What will the impact of inexpensive access to space be?

[john smith 19]

Disagree. Delta II demonstrated 1/75 reliability, and it was a pretty complicated launch vehicle. If your criteria for success is getting to a usable orbit for the customer, then Atlas V has basically no failures in 43 flights (there was one suboptimal flight, but the customer deemed it a success and was able to compensate), and Delta IV had just one partial failure on the first Delta IV Heavy launch (out of 24 flights). So I'd say reliability for state of the art ELVs is currently near 99%, not 95%.

Especially if you had a high launch rate like Delta II did, I'd definitely expect the reliability to approach at least 99%.

...but I agree that in order to get to ~99.9% reliability, you're going to have to go reusable, if only because you have to launch ~1000 times in order to demonstrate such a statistic.

Now consider that's a 1 in 100 failure rate. This would be completely unacceptable for any other transport system. Would you get in a car if it had a 1 in 100 chance of going bang when you started it up?

But I do agree, if you want a better chance of success launch regularly and launch often. 

Not sure what people expect to find. Asteroids are meteorites that haven't hit us yet and most meteorites are simple iron. We have plenty of iron on Earth already. A mineral rare on Earth is likely to be rare in Space as well. But even supposing a solid chunk of a rare earth mineral(ha) is found. Then suppose it is in a convenient place and of a manageable size. We still need enough energy or time to stop its current current trajectory and give it a new one, bring it back to orbit and dismantle it, process it or shield it and deorbit it. Not conceptually impossible but could it be cost efficient even with reusable rockets?

There are 2 classic arguments about "space mining." a)Once you factor in the propellant costs, DDTE costs you need either a very valuable cargo or a very big cargo. As was learned in Apollo the cost of getting a lb of cargo to LLO was more (IIRC 5x) more than its weight in Gold.
2) The people to whom such resources are most valuable are those people who are already in space, IE as reaction mass, life support and materials to expand your structures.

Manufacturing in space is a bit different. The big hope is low gravity reduces certain effects by a huge amount, improving the yield of various materials. That potentially means high value, low mass items which could be (literally) worth much more than their weight in Gold (and so be economically viable to transport up and down).

My instinct is that the big winners will be applications no one has thought of enabled by the specific vehicle used to provide the access.

LEO data repositories in polar orbits that are read and written though your personal satellite ground terminal?

Who knows?

[Elmar Moelzer]

Now consider that's a 1 in 100 failure rate. This would be completely unacceptable for any other transport system.

Is it? I wonder what the "failure rate" was for the first ships sailing across the Atlantic to the US and back. How many never made it home? Maybe it was better than 1 in 100, but I would be surprised if it was much better and when the ships did not sink, people would get sick (cholera, scurvy, etc), or get murdered by pirates and once they arrived in the new world, life was not particularly safe either.

[john smith 19]

Now consider that's a 1 in 100 failure rate. This would be completely unacceptable for any other transport system.

Is it? I wonder what the "failure rate" was for the first ships sailing across the Atlantic to the US and back. How many never made it home? Maybe it was better than 1 in 100, but I would be surprised if it was much better and when the ships did not sink, people would get sick (cholera, scurvy, etc), or get murdered by pirates and once they arrived in the new world, life was not particularly safe either.

Yes. Very heroic no doubt.  However I'd presume that most of those ships were working crew who were basically in it for the money.

IOW "Get rich or die trying." So most of them did. 

Do you not think that the situation here is a little bit different?

If not you basically seem to be saying the answer to the question "What will the impact of inexpensive access to space be" is "a lot of fairly rich people will get killed flying on various orbital vehicles."

Or am I misunderstanding you?

[Robotbeat]

I think he was making a general point.

But anyway, you and I are in total (violent) agreement here. Expendables, even if mass-produced, won't ever get as reliable as they need to be. (Neither will they get as cheap.)

[CuddlyRocket]

The point about any potential space tourism business is that if the requirement for time spent on training or other activities for passengers is too great then there won't be any significant space tourism business! As developing such a business would appear to be in the interests of all the relevant parties (launcher companies, governments, would be tourists), and given international competition, then the requirements will be reduced to whatever extent is necessary to facilitate the business. Safety will be reduced to a 'buyer beware' acceptance of the risk.

Obviously any safety rules that don't hinder the development of the business can and will be introduced, which will lead to pressure to modify equipment and procedures to minimise the risks. For example, if passengers touching the wrong button is considered a high risk then you need to modify things so passengers can't touch the wrong button, or if they can, can't operate it. (Passenger aircraft did this mainly by the introduction of the cockpit!)

[Robotbeat]

I don't understand why there has to be months of training. They didn't train people for months before they flew on Concorde.

This isn't actually that difficult of a problem.

[mme]

I don't understand why there has to be months of training. They didn't train people for months before they flew on Concorde.

This isn't actually that difficult of a problem.

As far as I can tell, people are inventing problems. There is no training required to be a passenger in a human rated Dragon that orbits the Earth n-times and then lands on Terra firma.  Certainly no more training than is required for a "resort dive" and definitely less training than to climb Mt. Everest. I am not saying that SpaceX wants anything to do with this business, just that it doesn't take a lot of training "not to touch anything," if everything is automated and it doesn't matter if you "touch anything." You sign a form that says. "this is really dangerous and if I die, my family does not have the right to sue." I've signed that form more times than I can count. If I could afford it, I'd sign that form to orbit the Earth once - today.

All that is required is a spacesuit that can handle vomit, and a spacecraft that ignores panicked occupants.

[john smith 19]

I think he was making a general point.

But anyway, you and I are in total (violent) agreement here. Expendables, even if mass-produced, won't ever get as reliable as they need to be. (Neither will they get as cheap.)

Agreed. There is also the statistical issue that if you want to demonstrate a certain level of reliability with a certain level of confidence you have to make quite a lot of flights. Some of the ULA papers show this.

The EELV's have racked up those sort of launch numbers. Spacex is (hopefully) racking them up now. But IMHO with the projected flight rate SLS will never achieve them and unlike the Saturn V it does not have engine out.

Now to get back on topic. A valid question would be if we assume that cheap access is by RLV would it kill off the ELV launchers? I'd say no, unless it's as big (or bigger) than what is currently available in the ELV market. That's because historically all RLV's take a big payload hit for reusability, with one exception which has not flown yet.

[EDIT. Note while I think this is the way to go I'm quite sure it's neither a universal opinion or a universal conclusion amongst aerospace engineers. The "Big dumb booster" approach for example, refuses to accept that performance at any price is the only goal of an LV. IIRC Loral space systems looked at that and ran with it for a bit. ]

I think a successful RLV would make investors (and that includes governments) think very carefully about wheather they want to invest in what has effectively become an obsolete technology. So it may well kill the market for new or upgraded ELV's, but existing ELV's will continue to launch, [EDIT if you need to launch a bigger single payload. Note also that if the RLV is smaller than existing ELV's you'll need big cost incentives to get customers to restructure their payloads. By "restructure" I mean a)Split into segments that can be docked together to carry out the task or b) allow on orbit servicing EG ORU replacement or refueling or c) recapture by the RLV for return to the ground for refurbishment. Not trivial as a lot of boom, aerial and PV panel deployment mechanisms are 1 shot devices and they don't work in reverse. That suggests a lag of years before core users switch over.

If the RLV manages 50% of an ELV payload and the launch cost is not a lot less than 50% why bother? Just take out an insurance policy or do a deal with the satellite supplier for a reduced price replacement if the original launch fails]

[Avron]

I think he was making a general point.

But anyway, you and I are in total (violent) agreement here. Expendables, even if mass-produced, won't ever get as reliable as they need to be. (Neither will they get as cheap.)

I agree,, why build in quality if you are going to dispose of the asset..

[Dudely]

Not sure what people expect to find. Asteroids are meteorites that haven't hit us yet and most meteorites are simple iron.

Incorrect in the extreme. There are lots of different types of asteroids, some of which have substantial water ice for making fuel. Fuel could be sold to others taking advantage of low cost to LEO. This avoids nearly all the difficulty in getting resources from space to Earth because you're not sending it into the atmosphere.

We have plenty of iron on Earth already. A mineral rare on Earth is likely to be rare in Space as well.

Again, incorrect. Earth is a giant liquid ball where all the heavy stuff already sank into the core billions of years ago. Every last gram of platinum group metals (you know, the ones in every microchip built in the last 20 years?) has been mined out of an ancient meteorite impact crater. It destroy huge amounts of the earth to search for the tiny crumbs left over from these impacts. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to go get a large chunk from space instead and avoid all the mess and difficulty? They are literally sitting RIGHT THERE. Some of them are easier to get to than the moon. Some of them are gravel piles pre-sifted by the winds of space for easy processing.

But even supposing a solid chunk of a rare earth mineral(ha) is found. Then suppose it is in a convenient place and of a manageable size. We still need enough energy or time to stop its current current trajectory and give it a new one, bring it back to orbit and dismantle it, process it or shield it and deorbit it. Not conceptually impossible but could it be cost efficient even with reusable rockets?

Uh, yes? There are lots of small asteroids out there. No need to burn hundreds of tonnes of fuel to reorbit a giant rock when one the size of a farmhouse contains more platinum group metals than has even been mined in the history of mankind.

If the price of these metals were to drop appreciably we would likely see an engineering renaissance akin to what happened with aluminium when we figured out electrolysis (*cough* aerospace industry *cough*). The only reason nothing is made out of these metals is because they are horrifyingly expensive. They are extremely useful chemically and structurally. I can't believe a forum with as many engineering degrees as this one has isn't all over asteroid mining. Would be badass and really, really useful if it works.

[jeff.findley]

And I still think the airline analogies are appropriate, provided that emergencies are at least as few and far between as in the very early days of airline travel.  In the beginning of airline travel, flights weren't nearly as safe as they are today, yet the sort of "training" for emergencies being advocated here still wasn't required of passengers.

Airline analogies are not appropriate. The simple fact is that even in early airtravel planes didn't simply go up into the air and then come down a few days later. They "traveled" and that is what caused the expansion of technology and access. They went from "point-a" to "point-b" which is what other forms of transportation were already doing, but in many case the airplane could do it faster if not cheaper. Add the fact that maintaining and operating an "airplane" was supported by a large infrastructure of industry, parts, supplies, peronel and support from the start and you lose all ability to "compare" the two. "Space" has no such system of destinations, no infrastructure, and no supporting market base to draw on. Your attempt at adding a "qualification" fails because of that very lack as well. Airplanes could and did "abort" quite often in the early days with MAYBE the loss of a "ship" but often without major injury or death for people involved. When it DID happen there were new regulations, new procedures, and new technology invented to keep it from happening again, including more aborts.

For a very long time aircraft were technically capable of doing things that no passenger could survive. Airlines flew lower than they were capable of because no "passenger" was going to submit to the indignity of wearing a complicated (and expensive) uncomfortable and prone to failure "pressure suit" despite the fact that aircraft flying in the statosphere could go faster and get to destinations quicker and cheaper. Wearing a "spacesuit" such as the Launch&Landing pressure suits is going to be a requirement because unlike any "airplane" a spacecraft can't simply drop down to an altitude where the passengers can "breath" if it springs a leak. If you're half way to Hawaii in a Stratoliner that's an option, but not if you're halfway to the Moon in Dragon capsule.

Over a hundred years has passed since the Wright Brothers and todays "aircraft" industry standards and regulations, and in that time MILLIONS of "emergencies" have happened on, to, and with aircraft. 99% of them were "minor" and could be easily taken care of by "aborting" back to a lower speed, alititude, the destination or back to base. In all that time even if the "worst" happened and the plane crashed it didn't mean that the passengers and crew were lost. After all they were surrounded by the environment of the Earth. They might lack for food or water at times but they didn't have to worry about running out of air.

Space is NOTHING like that and to forget that or try to gloss over it invites disaster to not only come in but move in and raid your kitchen cabinets! An air tank rupture but no major control functions are effected and the basic vehicle structure appears intact. On an airliner that's a "minor" emergency. Simply land at the nearst airport and wait for repairs or replacement. In Space? We lost a Moon mission and nearly the lives of the astronauts on-board.

Aircraft do not compare to spacecraft. Ships do not compare to spacecraft (No neither do submarines) Trains don't compare to spacecraft. Cars and Trucks do not compare to spacecraft. No form of transportation ON EARTH has managed to make anything but a cursory and very limited analogy to space travel.

Learn those differences, understand the lack of analogy, always keep in mind the reasons space travel is so different than any type of transportation we've had experiance with in the past and you are more than half way to true understanding of how and why it is difficult and costly, you're also more than half way to understanding how and what needs to be done to change the current paradigm and situation.

Don't and commenting on an internet forum is about all the effect you'll ever have.

Randy

We're talking about policy issues, not laws of physics.  I do understand the physical differences between air travel and space travel since I've got a B.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical engineering.  And I still believe aircraft analogies are appropriate since during a normal spaceflight, all a "spaceflight participant " needs to do is to stay buckled into their seat and not touch any of the controls on the spacecraft or their pressure suit. 

Yes, commercial "spaceflight participants" will almost certainly need to wear pressure suits, but what I disagree on is the amount of training required for a "spaceflight participant" to sit in a seat and not touch anything during their flight.  In the unlikely event of a cabin depressurization, they still shouldn't have to touch anything if the suit is functioning properly.  It would take a failure of the pressure vessel and some sort of suit anomaly/failure before they'd need to do anything to the suit controls.  Should they train for this?  Certainly, but how much?  Spacesuit controls just aren't complex enough to justify "months" or even "weeks" of training.

Yes, commercial "spaceflight participants" will need to know how to egress from a spaceship that has landed, or splashed down, at a site which is not the primary landing site.  What I disagree with his the length of training that will be required.  Again, training to get out of a spacecraft in these sorts of situations isn't enough to justify "months" or even "weeks" of training.

The same thing goes for "how to use the zero gravity toilet", "how to give yourself the equivalent of a sponge bath in zero gravity", and "how to eat a meal in zero gravity".  Learning how to do these things "well enough" for a short trip to LEO and back isn't going to be that hard for someone who's in good physical condition and is smart enough and motivated enough to take the training seriously. 

A "spaceflight participant" on a LEO flight simply will not have to meet the same qualifications nor train as much as a NASA astronaut.  The aircraft analogy is that a passenger does not have to meet the same qualifications nor train as much as the flight crew or flight attendants.

[Joffan]

The same thing goes for "how to use the zero gravity toilet", "how to give yourself the equivalent of a sponge bath in zero gravity", and "how to eat a meal in zero gravity".  Learning how to do these things "well enough" for a short trip to LEO and back isn't going to be that hard for someone who's in good physical condition and is smart enough and motivated enough to take the training seriously. 

Allow me cynically to foresee problems when someone takes their only-semi-interested teenage kids along for the ride.

[ChefPat]

Inexpensive access to LEO = Infrastructure. Infrastructure = everthing else.

[RanulfC]

What in the heck are you two (RanulfC, Elmar Moelzer) arguing about?  The current ISS commercial crew conops won't even have a "crew"; everyone will be "spaceflight participant",  with some of those participants trained for some crew-like tasks in the event of an emergency.  Any nominal mission should be handled by autonomous systems or remote control, and require no intervention on the part of the on-board participants.

Say what? Where did that come from? "Current" ISS "commecial crew" conops is to go to Russia for a year of training before they let board the Soyuz for the ISS. No one else has "commercial crew" conops in planning let alone in writing. (As a "side-note" while I'm at it I'll point out that noone outside the US has "officially" decided on if they will or will not accept the designation of "spaceflight participant" as legal or applicable for THEIR spacecraft or spacecraft "flown" from their national borders.)

I'd love to see some citation to support this.

Randy

[dante2308]

Inexpensive access to LEO = Infrastructure. Infrastructure = everthing else.

What type of infrastructure makes space not an astonishingly lethal hard vacuum filled with more ways to die than are imaginable by physicists or addressable by modern engineering? Fast data rates? Solar power? Mines on the moon? What is it?

[PahTo]

...um, an NSF launch party followed by an NSF on-orbit party, followed by a post-landing NSF party, with many of us meeting each other? 

[RanulfC]

We're talking about policy issues, not laws of physics.  I do understand the physical differences between air travel and space travel since I've got a B.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical engineering.  And I still believe aircraft analogies are appropriate since during a normal spaceflight, all a "spaceflight participant " needs to do is to stay buckled into their seat and not touch any of the controls on the spacecraft or their pressure suit.

You may continue to "believe" whatever you want, but I think your A&A degree should be very helpful in pointing out that "normal" is never the basis for operational planning, even in the aircraft industry  

Yes, commercial "spaceflight participants" will almost certainly need to wear pressure suits, but what I disagree on is the amount of training required for a "spaceflight participant" to sit in a seat and not touch anything during their flight.  In the unlikely event of a cabin depressurization, they still shouldn't have to touch anything if the suit is functioning properly.  It would take a failure of the pressure vessel and some sort of suit anomaly/failure before they'd need to do anything to the suit controls.  Should they train for this?  Certainly, but how much?  Spacesuit controls just aren't complex enough to justify "months" or even "weeks" of training.

Part of the "problem" as I see it is your point-of-view lacks depth. This is NOT an airline flight from LA to Hawaii. Really the spacesuit is the least of the issues involved. "Spaceflight Participants" (I'm not sure but everyone DOES realize that "term" has been around for quite a while and does NOT reflect a status of "training" or lack thereof? "Spaceflight Participants" have historically been AS trained as the "Astronaut" crew if not for as long a period/career and is LEGALLY "just" to define the difference between "career" astronauts and those who are not?) will in many cases be doing as much as a "crew" member, in others they will not but that is what will drive the "training" requirements and time. You're assuming here that the "only" thing a "spaceflight participant" is going to do is be strapped into a seat for the duration of the "flight" as a "normal" parameter but that doesn't take into account the fact that is NOT the "experiance" that people seem interested in. When go beyond that "simple" experiance, (and you have to) what they do and how much they need to know to do it safetly increase rapidly.

Yes, commercial "spaceflight participants" will need to know how to egress from a spaceship that has landed, or splashed down, at a site which is not the primary landing site.  What I disagree with his the length of training that will be required.  Again, training to get out of a spacecraft in these sorts of situations isn't enough to justify "months" or even "weeks" of training.

That greatly depends on the design of the vehicle, the crew training, and the amount of "training" given the particpants. And again it's simply ONE part  of the situation and taken together your time needed goes up.

The same thing goes for "how to use the zero gravity toilet", "how to give yourself the equivalent of a sponge bath in zero gravity", and "how to eat a meal in zero gravity".  Learning how to do these things "well enough" for a short trip to LEO and back isn't going to be that hard for someone who's in good physical condition and is smart enough and motivated enough to take the training seriously.

I "bolded" the significant part as well because you manage in one paragraph to actually argue both "sides" at once

You also manged to argue against your own argument in that IF a "spaceflight participant" is going to be strapped into his seat/suit for the whole flight then obviously NO such "training" is required so whether they "pay attention" or not is immaterial But you have a point in that such training to a degree needed for being "well enough" WILL take time and effort. More so to MAKE people take it seriously than the actual 'training' probably but that's TIME added.

A "spaceflight participant" on a LEO flight simply will not have to meet the same qualifications nor train as much as a NASA astronaut.  The aircraft analogy is that a passenger does not have to meet the same qualifications nor train as much as the flight crew or flight attendants.

The first part is correct in a simple way but in truth they have to (currently) at least be trained enough to handle situations up to a minimum level. Depending on where you "go" for training that is anywhere from 6 to 18 months minimum. Currently there is NO other option than "training" with a government agency (Russian or American) to their "standards." The main problem is there is no current "definition" available for what "standards" will be required for a "spaceflight participant" to be trained to because there is no vehicles, missions, or parameters available for defininig those standards. That does not however in any way indicate or assure that such standards can be assumed to not exist. Rather the opposite given what surveys of relevent demographics have shown since the "minimum" experiance desired by the possible "spaceflight participants" is a lot higher than you and a lot of other people want to assume.

Randy

[RanulfC]

The point about any potential space tourism business is that if the requirement for time spent on training or other activities for passengers is too great then there won't be any significant space tourism business! As developing such a business would appear to be in the interests of all the relevant parties (launcher companies, governments, would be tourists), and given international competition, then the requirements will be reduced to whatever extent is necessary to facilitate the business. Safety will be reduced to a 'buyer beware' acceptance of the risk.

The first part is correct but the "conclusion" is wrong in its simplification. "Buyer beware" is inherent in just about any transaction without written guarantees as an acceptance of SOME risk but it does not mean, nor does it normally infer an acceptance of ALL risks. Point being, some "risk" is inherent in any activity and this is accepted by most people without question but there is an accepted perception of reduction of SOME risks to an acceptable level inherent in the system. There are no "guarantees" of someone arriving at a destination by any means of travel whole and alive, but there is an "assumed" reduction of that outcome to a "low" risk factor acceptable to the person purchasing the ticket.

Successful business requires that the risks be assesed, and mitigated where possible and a continious policy of review so as to remain current. "Buyer beware" was/is never a basis for a successful or sustainable business model. Again I'm not arguing the basic premis but the conclusion.

Obviously any safety rules that don't hinder the development of the business can and will be introduced, which will lead to pressure to modify equipment and procedures to minimise the risks. For example, if passengers touching the wrong button is considered a high risk then you need to modify things so passengers can't touch the wrong button, or if they can, can't operate it. (Passenger aircraft did this mainly by the introduction of the cockpit!)

Agree but that doesn't exactly fit the "buyer-beware" criteria which is why I questioned it.

Randy

[AncientU]

Inexpensive access to LEO = Infrastructure. Infrastructure = everthing else.

What type of infrastructure makes space not an astonishingly lethal hard vacuum filled with more ways to die than are imaginable by physicists or addressable by modern engineering? Fast data rates? Solar power? Mines on the moon? What is it?

The foreign (to us) nature of stable, hard vacuum doesn't actually make it that difficult engineering-wise, compared to the lethal and highly variable conditions that we find on Earth.  Examples are the increasing pressure with depth (one atmosphere per approx 10m) under the sea, life draining cold and dehydration (plus distances/things that eat you) on much of its surface, Antarctic winter cold/wind/dark, Mountain top 'thin' air/vertical drop/variable weather -- for all of which we have engineered solutions.  (In other words, if you really want a broad menu of ways to die, stay on earth.)

Infrastructure doesn't change the hard vacuum engineering problem, but does help avoid the necessity of taking everything you'll need for the round trip with you in the launch vehicle and betting your life on each item working every time.

[joek]

Say what? ... I'd love to see some citation to support this.

For context see here and then here.