BetaBeat has an interview with Bill Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society. Not much of substance there, but we where heartened to see this:

Mr. Musk had a meeting with the board of the Planetary Society, said Mr. Nye. “He sat down with them and said, ‘I want to go to Mars. What do I need to do?’ And everybody said, ‘We need cheap access to orbit.’ It’s the key first step. Getting to orbit right now is too expensive.”

Indeed – and the same can be said whether the destination is the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else.

In the past, the Planetary Society was primarily a robotic space science lobby which showed little interest in cheap access to space. We’re glad to see they’ve come around.

Unfortunately, their legislative agenda does not yet reflect that realization and is still centered around futile attempts to increase the NASA budget. Old habits die hard.

Written by Astro1 on October 13th, 2012 , Space Policy and Management

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COMMENTS
    Keith Henson commented

    I think getting the cost of going into space down to a reasonably number ($100/kg to GEO) will require a single stage to LEO. Unfortunately the physics and engineering tells you that the payload for a reusable SSTO rocket is zero or negative for the very best chemical fuel.

    Working the problem backwards, for a decent payload to LEO, you need around 8 km/s exhaust velocity. Reaction Engines’s space plane, Skylon, is expected to give about 9 km/s equivalent exhaust velocity to 25 km and 2000 m/s (counting earth’s rotation at the equator). That’s 1/4th of the way to orbit, but the rest of the way up using hydrogen and oxygen gives a 5% payload (15 tons out of 300).

    Switching to laser heated hydrogen (2700 deg K) allows an exhaust velocity of 7.5 km/s. “All” it takes is GW scale propulsion lasers in GEO. They, and the power satellite required to run them, have to be hauled to GEO the hard way using conventional rockets or rocket planes.

    Putting in somewhat high numbers for the cost of the first power sat and the lasers plus the cost of lifting them to GEO gives a peak investment (in the model I used) of $140 B. That’s a lot of money to spend in a bit under 8 years, but sales of power sats (at $1.6 B/GW or 2 cents per kWh) recover the entire investment in the next 4 years.

    The project has the potential to get humanity off fossil fuels in two decades. Diverting a tiny fraction of the 500,000 tons per year would allow for really amazing Mars missions. Perhaps within 20 years going to Mars will be as common as climbing Everest.

    Not saying it will happen, but the physics and engineering look good. If you want the gory details, ask. hkeithhenson@gmail.com

    Reply
    October 13, 2012 at 6:25 pm
    Dave Huntsman commented

    Unfortunately, their legislative agenda does not yet reflect that realization and is still centered around futile attempts to increase the NASA budget. Old habits die hard.

    I disagree; the Planetary Society is not blindly arguing for an increase in the overall NASA budget. They ARE arguing that most of the cuts shouldn’t come out of the planetary science budget, particularly when that arm of the program is performing so well and is the tip of the spear.

    Reply
    October 13, 2012 at 6:47 pm
    Michael R. commented

    And just how will such access get cheaper?

    As the first commentator notes, it will be necessary to get “assist” tech (a powering satellite) into GEO the “old-fashioned” way…but assuming that the stated technology (with adequate thrust power to get a decent payload into LEO) is built and “ready to go”, the commentator (Keith Henson) gives a figure of 140 billion to get the whole think “off the ground”, so to speak.

    Now, it is conceivable that some consortium of private interests might form strictly for this purpose…but I see that as problematic in that you have a potential “too many cooks” scenario….it is conceivable that all these putative private interests might agree on a single mission (the first one: establishing the LEO to GEO infrastructure)…but their will be discord in agreeing on subsequent missions, priorities, etc…and not all said interests will bear an equal share of the costs (or have relatively equal expense accounts)…

    ,,,but really, 140 Billion is a lot of money for any said consortium to invest…this is why, in the past (and continuing to this day), such major outlays of capital could only be “rationalized” by governments (with large pools of tax revenue)…and with some noble. scientific or symbolic (nationalistic) mission/purpose…if the goal is mere commercial exploitation of space, then expect (competing) commercial interests to weigh heavily in this equation…

    One other factor in the cost of this LEO to GEO infrastructure that is not factored in: orbital space debris…which is increasing in both LEO and GEO orbital bands…due to more catastrophic collisions…to avoid the “Kessler effect’ (making launch costs prohibitive due to increased space junk shielding)…means we have to clean up space….and who will fund this?

    Lastly, why no one here advocates for a public-private space partnership is puzzling…unless there is some ideological resistance to this (government is always “bad”). Current and future private sector space efforts ALL make use of knowledge, technology and training expertise accrued primarily from public/government space investments and efforts…they are all “standing on the shoulders of giants”…and will remain on said shoulders for quite some time to come.

    Reply
    October 14, 2012 at 1:30 pm
      admin commented

      As the CEO of a commercial space company once remarked, it’s hard to make something cheap by spending lots of money on it.

      Past programs such as X-33 and the Bush Vision of Space Exploration, which were hailed as “public-private partnerships” by groups like the Space Frontier Foundation, have not been great successes. Depending on politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists to reduce costs will always be problematic, since they live in an isolated world which has little understanding of cost. If reducing cost is the goal, it’s generally better for government to act as a customer rather than a partner.

      Reply
      October 14, 2012 at 2:38 pm
      H. Keith Henson commented

      Space junk is just not a problem if you have built a 500,000 ton per year transport system to GEO based around a multi GW laser in GEO. Such a setup could bring every bit of space junk down or herd it into useful lumps in a period of weeks.

      Far as advocating public-private partnership, I have just finished the physics and economic modeling and not started on the daunting problem if how to fund it. If I had to guess, though, I would probably bet on the Chinese doing it. They have a bigger energy problems than most of the world has. The side use of big propulsion lasers as weapons might attract them as well.

      Far as making something cheap by spending a lot of money on it, there just doesn’t seem to be another way, at least not that I know about. This concept gives low cost per kg, but only if it is run 24/7. Most of the cost is the investment. Using it to launch a few times a year is not cost effective, in fact, it is far more expensive than expendable rockets.

      Reply
      November 1, 2012 at 11:56 pm
        admin commented

        China is about to conquer outer space — and has been for the last 40 years. Yet, Western faith in the superiority of Chinese Communism remains undiminished.

        We stand by our prediction that the first Chinese to land on the Moon will be a Chinese American, who will travel there in a commercial vehicle.

        Reply
        November 2, 2012 at 11:56 am
    ken anthony commented

    Getting costs down is what businesses do especially under real open competition.

    Getting costs down is the obvious, but ignores the fact that it’s not all about costs.

    What isn’t so obvious is the other side of the equation, return on investment. Cost does not matter. Only the relationship to ROI matters. Focussing just on cost is a type of blindness. We need lightbulbs to overcome this.

    Zubrin and Musk talk about a ticket to the martian surface for $500k. Sounds wonderful. I hope it is achieved. It’s totally unnecessary.

    The ROI required to justify today’s cost already exists, but may never exist for the actual colonists themselves because cost is likely to stay high for a long time.

    However, a company or organization with about $10b could realize trillions in ROI starting today. I’m not talking about bringing an asteroid to lunar orbit and mining it, although I like that too.

    The lightbulb just has to go off. On mars alone 144 million sq. km. of worthless property exists. That worthless property will finance any level of space colonization, but only if we do it right. Give it real value.

    How much is a whole world worth? Nothing yet.

    Reply
    October 23, 2012 at 10:43 am