Author Topic: Exploration vs Commercialization  (Read 11132 times)

Offline Norm Hartnett

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #20 on: 08/19/2009 02:21 am »
Then, calling LEO "exploration" is disingenuous to those supporting it both financially and by their sentiment.

I can hardly let this go by unchallenged. To claim that either a Lunar outpost or a Mars mission is within our technical grasp is to ignore the lessons that the ISS is teaching us now. I am not clear on exactly how close to the life support edge the ISS is with it's current six man crew but there is not a lot of slack up there. Our current life support technology is in it's infancy and it is a hell of a lot safer and cheaper to develop this technology 200 miles away than it is 200,000 or 200,000,000 miles away. The same holds true for low gravity and radiation impacts to human physiognomy. In addition there is the question of logistics, we can barely maintain the ISS requirements, how then are we going to supply a Lunar outpost?

So how is the ISS "teaching" us this "lesson"? In other words, what are they doing to probe the limits of life support, low (not zero) gravity, and other things as mentioned above? As I see it, a key benefit of manned exploration is that you actually find out what you need to survive. We don't have to guess based on weakly similar and unambitious projects like the ISS.

For example, the ISS has tried as far as I can tell two water recycling systems and two oxygen generation systems (one from Russia and one from the US). Where's the in space R&D on useful life support systems for a Mars or Lunar mission?

Well as you point out there are only two water/oxygen recycling systems up there, so far as I know the only two mankind has. Which one do you want to take to Mars? I have no idea how much R&D effort Russia is putting into their system but I am quite sure that the US system is very much a work in progress, I hope like hell they have sufficient funding to do continuing development although I wouldn't be surprised to find that CxP cut funding so that they could do something much more shortsighted.

We can guess that the amount of development and testing that was done on the US system must have been substantial and yet, once it was on orbit, it has not been all that reliable. The lesson I take from this is that you can spend a bunch in R&D and in testing but until you get it into orbit it is all just theory. Are you seriously suggesting we send our astronauts off for 180-360 days with a system that hasn't been tested in the environment that it will fly in? That is why a robust R&D effort in LEO is necessary to any manned exploration of either Mars or the Moon. Fortunately it looks like the extension to 2020 is a done deal, now, if we finally fund the R&D necessary on the station, exploration will look a lot more viable.
« Last Edit: 08/19/2009 02:37 am by Norm Hartnett »
“You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.” Mike Gold - Apollo, STS, CxP; those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it: SLS.

Offline Bill White

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #21 on: 08/19/2009 02:45 am »
And, of course, bitumen is only one hypothetical commodity.
A rather unconvincing one, given that there appear to be cheaper and simpler and more desirable paths to energy independence.

I think hop is looking at it backwards. Sure there may be cheaper energy sources on Earth however revenue from bringing stuff back will offset at least some of the cost of setting up shop out there.

Suppose you want a Jupiter Trojans colony for some intangible, existential reason. An utterly non-rational reason.

Now suppose it would cost $5 trillion dollars to do it but you could "earn" $3 trillion in revenue from shipping stuff back. No way that makes sense from an accountants POV but if you just want to do it because you want to do it, your total cost has been reduced by 60%. Even if that $3 trillion in energy could be produced on Earth for $2 trillion, the space settlers can still sell their materials for fair market value.

The desire to settle space pre-exists the business model. The business model search is merely to locate revenue streams to reduce the cost of doing that which you already want to do.

If the desire is there to settle, actual profit is irrelevant. Any revenue that reduces the costs simply makes it more affordable.

= = =

I would add to that business model importation of delta v to LEO.

As with lunar LOX, incoming bitumen payloads could be "caught" by LEO tethers thereby importing delta v as well as the materials themselves.
« Last Edit: 08/19/2009 02:47 am by Bill White »
EML architectures should be seen as ratchet opportunities

Offline khallow

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #22 on: 08/19/2009 04:25 am »
Then, calling LEO "exploration" is disingenuous to those supporting it both financially and by their sentiment.

I can hardly let this go by unchallenged. To claim that either a Lunar outpost or a Mars mission is within our technical grasp is to ignore the lessons that the ISS is teaching us now. I am not clear on exactly how close to the life support edge the ISS is with it's current six man crew but there is not a lot of slack up there. Our current life support technology is in it's infancy and it is a hell of a lot safer and cheaper to develop this technology 200 miles away than it is 200,000 or 200,000,000 miles away. The same holds true for low gravity and radiation impacts to human physiognomy. In addition there is the question of logistics, we can barely maintain the ISS requirements, how then are we going to supply a Lunar outpost?

So how is the ISS "teaching" us this "lesson"? In other words, what are they doing to probe the limits of life support, low (not zero) gravity, and other things as mentioned above? As I see it, a key benefit of manned exploration is that you actually find out what you need to survive. We don't have to guess based on weakly similar and unambitious projects like the ISS.

For example, the ISS has tried as far as I can tell two water recycling systems and two oxygen generation systems (one from Russia and one from the US). Where's the in space R&D on useful life support systems for a Mars or Lunar mission?

Well as you point out there are only two water/oxygen recycling systems up there, so far as I know the only two mankind has. Which one do you want to take to Mars? I have no idea how much R&D effort Russia is putting into their system but I am quite sure that the US system is very much a work in progress, I hope like hell they have sufficient funding to do continuing development although I wouldn't be surprised to find that CxP cut funding so that they could do something much more shortsighted.

Neither. They aren't designed for a Mars expedition. That is my point. We aren't developing the hardware to go elsewhere.

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We can guess that the amount of development and testing that was done on the US system must have been substantial and yet, once it was on orbit, it has not been all that reliable. The lesson I take from this is that you can spend a bunch in R&D and in testing but until you get it into orbit it is all just theory. Are you seriously suggesting we send our astronauts off for 180-360 days with a system that hasn't been tested in the environment that it will fly in? That is why a robust R&D effort in LEO is necessary to any manned exploration of either Mars or the Moon. Fortunately it looks like the extension to 2020 is a done deal, now, if we finally fund the R&D necessary on the station, exploration will look a lot more viable.

The thing is, as we can see, a magnificent testing environment in LEO, namely the ISS, doesn't mean that we get a robust R&D effort. My view is that the latter will only follow from a serious exploration effort that demands a robust R&D effort.

It's easy to talk about all the technologies we'll need to develop to get to an extraordinary destination like Mars, but I think it's a bit foolish to say that we should develop these technologies before we plan flights to Mars. What reason in the absence of an impending flight to Mars will encourage the US or someone else to test appropriate (that is, intended for use in multi-year missions) life support systems in space? Competent plans for Mars missions already budget considerable time and money for such development. And until we actually have people flying in multi-year missions in space (something the ISS can't directly model), we can't know for sure what problems we'll see.
Karl Hallowell

Offline hop

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #23 on: 08/19/2009 04:31 am »
Now suppose it would cost $5 trillion dollars to do it but you could "earn" $3 trillion in revenue from shipping stuff back. No way that makes sense from an accountants POV but if you just want to do it because you want to do it, your total cost has been reduced by 60%.
Even if you write off the costs of building the infrastructure, you still have to be able to sell the stuff for greater than the cost of extraction and transportation.

Offline MP99

Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #24 on: 08/19/2009 08:16 am »
It's easy to talk about all the technologies we'll need to develop to get to an extraordinary destination like Mars, but I think it's a bit foolish to say that we should develop these technologies before we plan flights to Mars. What reason in the absence of an impending flight to Mars will encourage the US or someone else to test appropriate (that is, intended for use in multi-year missions) life support systems in space? Competent plans for Mars missions already budget considerable time and money for such development. And until we actually have people flying in multi-year missions in space (something the ISS can't directly model), we can't know for sure what problems we'll see.

Conversely, there's no reason to "save up" all those R&D programmes until someone drops the Mars starting flag.

The commission have already said that they want to ring-fence some money for R&D. It would be great to bump the TRL's for various technologies before a Mars programme begins. I'd speculate some of these programmes would benefit from a longer duration at sensible funding levels over more money thrown at it in a desperate rush for results.

We should be spending money now preparing for Mars.

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but I think it's a bit foolish to say that we should develop these technologies before we plan flights to Mars.
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What reason in the absence of an impending flight to Mars will encourage the US or someone else to test appropriate ... life support systems in space?

Perhaps we shouldn't be designing hardware (2nd quote), but we should be developing the technologies (1st quote) so we know how to build the hardware when we need it.

cheers, Martin

Offline khallow

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #25 on: 08/19/2009 01:01 pm »
Martin, I don't disagree with you. But fundamentally, I don't see sincere R&D in the absence of something using the R&D in the near future.


Perhaps we shouldn't be designing hardware (2nd quote), but we should be developing the technologies (1st quote) so we know how to build the hardware when we need it.

I view the two as synonymous. Namely, you cannot develop the technology without building hardware.
Karl Hallowell

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #26 on: 08/19/2009 06:09 pm »
...you cannot develop the technology without building hardware.

I heartily agree with this. Besides, paper spacecraft are really boring. The most detailed and expensive analysis of, say, Ares V and Altair and the rest will cost more and be more difficult than developing and building and launching a small satellite launch system like Falcon 1 or even a suborbital craft like SpaceShip1, but Falcon 1 and SS1 are usually FAR more interesting to the general public and space hobbyists. Also, smaller (but REAL instead of paper) spacecraft that use advanced technology are able to mature those technologies far better and often with lower cost than lengthy analysis and simulations. Deep Space 1 and the other Space Technology "N" programs were a good way of doing this.

Keep your analysis to first or maybe second order effects and then just build the sucker. If you include enough margin in your design, you won't have to worry about the higher order effects (which are much more difficult and costly to analyze) until you actually have experience with the most important issues. Always do a quick and dirty prototype as soon as possible in the development cycle when developing some new technology. Works for me, at least. It will also get you more funding faster.
« Last Edit: 08/19/2009 06:14 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline Norm Hartnett

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #27 on: 08/19/2009 06:25 pm »
Neither. They aren't designed for a Mars expedition. That is my point. We aren't developing the hardware to go elsewhere.

The thing is, as we can see, a magnificent testing environment in LEO, namely the ISS, doesn't mean that we get a robust R&D effort. My view is that the latter will only follow from a serious exploration effort that demands a robust R&D effort.

Yeah, well, we can blame that on CxP. I suspect that if the powers that be do decide on Deep Space that we will see that changing. Assuming that NASA actually internalizes the new mission rather than carrying on with all their current baggage.
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It's easy to talk about all the technologies we'll need to develop to get to an extraordinary destination like Mars, but I think it's a bit foolish to say that we should develop these technologies before we plan flights to Mars. What reason in the absence of an impending flight to Mars will encourage the US or someone else to test appropriate (that is, intended for use in multi-year missions) life support systems in space? Competent plans for Mars missions already budget considerable time and money for such development. And until we actually have people flying in multi-year missions in space (something the ISS can't directly model), we can't know for sure what problems we'll see.

Not so foolish if we are looking at a step wise exploration plan that allows us to develop increasingly more capable systems with each step further out. The reason for testing increasingly more capable systems, eventually resulting multi-year capable systems, is that it spreads the costs over a far more reasonable budget time frame. A Mars First architecture doesn't lend itself to a slow and steady development within a reasonable budget. It requires massive expenditures on multiple very serious technical challenges simultanously. What's the hurry? Mars is still going to be there. Better that we get there in a century with the capability to stay there than get there in a decade and not be able to sustain the effort. (see Apollo) (or current ISS/Shuttle plans)

Look, you can keep doing the same thing (Apollo, ISS, big budget big programs) over and over and expect different results (not being canceled, not being dropped for the next new thing with the next political cycle) or you can get serious and plan for the long haul. In other words don't bite off more than you can chew and chew every bite to the fullest.
« Last Edit: 08/19/2009 06:48 pm by Norm Hartnett »
“You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.” Mike Gold - Apollo, STS, CxP; those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it: SLS.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #28 on: 08/19/2009 08:45 pm »
I think that there is a way to go to Mars cheaply and quickly, but we aren't ready for that until we do Deep Space flyby missions. Those are important to develop even to just defend against NEOs.

Besides, it will let us incrementally put to the test most of the new technologies we need to get to Mars, such as:
ion-thrusters (whether VASIMR or something else) or NTR
closed-loop life-support systems
radiation shielding (active and passive)
crew sanity on long-duration missions
largish man-rated launch systems
and
maybe even ISRU if we land on water- and carbon-bearing asteroids (or Phobos)

Ultimately, there's a lot of potential value to be extracted from mining the asteroids and Deep Space missions could actually prove whether or not it's somewhat practical.
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Offline HIPAR

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #29 on: 08/19/2009 10:38 pm »
I'm thinking the periodic chart of the atoms is full with respect to stable elements. So really, what's up there that's in critical supply down here.  Are we looking for the extraterrestrial gold rush of 2049 or what?

Now let's make something requiring near zero gravity that's so desirable the profits from sales are many orders of magnitude greater than the costs of getting all the tooling and manpower up there to make it.  Something earth shattering like the microchip?  Anyone care to speculate on this commodity?

Let's look at real examples of  of space commercialization .. satellite TV, satellite radio, GPS gizmos and satellite weather data products.  None of these big time money makers ever required anyone to go up there to explore.

---  CHAS

Offline khallow

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #30 on: 08/21/2009 01:58 pm »
Chas, everything is in critical supply, if you can deliver at a far cheaper price than possible on Earth.

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Now let's make something requiring near zero gravity that's so desirable the profits from sales are many orders of magnitude greater than the costs of getting all the tooling and manpower up there to make it.  Something earth shattering like the microchip?  Anyone care to speculate on this commodity?

There's nothing remotely close yet. Maybe space pixie dust works better than Terran pixie dust? At least things like gold, platinum, etc are worth something on Earth, if you can get it there for less than people are willing to pay for it.
Karl Hallowell

Offline William Barton

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #31 on: 08/21/2009 02:15 pm »
For some reason, no one wants to realize that a) the up-front cost of setting up a space fairing civilization will be paid back by the revving up of our economic engine, not by profits from the commodities
This is an assumption. If you want people to "realize" that it is correct, some supporting evidence beyond analogies to pre-industrial history would be in order.
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And, of course, bitumen is only one hypothetical commodity.
A rather unconvincing one, given that there appear to be cheaper and simpler and more desirable paths to energy independence.

"Appear to be" is the key here, and it is all very, very hypothetical. If there was actual "supporting evidence," we'd be talking about that instead, and I'd be out pounding that drum in my stories. There just aren't any better analogies to be had, at this time. It all devolves back down to "why." The "economic engine assumption" itself is on pretty safe historical ground, but the global geopolitical leadership worships Bismarck and that ilk, rather than James Watt and kindred. What a different world this would be if the political and economic leadership could say, "Okay, if I invest a trillion dollars this year on Project X, I'll get back a trillion a year over the next 30 years." But 30 years is beyond that leadership's timeline. Non-bubble economic boom times tend to be periods of great infrastructure investment. Prior to the 20th century, that was often obscured by unregulated speculation (as with the railroads). Project Apollo was a small scale investment, compared to its contemporaries, such as SAC and the Interstate system. Reagan's 600-ship Navy contributed to the economic recovery of the 1980s. Etc. For a spce-faring civilization infrastructure project, today's taxpayers would have to see themselves investing in jobs for their children and grandchildren.
« Last Edit: 08/21/2009 02:16 pm by William Barton »

Offline William Barton

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #32 on: 08/21/2009 02:21 pm »
Chas, everything is in critical supply, if you can deliver at a far cheaper price than possible on Earth.

Quote
Now let's make something requiring near zero gravity that's so desirable the profits from sales are many orders of magnitude greater than the costs of getting all the tooling and manpower up there to make it.  Something earth shattering like the microchip?  Anyone care to speculate on this commodity?

There's nothing remotely close yet. Maybe space pixie dust works better than Terran pixie dust? At least things like gold, platinum, etc are worth something on Earth, if you can get it there for less than people are willing to pay for it.


Or maybe the entire supply of Terran pixie dust is controlled by your mortal enemy, the Prince Regent of Teuffelsreich? What are your choices? Be pixiedust starved into submission, go to war against Teuffelsreich and hope you win, or go after that space pixie dust. Hopefully the Prince Regent isn't ahead of you there.

Offline William Barton

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #33 on: 08/21/2009 02:35 pm »
I've talked about the historical nature of colonization in a few threads over time, partly because it's pretty clear most people here have a skewed and vaguely "manifest destiny" view of colonization that's mixed up with both the serendipitous creation of the United States, and with the "colonialism" (a largely unrelated phenomenon) that developed starting in the 18th century (partly as a consequence of the American revolution). Once you get away from those inapplicable notions, there are other, real historical colonization paradigms. These break down into two basic type: lebensraum colonization (e.g., the spread of the Polynesians across the Pacific), which is wholly inapplicapable to "space exploration," and mercantile colonization, which is how I firmly believe the human colonization of the Solar System will take place. The best known example of mercantile colonization is the Greek and Phonecian colonization of the Western Mediterranean and Black Sea littorals. While there was, especially for the Greeks, a political component to the creation of colonies (see "ostracism," from Greek ostrakon, meaning "potsherd"), the primary purpose of it was the creation of commercial emporia at overseas trade sites. Note that our word emporium (plural emporia) is borrowed from the Latin rendering of the Greek word emporion, and was the actual name of a Greek commerical colony named Emporion (founded in Spain in 575 BC, the Greek word means "market'). There's plenty of history on all of that. There's also a sublime non-European example of same: linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates merchant adventurers from a single village in what's now Indonesia colonized Madagascar more than 2,000 years ago. My guess (because they didn't leave any written records) is, a trade group discovered Madagascar (then uninhabited) by accident while on a trading expedition to the coast of east Africa, and figured they'd just found an ideal forward base.

Gads, I love your recent spat of posts about the history of exploration and it's application to our current situation. Just yesterday I began researching the Age of Discovery (AKA The Age of Exploration) to see if there was any parallels to be drawn in the technological development of sailing ships during this period and our current space technology.

Have you considered writing a book, or perhaps a series of articles? I was unaware of the Greek and Phoenician exploration/colony possibilities but I was considering the Asian Age of Exploration (China's Great Armada and etc) and the prehistoric trading colonies out of the middle east/western Asia. Have you considered how technology plays into the exploration capabilities as well as the colonization rational?
 

Thoughts like that cross my mind, but I'm not as prolific as I used to be. There's also the paying publisher problem nowadays. Times have changed, and an awful lot of people are writing an awful lot of free words. I figure my free contributions at place like this are worth the possible influence via whatever memes get released into the noosphere. Heck, if NASA winds up going to NEOs first, Lori Garver paid me for the idea! Can't beat that.

As for the question, I don't know how significant it really is. Exploration tends to lag behind the technological capability to do so, and people tend to neglect the influence of environment on what's being explored. Colmbus, the Polynesians, and the Phonecians didn't need the technology they had to do what they did, it could have been done with dugout canoes. What all three had, that was key to their accomplishments, was enviornmental knowledge. The Mediterranean Sea lies in the horse latitudes, so it's full of light, variable winds. That's the reason the Portuguese were able to find the Azores, a third of the way across the Atlantic. From the Horse Latitudes, you go south to go west, and north to go east. You can't get lost! And Columbus knew that. South to the Trades, go west until you reach Asia. If Asia doesn't turn up on schedule, cross the Horse Lattitudes to the Westerlies and go home. He knew he wasn't being swept away to an unknown fate. And the Polynesians knew perfectly well that the Southeast Trades fail during the summer cyclone season. So you can sail away on the wind, and always get home again. Heyerdahl based all of his stunts on this stuff. It's like going to the Moon on a free-return trajectory. You'll be back.


Offline hop

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #34 on: 08/21/2009 09:55 pm »
Project Apollo was a small scale investment, compared to its contemporaries, such as SAC and the Interstate system. Reagan's 600-ship Navy contributed to the economic recovery of the 1980s. Etc. For a spce-faring civilization infrastructure project, today's taxpayers would have to see themselves investing in jobs for their children and grandchildren.
The interstate system has obvious economic utility. While the utility of specific defense projects is open to question, the need for defense in general is not.

Is it not true that nations have spent themselves into oblivion on grandiose schemes that turned out to just be money pits (some of Reagans projects are credited with convincing the Soviets to do exactly this) ? Why are you so certain that this does not apply to your scheme ?

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"Appear to be" is the key here, and it is all very, very hypothetical.
With regard to energy independence, importing hydrocarbons from the outer solar system is way down the list of plausible suggestions. At the most basic level, the energy required to import them will far exceed the energy extracted by burning them. (There are other uses for hydrocarbons but once you solve the energy problem, 1) existing domestic reserves will last a lot longer 2) energy intensive synthesis of substitutes becomes more attractive.)

Offline grdja

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Re: Exploration vs Commercialization
« Reply #35 on: 08/21/2009 10:21 pm »
Talking about something completely different than NASA and run orders of magnitude more efficient. I believe it would be possible with investment maybe less than NASA 1966. top (~4% of fed budget) to have a practical program to develop technologies and start commercializing solar system. First cheap $/kg , than space solar, than asteroid mining for in space use, than export to Earth (in 30 or 40 years from project start).

All of it is technologically possible. However to fit time and money amounts possibly available, it would have to be a serious national decision with very little tolerance for porkbarelling & co.

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