What will the impact of inexpensive access to space be?

[storme]

First time post. I've been wondering what happens if/when Spacex is successful with their goal of dramatically lowering the cost and convenience of access to space?

What will be the impact of (relatively) inexpensive access to space? What kinds of new science, satellites, businesses, other activities might we expect to develop? Will it significantly change internet access for example? In Africa, cell phone access came before (and has now supplanted) landlines, what kinds of analogous differential development might we expect with cheap access to space?

A related question is what kinds of volume of launches might we expect? Currently that figure is about 70-80 per year (per this chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight)

What happens when an average launch costs $60/million? $40? $30? $20? $10?

Addendum at Aero's suggestion: for purposes of comparison, let's say this is for a 15 tonne payload to LEO. That said, this should be scaled for larger/smaller payloads. Maybe one of the impacts of cheap access would be the deployment of swarms of micro-sats for example.

Second addendum: really hoping to understand what the next 50 years of space-based applications looks like. (Tourism, got it, discussed-ad nauseum, what *other* applications are people anticipating?)

[aero]

What happens when an average launch costs $60/million? $40? $30? $20? $10?

I think you should add the qualifier "For 15 tonnes payload to LEO."

After all, we don't need to be arguing with someone from the perspective of a communications satellite while others argue from micro sat prospective.

[AncientU]

A benchmark can be established by examining early seventies Space Shuttle projected cost of $500/pound, $1.1M/mT, which was thought to be low enough to start a virtuous cycle of space growth and development.   In today's dollars, this is about 6x higher when adjusted for inflation, or $6.6m/mT ($100M for the 15mT standard load).  Today's launch costs have fallen below that point, but no significant launch market expansion is evident -- there's much commotion in the market, so maybe it is waking up to this reality. It is likely that another reduction past this point by a factor of a few (maybe $30M/launch, $2M/mT) is still needed to jump start any virtuous cycle.

I believe the real break point will be when launch costs are low enough to launch bulk cargo (fuel, supplies, habs, tourists, etc.) where the payload cost plus the cost to prepare for launch is well below the cost of launch itself.  This will allow launch rates to rise independent of limited GEO slot, NASA experiment, DoD payload availability and reinforce the lower price launch business models -- lowering prices still more.

[dante2308]

They'd need about 50 flights a year at $20 million a flight to match their revenue stream for a standard year like 2014 including CCP funding. Ideally, they'd need to build something that has no expendable mode and could manage dozens of flights without needed to be retired including recovery from GSO to leverage reusability. 

To reach that launch rate, they can't rely on a program that only cuts the cost by a factor of three. That kind of a decrease in cost isn't enough to generate a market large enough to support a single vehicle launching that many times for that price. As it is now, they would have to wait for new start-ups to form just to increase their rate by a factor of two over their current manifest. That kind of waiting and hoping others succeed isn't reliable and it holds far too much risk.

In order to bypass this, they need to get access to the human passenger market, but to do that they need to get costs down below 100k per seat. Only then can they access the normal economics that come with price reductions.

If they can fill up a Raptor 9 with 100 passengers or so, but keep costs down to $10 million, then they have a good shot of making the economics work.

[meekGee]

What happens when an average launch costs $60/million? $40? $30? $20? $10?

I think you should add the qualifier "For 15 tonnes payload to LEO."

After all, we don't need to be arguing with someone from the perspective of a communications satellite while others argue from micro sat prospective.

I'll tune it more SpaceX's way.

A couple of weeks ago, Shotwell casually mentioned a $5-$7M price tag. (or cost.  Doesn't really matter).

If she did it in public, you can be sure that Elon has been mentioning this number to his VC circle and the start-ups they are entertaining, for probably a year or so.

So what are the VCs looking at?

We already know that low-latency Earth observation is an emerging market.  Maybe even real-time observation - all possible if you can have large constellations of small satellites.

I think everyone is taking another look at comm constellations.  The mobile data market is something that didn't exist when the current constellations were conceived, and together with low launch costs - it's just waiting to happen.

Orbital and cis-lunar space tourism is another obvious market.  Trips to LEO, GTO, and Lunar-free-return are possible with not much more than a Dragon-like capsule.

But all these are obvious.   The real killer apps are usually not what people expect them to be.

[aero]

And I personally don't expect space tourism to kick off in a very big way even at $7 million per launch. That low price is still a million dollars a ride. At that price the customers would need to be multimillionaires, up in the wealth bracket where a million dollars could be discretionary.

By way of guessing, you can look at the number of customers currently signed up for sub-orbital rides. Its like 700-800 I think. Look at the customer wealth. Now look at the number of customers who spend $5 - $10 thousand for a 7 day cruise. Its a huge number, but look at their wealth. Cruise ships have a much broader customer base and a lot more customers but it is nothing like the number of tourists who spend tourist dollars.

[dante2308]

I don't see the F9 becoming fully reusable. I'm convinced it will be the next generation, larger rocket class which isn't constrained by a 7 passenger limit.

[aero]

I don't see the F9 becoming fully reusable. I'm convinced it will be the next generation, larger rocket class which isn't constrained by a 7 passenger limit.

You may well be right but I'll counter by saying that I don't think the next generation, larger rocket class is constrained by the $7 million launch cost either.

[meekGee]

And I personally don't expect space tourism to kick off in a very big way even at $7 million per launch. That low price is still a million dollars a ride. At that price the customers would need to be multimillionaires, up in the wealth bracket where a million dollars could be discretionary.

By way of guessing, you can look at the number of customers currently signed up for sub-orbital rides. Its like 700-800 I think. Look at the customer wealth. Now look at the number of customers who spend $5 - $10 thousand for a 7 day cruise. Its a huge number, but look at their wealth. Cruise ships have a much broader customer base and a lot more customers but it is nothing like the number of tourists who spend tourist dollars.

Probably even more - $5-7M was their estimate for launch only.  You need to launch a Dragon-like capsule, but with more capabilities, and then depending on your destination, you will need upwards of an FH.  So it might be more like $20M for a trip around the moon, divided by ~4 revenue people. 

Still, the number of people world-wide that will shell out $4-5M for a real space trip is large enough.  VG has been selling $250k tickets for a 10 minute zero-g experience.  This here is the real thing.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-29/there-are-199235-ultra-high-net-worth-people-world-over-30-million-assets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millionaire

Two independent estimates, about 2x apart.

If out of ~100,000 people, you get 300 a year, that's more than a launch a week for this market.

----

As for when $5-7M will happen - I think Shotwell's remarks were about an F9-ish rocket.  Probably not F9.1, but maybe F9.x

[dante2308]

I don't see the F9 becoming fully reusable. I'm convinced it will be the next generation, larger rocket class which isn't constrained by a 7 passenger limit.

You may well be right but I'll counter by saying that I don't think the next generation, larger rocket class is constrained by the $7 million launch cost either.

Size isn't the cost driver if we're talking about $7 million. Using the performance to make it more robust means more flights and a larger denominator on fixed costs.

[chalz]

1. Competition and technology
2. Cheap access to space
3. ?
4. Profit!

[Dave G]

And I personally don't expect space tourism to kick off in a very big way even at $7 million per launch. That low price is still a million dollars a ride. At that price the customers would need to be multimillionaires, up in the wealth bracket where a million dollars could be discretionary.

Let's take a look at that.  First, how many millionaires are there?  Type that question into Google, and the answer: those with an investable fortune of US $1-million or more = 12 million people.  As a ballpark figure, let's say 1% of those are willing to spend a million dollars on a ride to orbit.  That's 120 thousand people.  At 6 tourists per launch, that's 20,000 launches.  Obviously somewhat of a guess, but it shows the market potential at $7 million per launch.

[dante2308]

And I personally don't expect space tourism to kick off in a very big way even at $7 million per launch. That low price is still a million dollars a ride. At that price the customers would need to be multimillionaires, up in the wealth bracket where a million dollars could be discretionary.

Let's take a look at that.  First, how many millionaires are there?  Type that question into Google, and the answer: those with an investable fortune of US $1-million or more = 12 million people.  As a ballpark figure, let's say 1% of those are willing to spend a million dollars on a ride to orbit.  That's 120 thousand people.  At 6 tourists per launch, that's 20,000 launches.  Obviously somewhat of a guess, but it shows the market potential at $7 million per launch.

That's a famous calculation. Every business case makes sense if we just say a certain percentage of people with total wealth greater than a price will do it. Problem is there is no justification for assuming 1% of the world population of millionaires will spend a million dollars for a trip to LEO.

[AncientU]

While I believe that space tourists will one day sustain the market, there needs to be a phase in which Something Big is done in space (sustained exploration, space junk clean-up, several LEO/EML-1/2 stations, depots, combination of these) by governments or large private concerns before prices will drop to the $5-7M range.  $20-30M per 15mT should make a few of these projects thinkable... once flight rate breaks out of the current rut, many possibilities begin to open.  We basically need someone interested in colonizing Mars or whatever...

[Dave G]

But all these are obvious.   The real killer apps are usually not what people expect them to be.

Exactly.

[Dave G]

Problem is there is no justification for assuming 1% of the world population of millionaires will spend a million dollars for a trip to LEO.

Very true.  Estimating future market potential always boils down to an educated guess.  A lot ends up having to do with fads.  Cabbage Patch dolls are the perfect example.  When they were popular, everyone had to have one.

In the end, its about what's cool.  How cool is going into orbit?  For many people, the idea of that is still pretty cool.  Showing people your pictures from space will definitely have some impact.

[ClaytonBirchenough]

Just to think out loud, a reusable Falcon 9 would reduce payload by ~ 30% (some Elon quote) to around 20,000 lbs. to LEO.

If fully reusable Falcon 9 AND Dragon cost $10 million a launch and six tourists can be launched, that means each ticket would have to cost ~$2 million. That still seems like too large an amount to allow ordinary travel to space...

[meekGee]

Just to think out loud, a reusable Falcon 9 would reduce payload by ~ 30% (some Elon quote) to around 20,000 lbs. to LEO.

If fully reusable Falcon 9 AND Dragon cost $10 million a launch and six tourists can be launched, that means each ticket would have to cost ~$2 million. That still seems like too large an amount to allow ordinary travel to space...

SpaceX can't handle "ordinary" travel volumes.

According to the links above, there are 100k - 200k people in the world with ultra-high net worth (>$30M)
That's the target market for an expenditure in the multi-million dollar range that is not an asset.

And forget 1%.   Get 0.1% of them, and that's 100-200 people. Figuring 4 people per flight, that's 25-50 flights.

[guckyfan]

Just to think out loud, a reusable Falcon 9 would reduce payload by ~ 30% (some Elon quote) to around 20,000 lbs. to LEO.

If fully reusable Falcon 9 AND Dragon cost $10 million a launch and six tourists can be launched, that means each ticket would have to cost ~$2 million. That still seems like too large an amount to allow ordinary travel to space...

If they expect a larger number of customers they can build a larger Dragon and accomodate at least twice as many people, probably more. That would reduce cost by a lot again.

[storme]

Just to summarize some applications that others have mentioned and add a few of my own:

• Tourism
• Swarms of short-lived spy or communication sats used during conflicts or disaster
• Swarms of long-lived comm sats providing orders more communication bandwidth
• Environmental monitoring
• New generation of weather sats (with much higher resolution / sampling used to drive more sophisticated modeling?)
• Technology research, programs to develop basic technical infrastructure for living and working in space: biosphere-like habitats, grow labs, radiation shielding, physiological research, waste recycling, power generation, etc. etc.
• Zero-G manufacturing?
• Zero-G basic science
• Asteroid mining? Anyone think this is viable?
• Expanded Planetary exploration
• Kinetic weapons