Commercial Spaceflight overtaking Government?

[edkyle99]

aero313 - 14/4/2008  11:58 AM

edkyle99 - 13/4/2008  11:31 PM

The definition I use, and the clearest one for me to understand, is to ask this question:  Who paid for the payload and for the launch services?  If a purely commercial company paid, it is a commercial launch.  If a government paid, whether for a civil or defense payload, crewed or not, it is a government launch.  

 - Ed Kyle

I guess I'll challenge that.  The second launch of the Taurus vehicle was a commercial, FAA-licensed space launch (and we used a Castor 120, not a Peacekeeper on that flight).  The customer (defined as who signed the check that we cashed for the launch) was Ball Aerospace.  The payload was the US Navy Geosat Follow-On spacecraft.  Ball was paid by the Navy.  I call this a commercial launch service, since our contract was to deliver a satellite to orbit, not to deliver launch vehicle hardware and our customer was a commercial entity.

This would be a government payload, and therefore a government launch.  Performed by a commercial launch provider, yes, but with the government ultimately footing the bill.  No government, no launch.

 - Ed Kyle

[kevin-rf]

I would key in on the word "SpaceFlight" which implies a ride, implying a human in the loop, unmanned ELV launches are called "launches".

So the question should be when will commercial Spaceflights eclipse goverment space flights. Do you count suborbital flights? The way I see it right now, we have two or so commercial Soyuz passengers a year along with all the goverment sponsored Soyuz/Shuttle/Shenzhou passengers

[aero313]

edkyle99 - 14/4/2008  2:52 PM

aero313 - 14/4/2008  11:58 AM

edkyle99 - 13/4/2008  11:31 PM

The definition I use, and the clearest one for me to understand, is to ask this question:  Who paid for the payload and for the launch services?  If a purely commercial company paid, it is a commercial launch.  If a government paid, whether for a civil or defense payload, crewed or not, it is a government launch.  

 - Ed Kyle

I guess I'll challenge that.  The second launch of the Taurus vehicle was a commercial, FAA-licensed space launch (and we used a Castor 120, not a Peacekeeper on that flight).  The customer (defined as who signed the check that we cashed for the launch) was Ball Aerospace.  The payload was the US Navy Geosat Follow-On spacecraft.  Ball was paid by the Navy.  I call this a commercial launch service, since our contract was to deliver a satellite to orbit, not to deliver launch vehicle hardware and our customer was a commercial entity.

This would be a government payload, and therefore a government launch.  Performed by a commercial launch provider, yes, but with the government ultimately footing the bill.  No government, no launch.

 - Ed Kyle

If it was a government launch, we wouldn't have needed the FAA launch license.

[brihath]

I believe the definition here is too broad (or more aptly, undefined) to make any kind of prediction.  History has shown that there was no clear break from government to private enterprise in other exploration efforts.  The Dutch West India Company is one that come to mind during the settlement of the new world.  Very large and costly undertakings were almost always done by either governments or quasi-governmental corporations (TVA, St. Lawrence Seaway, Interstate Highway System, etc.).

I guess I don't see how space exploration will be any different for quite some time, and I mean decades, to get to purely private enterprise, meaning vehicles, spacecraft, tracking systems, launch infrastructure, etc.  If I were to again use the settlement of the new world as an analogy, the further the reach of the exploration, the less the system would have been defined as commercial, while closer to the source, the system would have gone to a more complete commercial model.  To give an example, Boston had long transitioned away from the Massachusetts Bay Colony model while Lewis and Clark were first exploring the Louisiana Purchase as a purely government funded undertaking.

So it will be with Space.  LEO will transform to a commercial model long before any missions to the Moon or Mars do.

That said, it is still too hard to predict, so I am abstaining from the vote.

[texas_space]

The question is a little undefined to give a good answer.  If the question is will commercial spaceflight (manned) overtake manned gov't programs like those run by RSA and NASA, then within 10 years (counting suborbital flights).  Even if NASA's programs stay on schedule, they'll be putting fewer astronauts into space than they have been with the shuttle due to smaller crews and fewer flights per year (not a bad thing if we are out exploring the solar system IMO though).  However, the commercial flights won't be exploring for a very long time if ever.  I doubt I'll see a commercial manned spaceflight outside LEO in my lifetime other than a few space tourists going around the moon (a BIG maybe).

[Analyst]

aero313 - 14/4/2008  9:23 PM

edkyle99 - 14/4/2008  2:52 PM

aero313 - 14/4/2008  11:58 AM

edkyle99 - 13/4/2008  11:31 PM

The definition I use, and the clearest one for me to understand, is to ask this question:  Who paid for the payload and for the launch services?  If a purely commercial company paid, it is a commercial launch.  If a government paid, whether for a civil or defense payload, crewed or not, it is a government launch.  

 - Ed Kyle

I guess I'll challenge that.  The second launch of the Taurus vehicle was a commercial, FAA-licensed space launch (and we used a Castor 120, not a Peacekeeper on that flight).  The customer (defined as who signed the check that we cashed for the launch) was Ball Aerospace.  The payload was the US Navy Geosat Follow-On spacecraft.  Ball was paid by the Navy.  I call this a commercial launch service, since our contract was to deliver a satellite to orbit, not to deliver launch vehicle hardware and our customer was a commercial entity.

This would be a government payload, and therefore a government launch.  Performed by a commercial launch provider, yes, but with the government ultimately footing the bill.  No government, no launch.

 - Ed Kyle

If it was a government launch, we wouldn't have needed the FAA launch license.

But this is only a point of legal regulation.

Without the government there wouldn't be a launch. This definition by Ed, which I totally agree with, leaves only communication satellites and a few earth observing sats as commercial. And this is exactly the way it is: Everything other done in space is not turning a profit, is not done without the government finally paying.

So be careful what you wish for: No government spaceflight (manned or unmanned), almost no spaceflight at all. It is even doubtful there would be any launch service without governments paying for some (development etc.).

The world will stay this way for quite some time.

Analyst

[tnphysics]

Has Pegasus ever launched a commercial (not goverment funded) sattelite?

[aero313]

tnphysics - 15/4/2008  6:17 PM

Has Pegasus ever launched a commercial (not goverment funded) sattelite?

Most of the satellites launched by Pegasus were commercial.  Several dozen Orbcomms, Orbviews, etc.


This brings up some even fuzzier missions.  What do you call the Minisat mission for Spain?  The US government certainly had no stake in the mission.  How about SeaStar?  Orbital built and owned the satellite but sold remote sensing data to NASA (as well as to commercial customers)?

I guess by Ed's definition, nearly all the SpaceX missions on their manifest are "government" launches.

[Takalok]

The question hints at the vast resources private industry can bring to space activities.  Of course, what it's going to take to get them involved (ULA aside) is another discussion, but consider this:  Intel has built a $3 billion fab plant in AZ;  it is estimated Microsoft spent $10 billion developing Vista (hopefully they wont develop spacecraft).  

My rudimentary point is if the commercial sector seriously gets into the mix, then yes, they will dominate at least lift services.  NASA will still have a science and perhaps exploratory roll that will piggyback off of commercial launchers, but frankly, I think such a relationship would be ideal, and is hardly a new thought.  I hope it comes to be.

[Analyst]

aero313 - 16/4/2008  1:50 AM

I guess by Ed's definition, nearly all the SpaceX missions on their manifest are "government" launches.

Exactly. One reason I don't understand the hype about SpaceX. No government, no COTS, Falconsat etc. Keeping this in mind helps staying realistic about spaceflight: There are only a handful of profit generating satellite types (communication, earth observing). All the other stuff is in the end financed by taxpayers. Isn't nice or pretty, but reality.

Analyst

[Frediiiie]

The Space Report 2008: The Authoritative Guide to Global Space Activity, released by the Space Foundation today, revealed more than $251 billion in global space activity in 2007.
(April 9, 2008)
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=25166
and further:
"The Space Report 2008 also reveals that satellite-based products and services and U.S. government spending on space again comprise the two largest segments of the space industry at 55 percent and 25 percent of total revenues, respectively.  Direct-to-home television and Global Positioning System equipment and chipsets, the two largest sub-segments of the commercial space industry, also posted the strongest growth numbers in 2007, with 19 percent and 20 percent increases, respectively."

So at just 25% government activity in space is already well and truly swamped by commercial space, and falling further and furher behind at 11% per annum.

[Jim]

Frediiiie - 16/4/2008  4:57 AM

So at just 25% government activity in space is already well and truly swamped by commercial space, and falling further and furher behind at 11% per annum.

Incorrect

Paying for DirectV and a GPS receiver is not "space activity"

[kevin-rf]

No DOD bucks, no GPS... The DOD subsidy pays for the GPS service and secondary market of civilian receivers... Just like the GPS subsidy kept the Delt II prices low... You need to differentiate goverment space activity that has major civilian impact from goverment for goverment only activities. How many dolars and lives are saved each year because the goverment pays for weather satellites. Will any commercial weather service actually buy and operate its own fleet of vehicles? There are certain things the goverment does that I want, shudder to think what would happen if tornado warnings went a pay per alert basis from a comercial operator. No bucks, no mad dash to the storm shelter... "Space Activity" is so inter-twined with our daily lives we actually fail to notice it anymore...

... getting back to "SpaceFlight" means a human in the loop for a ride...

[Frediiiie]

Jim - 16/4/2008  9:12 AM


Incorrect

Paying for DirectV and a GPS receiver is not "space activity"

How incorrect? This is the way Space Report 2008 defines it.
By their definition government activity is already small cheese.

You are, of course, free to define what is and isn't space activity another way.

[Jim]

Frediiiie - 16/4/2008  11:10 PM

Jim - 16/4/2008  9:12 AM


Incorrect

Paying for DirectV and a GPS receiver is not "space activity"

How incorrect? This is the way Space Report 2008 defines it.
By their definition government activity is already small cheese.

You are, of course, free to define what is and isn't space activity another way.

In the context of this discussion, "space activity" is defined as a launch

[Frediiiie]

The original question was

scienceguy - 13/4/2008  7:13 PM

So do you think private companies will overtake government space programs? If so, how far away is this?

If you want to narrow the question down that's fine.
But answering the above question:
the Space Report 2008 puts govt space at 25%
Commercial space as the rest.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=25166

[Jim]

Frediiiie - 18/4/2008  1:52 AM

The original question was

scienceguy - 13/4/2008  7:13 PM

So do you think private companies will overtake government space programs? If so, how far away is this?

If you want to narrow the question down that's fine.
But answering the above question:
the Space Report 2008 puts govt space at 25%
Commercial space as the rest.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=25166

That doesn't answer the above question.

GPS and directv receivers are not "space programs"  neither of these go into space

[kevin-rf]

The whole question is grey, government space programs are only measured in cost. Commercial ventures are measured in cost and revenue. Then we get into the grey area of markets that use space resources in products (GPS,Sat Tv, Sat Radio,Weather,Emergency Beacons,ect...) How do you measure those, and what metric do you use. People benefit from them but for some governments foot the bill. Not all of this can be boiled down to dollars and cents.

It just gets grey; for instance anything that receives data from a satellite is technically a "ground station", even a clock radio that uses GPS to get the current time.

Dollars and Cents only work for commercial entities... Dollars to public benefit (Lives property saved, crops enhanced, not being lost hiking) is how you measure government space.

[Frediiiie]

You're absolutely right. Economics gets very grey very quickly. Thus it's often less important how you measure your field than that you measure it consistently.
Jim is right in that a narrow definition of space activity as just launch programs has some virtue for some things. As a larger measure of the economic impact of space it is limited.
The virtue of the Space Reports is that it gives a series of data for the whole of the industry over a number of years now.
The most interesting datum was the 11% growth for the industry for the year even though it was in areas Jim would exclude.