People can pretend that the Atlas V is an alternative, but it really isn't unless some radical and unlikely things happen with their prices.
Quote from: Blackjax on 01/19/2014 01:03 amPeople can pretend that the Atlas V is an alternative, but it really isn't unless some radical and unlikely things happen with their prices.Quite the opposite. People can pretend that Spacex is going to be game changing, but it really isn't since their prices will be aligning with the rest of the industry.
Quote from: Blackjax on 01/19/2014 01:03 amPeople can pretend that the Atlas V is an alternative, but it really isn't unless some radical and unlikely things happen with their prices.Quite the opposite. People can pretend that Spacex is going to be game changing, but it really isn't since their prices will be aligning with the rest of the industry
You still seem to be making the assumption that customers would pay to either hurry things along or ensure that the capability is there, and I just don't see why that would be likely.
Companies or sovereign clients are more likely, in my opinion, to wait on the fence until capability exists and has been demonstrated, then initiate their own programs which would make use of what is available.
Consequently, I think it is premature to try to draw any conclusions from the apparent lack of customers at this point. 1-2 years after it is in orbit and people can fly things to it, then if there is no groundswell of customers, we'll all have our answers about whether there is a market at the price point Bigelow is selling at.
Also, potential clients should note that as opposed to the ISS, where astronauts dedicate the lion's share of their time to supporting station operations and maintenance, astronauts aboard the Alpha Station will be able to focus exclusively on their own experiments and activities, ensuring that both nations and companies can gain full value from their investment in a human spaceflight program.
The demand for space tourists at $30-40 million for a week or two appears to be one per year. What if it was longer? What if the price were $5 million or $2 million? Mightn't it be conceivable that you'd get dozens of interested folks per year? At $15 million per flight ($7 million for the launch same as what SpaceX intends to charge for its reusable flights eventually, $7 million for the spacecraft and operations), you could charge $3 million per seat and turn a healthy profit.
{snip}Depending on assumptions it looked like that was in the $1-5M/seat range.That said, if prices got down to that point, my guess is there's a whole number of other markets that would also suddenly make sense as well. The key is just having the financial staying power to keep prices low long enough for the market to respond. ~Jon
from the public disclosures I've seen, Bigelow's business model is, unsurprisingly, rather a "hotel in LEO for national prestige missions" model, rather than a "Space Station for research, experiments and exploration" model.
I don't think you'd be able to reach those sorts of prices until you're launching crafts with, at least >50pax.Let's do that number the other way around. 5M/pax, to get the same revenue as the current Cargo Dragon contract (~400M/yr), would mean about 80pax per year. If you wanted to do at 1M, that's 400pax/year.According to the Fulton's report, at 5M/yr, they were expecting 60 flight/yr. I think that's extremely optimistic. Unless they used nominal dollars, for which case it would mean 3.5M/pax, which would seem more reasonable. If I look at the wealth curve, it would seem that if you reduce your price by 80%, you could get a 2000% increase in quantity. So, for 700k/pax, you could be talking about 1,200pax/yr. If that extrapolation can be done. Then 1M/yr (today's money) means about 1,000pax/yr.It's extremely difficult to get to a cost of just 1M/Pax. If you had to launch 1,000pax/year, and do it for cheap, would seem that 15 to 30 missions/year is a good number. If you had to launch in 5pax config, that would mean 200 missions/yr. That would require quite a fleet. I guess that with just two stacks you could minimize cost. That would give you around 20pax per launch at 50 missions/year, or 25missions/yr/craft, or two week turnaround.Said craft would be something like a DreamChases scaled 50% in each directions (HL42 was about 16 pax). So I assume that a 25tonne craft would do (HL42 was 20tonnes). So you need a fully reusable LV that can put 25tonnes on LEO. Something close to a reusable Falcon Heavy.And each cost would get a revenue of just 20M. So the LV cost should be about 12M/launch, plus another 6M for the craft's refurbishment and 2M in range and overhead.It would seem to me that we are quite far from those numbers and thus is not an immediate concern. The microgravity science and NASA's astronaut needs are real, are known, and there's a lot of experience.
Quote from: baldusi on 01/20/2014 08:55 pmI don't think you'd be able to reach those sorts of prices until you're launching crafts with, at least >50pax.Let's do that number the other way around. 5M/pax, to get the same revenue as the current Cargo Dragon contract (~400M/yr), would mean about 80pax per year. If you wanted to do at 1M, that's 400pax/year.According to the Fulton's report, at 5M/yr, they were expecting 60 flight/yr. I think that's extremely optimistic. Unless they used nominal dollars, for which case it would mean 3.5M/pax, which would seem more reasonable. If I look at the wealth curve, it would seem that if you reduce your price by 80%, you could get a 2000% increase in quantity. So, for 700k/pax, you could be talking about 1,200pax/yr. If that extrapolation can be done. Then 1M/yr (today's money) means about 1,000pax/yr.It's extremely difficult to get to a cost of just 1M/Pax. If you had to launch 1,000pax/year, and do it for cheap, would seem that 15 to 30 missions/year is a good number. If you had to launch in 5pax config, that would mean 200 missions/yr. That would require quite a fleet. I guess that with just two stacks you could minimize cost. That would give you around 20pax per launch at 50 missions/year, or 25missions/yr/craft, or two week turnaround.Said craft would be something like a DreamChases scaled 50% in each directions (HL42 was about 16 pax). So I assume that a 25tonne craft would do (HL42 was 20tonnes). So you need a fully reusable LV that can put 25tonnes on LEO. Something close to a reusable Falcon Heavy.And each cost would get a revenue of just 20M. So the LV cost should be about 12M/launch, plus another 6M for the craft's refurbishment and 2M in range and overhead.It would seem to me that we are quite far from those numbers and thus is not an immediate concern. The microgravity science and NASA's astronaut needs are real, are known, and there's a lot of experience.The range in question is "$1-5M/seat". For Dragon with 7 passengers that's $7-35M per flight. SpaceX has said they're targetting $5-7M per launch for comsats, so even the low end of the range is possible for F9R and Dragon if SpaceX meets their targets. Even if they can't meet those targets, $35M per flight with the first stage and Dragon capsule reusable is certainly not implausible.So, no, 50 passengers per flight is definitely not a requirement to reach this price range.
Just to reinforce the message, this should be about how to create a service based commercial LEO station. On issue I have been pondering, is about the CBM. I've been given to understand maximum diameter of payload is a critical issue. I understand that IDSS has 800mm of clearance, but if you can take the petals out, you could have 1100mm. CBM is a square of 1500mm, so its a lot bigger. But I don't know how would you berth without the Canadarm.