunar mining teleoperated from Earth! This isn't talk, this isn't studies, this isn't laboratory demonstration, this is profitable working mines operating right now. Greg also described a study of lunar mining which suggested we need just five machines to do pretty much any rock mining required.<br /><li> While tooting my own horn isn't the best, I really think that my own paper, <a href="http://space.alglobus.net/papers/SSI2010SSPpaper.pdf">"Towards and Early ProfitablePowerSat"</a> is a major contribution because it shows, for the first time, a way to make the first operational step towards space solar power: a PowerSat that can deliver about 5MW to the grid with a single launch for perhaps a few hundred million dollars (for the first one) based on solar energy collection demonstrated in orbit and power beaming to the ground partially demonstrated on Earth. This system can generate a substantial revenue stream within some small number of years and, for certain niche markets, could conceivably be profitable, or nearly so. Such a first baby step has been sorely missing from the SSP (Space Solar Power) literature; which is dominated by schemes requiring tens or hundreds of billions of dollars and decades before producing a penny in revenue.<br /><p> Other tid-bits I heard on from the podium and in the hall included: a major network is backing a documentary about space settlement, XCOR is very close to flying sub-orbital tourists at very low operational cost, there is a good design for food, air, and water production/recycling for space habitats, there's a <strong>lot</strong> of water on the Moon, the former president of India is pushing space solar power hard, and international space law will require, not permit, require, that the parent country help future space settlements become politically independent!Al Globushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03168040644355446211noreply@blogger.com1