Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions

[joek]

Of course, it wouldn't be that simple, because they would not need all $8B up front, only spread over 8 years, and they would not be in a position to begin seriously replaying most of the loan for 8 years...

I would expect that the actual development costs (minus test flights) of around 2-2.5 billion dollars would be mostly paid for by down-payments and "milestone attainment" payments from their customers, plus whatever other additional revenue streams they develop. They would not need to borrow a lot of money until they are ready to fly test missions (which would be when the big bucks start to be spent fairly rapidly), and by then they would presumably have sufficiently established their technical, commercial and financial viability to the banks that they should be able to secure any loans they might need.

That seems optimistic to me.  I would expect the vast majority of funding for non-recurring development (Table 12) and a major portion of funding beyond that to first landing (Table 13) will come from equity investment.

Banks (debt financing) aren't going to touch GSC until there are tangible assets to back the loans, or there are guarantees by credible and very deep pockets.

Until GSC is up and running with a balance sheet and track record that won't make a VC blush, any monies paid to GSC or loan guarantees--progress-milestone-whatever by government-private-whoever--is going to be viewed as an extremely high risk investment.

[Warren Platts]

Well, if they claimed a 10 km² area within Whipple Crater that was 10 m deep and contained 30 ppm of Au and Au was worth $50k/kg, then they would have a reserve containing $1.5T worth of gold, assuming I didn't drop a zero somewhere....

See? So if they went bankrupt on a $7.5B loan, the bank could have the gold reserve for half a cent on the dollar. 

[Warren Platts]

Alternatively, they could launch out of Costa Rica, which is not a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty. Then, after the first landing, they could claim the entire Moon as Costa Rican territory--the whole place privately owned by Golden Spike, of course.

Then if they defaulted, the bank could wind up owning the entire Moon for $10B.

What do you guys think? Is the entire Moon even worth $10B?!?

[joek]

See? So if they went bankrupt on a $7.5B loan, the bank could have the gold reserve for half a cent on the dollar. 

You owe me a new keyboard.  And I'd love to have you (or your financial advisor) with me the next time I talk to the bank.

[Warren Platts]

Oh sure Joe! Anytime! My fees are very reasonable!

[Nathan]

If the falcon heavy can send a red dragon to mars and land one tonne on the surface, why can't it send a dragon on a lunar flyby?
It is stated in the Aaia paper that a small propulsion module would be needed. Is this because the authors of the paper discounted the performance by 10%?

[Mongo62]

If the falcon heavy can send a red dragon to mars and land one tonne on the surface, why can't it send a dragon on a lunar flyby?
It is stated in the Aaia paper that a small propulsion module would be needed. Is this because the authors of the paper discounted the performance by 10%?

I believe that this topic was discussed in a different thread, some time ago.  If I recall correctly, it was agreed that a free-return trajectory around the Moon (Apollo 13 style) was well within Falcon Heavy's abilities.

[Robotbeat]

If any of the optimistic plans for reusable launch work out, their price could be significantly lower. Including development costs, since they could use cheaper propulsion tech.

If anyone wins the Glxp for a small amount of money or if any of the other NGLLC Xprize companies get somewhat further along... There may be significant low-cost ways to do vehicle development and test flights. Lots of ifs. But these aren't impossible.

The whole commercial human spaceflight self-licking ice cream ecosystem needs a real killer app. Or, a rich enough planet that can do stuff just for the heck of it.

[Steven Pietrobon]

This if true bothers me because it indicates a non-inhouse integrator company that hires other companies to do all the development and hardware manufacture. There are inherint costs increases to hiring out of ~30% more in costs. So if this is an indication of thier business structure it has some significant managerial and contracting challenges.

In other words this would be like a NASA surrogate organization streamlined for a narrow focus and goal. It would not represent the cheapest this could be done for with a new space policy of "we do the concept and build the hardware ourselves" vs an old space policy of "we do the concept someone else buids the hardware".

I totally agree. This was the approach taken by Kistler, with their contractors eating their lunch (launch :-). If I had $1.4B lying around, I wouldn't pay another company to launch me to the Moon. I would start my own company, SpaceX style, and hire engineers to design and construct the needed elements. The carrot of working on a Lunar landing program would induce a lot of good engineers to come work for you (including pinching a lot of engineers from existing aerospace companies). This means I won't pay $100M for Lunar spacesuits and systems. I would pay $10M or less for suits and systems we made ourselves.

[RocketmanUS]

So 50 kg isn't shabby, being comparable to the early Apollo returned sample masses.

At $1.5B that is very expensive. Even if they removed the crew and replaced it with samples.

No, it's actually not. Moonrise was a JPL proposed New Frontiers-class mission at about $1 billion, and would only have returned 1 kg of lunar material. And that would have been a random grab sample of gravel wherever it happened to land. Hand-collected samples of interest are much more valuable, which why certain Apollo samples are much more in demand than the rarer Soviet Luna samples.

$1.5 billion for 50 kg of samples and the deployment of a surface station (Stern's "GoLDSTP") is a bargain compared to what JPL would charge to do it robotically.

http://www.planetaryprobe.eu/IPPW7/proceedings/IPPW7%20Proceedings/Presentations/Session7B/pr516.pdf

Outpost, with crew able to stay longer and multiple EVA with rover could be able to collect more samples, sort out what should be sent back to Earth. Ascender could take samples up to a return capsule in LLO, no crew in ascender would mean more mass of samples. Plus we would get better data on how crew is able to handle low gravity.

More for total dollar invested. Better to what till 2022 just two years later to get a better return on the investment and a foot hold with the outpost.

[HMXHMX]

This if true bothers me because it indicates a non-inhouse integrator company that hires other companies to do all the development and hardware manufacture. There are inherint costs increases to hiring out of ~30% more in costs. So if this is an indication of thier business structure it has some significant managerial and contracting challenges.

In other words this would be like a NASA surrogate organization streamlined for a narrow focus and goal. It would not represent the cheapest this could be done for with a new space policy of "we do the concept and build the hardware ourselves" vs an old space policy of "we do the concept someone else buids the hardware".

I totally agree. This was the approach taken by Kistler, with their contractors eating their lunch (launch :-). If I had $1.4B lying around, I wouldn't pay another company to launch me to the Moon. I would start my own company, SpaceX style, and hire engineers to design and construct the needed elements. The carrot of working on a Lunar landing program would induce a lot of good engineers to come work for you (including pinching a lot of engineers from existing aerospace companies). This means I won't pay $100M for Lunar spacesuits and systems. I would pay $10M or less for suits and systems we made ourselves.

D**m straight.  That is exactly how to do it.

[RocketmanUS]

This if true bothers me because it indicates a non-inhouse integrator company that hires other companies to do all the development and hardware manufacture. There are inherint costs increases to hiring out of ~30% more in costs. So if this is an indication of thier business structure it has some significant managerial and contracting challenges.

In other words this would be like a NASA surrogate organization streamlined for a narrow focus and goal. It would not represent the cheapest this could be done for with a new space policy of "we do the concept and build the hardware ourselves" vs an old space policy of "we do the concept someone else buids the hardware".

I totally agree. This was the approach taken by Kistler, with their contractors eating their lunch (launch :-). If I had $1.4B lying around, I wouldn't pay another company to launch me to the Moon. I would start my own company, SpaceX style, and hire engineers to design and construct the needed elements. The carrot of working on a Lunar landing program would induce a lot of good engineers to come work for you (including pinching a lot of engineers from existing aerospace companies). This means I won't pay $100M for Lunar spacesuits and systems. I would pay $10M or less for suits and systems we made ourselves.

D**m straight.  That is exactly how to do it.

The launchers are expected to exist by the time they plan on launching, so no need to design that part. However they should look into designing their own lander ( could buy off the shelf parts for it ).

[HMXHMX]

This if true bothers me because it indicates a non-inhouse integrator company that hires other companies to do all the development and hardware manufacture. There are inherint costs increases to hiring out of ~30% more in costs. So if this is an indication of thier business structure it has some significant managerial and contracting challenges.

In other words this would be like a NASA surrogate organization streamlined for a narrow focus and goal. It would not represent the cheapest this could be done for with a new space policy of "we do the concept and build the hardware ourselves" vs an old space policy of "we do the concept someone else buids the hardware".

I totally agree. This was the approach taken by Kistler, with their contractors eating their lunch (launch :-). If I had $1.4B lying around, I wouldn't pay another company to launch me to the Moon. I would start my own company, SpaceX style, and hire engineers to design and construct the needed elements. The carrot of working on a Lunar landing program would induce a lot of good engineers to come work for you (including pinching a lot of engineers from existing aerospace companies). This means I won't pay $100M for Lunar spacesuits and systems. I would pay $10M or less for suits and systems we made ourselves.

D**m straight.  That is exactly how to do it.

The launchers are expected to exist by the time they plan on launching, so no need to design that part. However they should look into designing their own lander ( could buy off the shelf parts for it ).

Yeah, absolutely use existing launchers (and I say this as  LV designer).  And Dragon or equivalent crew spacecraft.  The only things that are needed new would be the lander, surface suits and equipment and the transfer stage for crew and lander, which can be the same system, I think. 

It is probably possible to design a transfer stage and lander for less than $500M, together, using SpaceX-type costing vs. conventional.  If you stick with storables for the lander, I am certain it can be done for < $300M.

The transfer stage will either require a modified Centaur or a clean sheet cryo LOX + either LH2 or LNG.  I think single-engine Centaurs can be adapted for about $200M, requiring mainly a tank stretch or the add-on tank that has been discussed.  You'd have to make sure that LM didn't overcharge for the modifications, and that would be tricky.  (AFAIK, LM/CLS and not ULA would have to provide the Centaurs, since ULA can only sell to the gov't, not to commercial firms.)

[guckyfan]

The transfer stage will either require a modified Centaur or a clean sheet cryo LOX + either LH2 or LNG.  I think single-engine Centaurs can be adapted for about $200M, requiring mainly a tank stretch or the add-on tank that has been discussed.  You'd have to make sure that LM didn't overcharge for the modifications, and that would be tricky.  (AFAIK, LM/CLS and not ULA would have to provide the Centaurs, since ULA can only sell to the gov't, not to commercial firms.)

They did mention the Methane option for the transfer stage. Is there any Methane engine from an USA company in existence (I think not) or would this be the engine announced by Elon Musk? Could this engine be ready in that time frame? Seems short for me, especially to the level for manned flight.

[mmeijeri]

If you stick with storables for the lander, I am certain it can be done for < $300M.

And that also gives you the option to refuel, which takes care of all launch vehicle and transfer stage size issues, even without FH. It does have an impact on IMLEO, but if you use slow 100 day 3.2 km/s nearly ballistic trajectories to L1/L2 for the lander and its propellant, you can offset most of the inefficiency of hypergolics compared to LOX/LH2. I haven't tried the numbers for methane yet, but I suspect you would actually beat methane on IMLEO.

[mmeijeri]

If you stick with storables for the lander, I am certain it can be done for < $300M.

So little? I would have thought that the choice between LOX/methane and hypergolics would be a difficult one for a commercial endeavour, even though I strongly believe hypergolics would be the obvious choice for a NASA-led effort. But if it's so cheap, then hypergolics would be the obvious choice even for such a (partially) commercial endeavour.

The reason I thought it would be a difficult choice for a commercial organisation is that you would have to choose between the relative ease of developing a LOX/methane propulsion system and increased difficulty with transfer and storage vs more difficult propulsion development and easier refueling with hypergolics.

A large organisation like NASA could simply throw resources at it and choose the fastest option to refueling, which would be hypergolics. But for a smaller organisation those resources could be a big problem. That must be why XCOR is working with LOX/methane. So if you are going to use internal New Space development, LOX/methane would seem to be highly preferable, despite the difficulties with transfer and storage.

On the other hand, if GS are going to buy a lander, rather than develop it in house, there are more options. ULA for understandable reasons would prefer a purely LOX/LH2 one (their unique expertise after all), XCOR for equally understandable reasons would prefer LOX/methane, while SpaceX would choose hypergolics or perhaps methane.

I think most people will agree LOX/LH2 is not practical for a near-term commercial effort, even those who previously vociferously insisted any NASA lander had to be cryogenic for the sake of commercial spaceflight. So that leaves LOX/methane vs hypergolics. The Isp difference isn't that great, so the trade-off would be the flexibility of propellant transfer vs lower development costs for LOX/methane.

A company like XCOR could probably develop LOX/methane systems for a lot less money than a traditional aerospace company could using hypergolics.

Again, if you're NASA, that's not a problem because your business shouldn't be to promote the interests of XCOR, but those of manned spaceflight, so if someone else can deliver refueling capability sooner, well that's just tough luck for our friends at XCOR. But if you're GS, then it might make a lot of difference.

But if you're right, and SpaceX can do a simple hypergolic lander for less than $300M, then that's probably enough to settle the issue. And SpaceX has already demonstrated the use of hypergolics.

[Warren Platts]

If you stick with storables for the lander, I am certain it can be done for < $300M.

And that also gives you the option to refuel, which takes care of all launch vehicle and transfer stage size issues, ....

You've got it backwards: cryo gives you the option to refuel:

The propellant combination used in the fully storable lander studies (conducted by lead author James French) was constrained to use earth‐storable propellants (for operational simplicity) and to use existing propulsion hardware that could be adapted with minimum development. After looking at a variety of options, the concepts which produced a viable result were twostagevehicles using a lander stage and an ascent stage. Each stage used a solid propellant rocket motor supplemented by liquid propellant rocket engines now available.

You can't refuel a disposable descent stage. And with the added complexity of 2 stages and mixing storables with solid rocket fuel, it's hard to see how the development costs are going to be that much cheaper....

[mmeijeri]

You can't refuel a disposable descent stage.

Well, you could actually do a single stage storable lander, and that could refueled. But while I said refuel, what I really meant is to load it with propellants in orbit, after TLI, not necessarily to refuel it. That way you are relieved of troublesome mass limitations to LEO and from LEO through TLI so a small cryogenic EDS would suffice. And of course, you would get to create a competitive propellant launch market, which should help with reducing cost to orbit.

If used as an orbital transfer vehicle, even a two stage lander could then be refueled as well, but that's not the main point.

And with the added complexity of 2 stages and mixing storables with solid rocket fuel, it's hard to see how the development costs are going to be that much cheaper....

I'm not sure what the point of the solids is. Thrust probably, but why would they avoid using AJ-10 or Aestus? Would that be all that expensive compared to a STAR 48? And SpaceX should probably be able to develop a similar engine, given their experience with Draco and Super Draco. I thought HMXHMX was suggesting an all-liquid lander.

[Warren Platts]

This if true bothers me because it indicates a non-inhouse integrator company that hires other companies to do all the development and hardware manufacture. There are inherint costs increases to hiring out of ~30% more in costs. So if this is an indication of thier business structure it has some significant managerial and contracting challenges.

In other words this would be like a NASA surrogate organization streamlined for a narrow focus and goal. It would not represent the cheapest this could be done for with a new space policy of "we do the concept and build the hardware ourselves" vs an old space policy of "we do the concept someone else buids the hardware".

Isn't this exactly how NASA is doing it: designing SLS, Orion, SEV, undetermined-lander-in-the-future "in house"?

[mmeijeri]

Isn't this exactly how NASA is doing it: designing SLS, Orion, SEV, undetermined-lander-in-the-future "in house"?

They're not designing new launch vehicles or capsules, but are focusing on the lander. I wish that was what NASA was doing.