What will the impact of inexpensive access to space be?

[ioconnor]

Self replicating robots is sort of pie in the sky. Like self driving cars. The edge cases go on forever.

Much of the initial cargo on inexpensive spacex vehicles will be of very low value. Supply type stuff like water, solar panels, scaffolding. Perfect items for testing how many times a reusable rocket can be reused.

Building an outpost on Mars to resupply the methane needed for return flights may require huge solar farms. PV panels, batteries, wiring, thermal insulation, and robot maintenance will be huge requiring supply ships in much the same way we need trucks, trains, and cargo ships on earth. Research on robotic factories to produce these items on mars will become a huge industry here on earth. This is the "killer app". Every year the technology will improve allowing more to be built and maintained on mars and other places of value. Decades will slip by this way. At some point shipping materials between locations in space will dwarf the ships coming and going from earth.

There will be legions of robots controlled in much the same way drones are remotely controlled by humans in Nevada. Physical distances will require human outposts in remote areas. As the decades go by these remote outposts will turn into prospering colonies.

The impact of inexpensive access to space will result in Engineering and sciences in general becoming very sexy. People will look back to our current era, pre-spacex era, and see the tv shows and such and think we were living in something akin to the "dark ages".

[AncientU]

Being able to establish a self-sustaining colony on Mars is the activity Elon Musk and SpaceX have in mind following on from cheapish access to space. Once established, there is almost certain to be traffic between Earth and Mars.

Some current activities will expand. Scientific satellites and probes would seem likely to increase; as will Earth observation. Most countries will want their own (covert intelligence), and a few will want their own manned station. There will be some tourism - where else can the super rich go that the hoi polloi cannot? Solar power satellites might become a good investment.

But the big markets are likely to be a surprise. When Michael Faraday showed Queen Victoria around the Royal Institution he demonstrated what he was working on. Seemingly unimpressed she asked 'what use is it?' and got the response 'what use is a baby?' What he was demonstrating was the electric motor and dynamo. Similarly in the 60s when the latest American Nobel Prize winner was being interviewed by the press he explained his work and one of the journalists asked if the little device he invented for his experiments had any practical use. 'I can't think of any', was the response. The device was the laser.

We shall have to hope that 'build it and they will come' applies to cheapish access to space.

Although our use of space has many existing/practical apps, it could be analogous to a toddler... comms is probably the first app to have a growth spurt as we develop anywhere-to-anywhere communications -- wifi the planet (mobile ground, air, orbit, everywhere connectivity) and eventually cis-lunar space. Orbcomm and Iridium are a start.  The logical extension of the SES two-satellites-per-slot in GEO is a comm station per slot at which modular units are delivered by tugs, docked, and supplied with full services.  Laser comms are still in the baby stage.
A distributed network of fueling stations will eventually be needed -- supplying fuel from the surface or from alternate locations (asteroids, etc.) will require continual bulk launches.
As an astronomer, I envision telescopes across the electromagnetic spectrum as well as robotic exploration of all major solar system bodies.  Launch costs are largely constraining this opportunity.
Tourism, earth observation, etc. -- all existing but limited apps will grow at their unique rates.
Unanticipated killer apps will emerge, too...
The human drive to explore will push this growth across cis-lunar space and beyond.
And as usual, cleaning up the mess we create (i.e., space junk) will become an industry in itself.

[ClaytonBirchenough]

Actually, SpaceX has demonstrated the ability to transport people to orbit.  Every Dragon flight could have taken people along.  We're just too risk averse to let anyone go without a launch abort system.

Wrong. Has SpaceX transported people to orbit? NO.

Dragon at the very least needs seats, a life support system, and comms/controls. If you're feeling lucky, you could fly without a LAS. All these systems are not trivial and require a great deal of testing and paperwork to implement.

EDIT: Just thought of another too; Falcon 9 would have to modify its ascent trajectory to limit the maximum acceleration to "comfortable" levels.

[Chris Bergin]

Got to stay focused on here folks. This thread will easily run away with itself.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

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

Let's look at the market impacts for each going from a $4,500/kg to a $1,000/kg to LEO price:
1) Tourism
Suborbital flight rate is currently estimated at 300 passengers per year at $250K per seat. Using a 4/10 ratio price/passengers makes a $1M price have 30 passengers per year or about 5 launches vs selling an occasional empty seat every other year at $20M per seat price. Practically non currently to 5 launches per year.

2) Swarms
Here the real impact is cost for a 1CU from the lowest current cost for kit + launch of $25K to $5,000 per kit +launch. This moves this market from 1CUs as college projects to 1CUs as High School projects. This will cause a 100/1 increase in the number of these sats. College projects will increase but they will be much larger than current 1CU or 3CU.

3) Research
Experiments are prototypes of possible commercial application or basic knowledge seek. The knowledge seek is covered primarily by the college market and for really large satellites research foundations. Commercial experimental prototypes especially by startups will increase. These sats are the next size up from Cube sats. A factor of 5 drop may make this market explode depending on the business cases applicable for various industries. Just too say this market will be significantly larger than currently of very few of 1or 2 launches to 10 or 20 launches.

4) ISRU
Here is a market that is not well understood because it really does not exist yet. From the standpoint of this item is the launch of the experiments and capital equipment to do the ISRU. Let's just say it will go from current of 0 to several (<10).

5) Military
Military spending will remain fairly flat or decrease. But if satellite construction costs/weight decrease by a factor of 5 mirroring the reduction in launch costs all based upon quantity then the number of launches would increase from 10/year to 50/year.

6) Manufacturing
Again this is a market that barely exists today and all practically in one industry biomedical. A lowering of price would cause an expansion by other industries using zero-G to produce some items at less cost or not previously accomplishable. Current market size is equivalent to <1 launch to grow to possibly somewhere <10.

7) Multi-Megawatt Power from Space or used in space
Sadly without a significant ISRU and Manufacturing of parts in space a price of $1,000/kg does not make this happen except as small prototypes. This is a much unknown market and is likely to still be 0 even at these prices of $1,000/kg. A note is that at $500/kg most business cases close for this industry.

So what is the increase?
Current of ~12 (excludes GEO sats since this is a very constrained market) at $5,000/kg.
Future of ~180 (excludes GEO sats since this is a very constrained market) at $1,000/kg.

[ioconnor]

Let's look at the market impacts for each going from a $4,500/kg to a $1,000/kg to LEO price:

4) ISRU
Here is a market that is not well understood because it really does not exist yet. From the standpoint of this item is the launch of the experiments and capital equipment to do the ISRU. Let's just say it will go from current of 0 to several (<10).

I'm not following the "<10" and other numbers you assigned. Is this an increase in magnitude? So for example ISRU will increase by less that 10x?

I

[Lar]

Let's look at the market impacts for each going from a $4,500/kg to a $1,000/kg to LEO price:

4) ISRU
Here is a market that is not well understood because it really does not exist yet. From the standpoint of this item is the launch of the experiments and capital equipment to do the ISRU. Let's just say it will go from current of 0 to several (<10).

I'm not following the "<10" and other numbers you assigned. Is this an increase in magnitude? So for example ISRU will increase by less that 10x?

I

I read it that ISRU will go from nothing to several launches a year but not more than 10 launches a year.

I think this was an interesting analysis, thanks, oldAtlas_Eguy.

[ioconnor]

Let's look at the market impacts for each going from a $4,500/kg to a $1,000/kg to LEO price:

4) ISRU
Here is a market that is not well understood because it really does not exist yet. From the standpoint of this item is the launch of the experiments and capital equipment to do the ISRU. Let's just say it will go from current of 0 to several (<10).

I'm not following the "<10" and other numbers you assigned. Is this an increase in magnitude? So for example ISRU will increase by less that 10x?

I

I read it that ISRU will go from nothing to several launches a year but not more than 10 launches a year.

I think this was an interesting analysis, thanks, oldAtlas_Eguy.

Thanks. Now I understand. It will be interesting to see how ISRU takes off.

[Elmar Moelzer]

I think the market for space tourism is bigger than people think. Just look at how many people go on cruises today, now that it is (comparably) safe and cheap.
I also think that once launch prices go down, we will see a lot more space exploration projects. I can see every major university having their own space program, sending people, research and satellites into space. Physics, astrophysics, astronomy, biology, medicine and chemistry are just some of the university departments I can think of from the top of my head, that would send stuff into space. The devices would probably be built by the universities engineering departments as a lab project. My biggest worry is that there will be so much junk in space, that it gets even more of a problem. But then, at launch prices low enough, space junk removal becomes a worthy project on its own. It would be paid for either by private entities that are forced to remove their junk, or private entities seeking to replace a satellite, or space fairing governments that want to ensure orbit stays safe.

[Robotbeat]

Space tourism for orbital launches is about 1 person a year, $40 million per person when there is room on Soyuz. Is there any elasticity at all? A factor of 20x reduction in per seat cost... Can it increase revenue by 5x? 10x? That's a good start.

[Rocket Science]

To the OP... Unfortunately more space debris...

[CuddlyRocket]

The main problem with space tourism today is not the cost but the inconvenience. You practically have to train as an astronaut for months before flight. What you want is to be able to turn up on the day (or maybe the day before) with at most a certificate from your doctor confirming your fitness to fly - no training, nothing (other than a safety briefing as on an aircraft and perhaps putting on a flight suit).

[Elmar Moelzer]

The main problem with space tourism today is not the cost but the inconvenience. You practically have to train as an astronaut for months before flight. What you want is to be able to turn up on the day (or maybe the day before) with at most a certificate from your doctor confirming your fitness to fly - no training, nothing (other than a safety briefing as on an aircraft and perhaps putting on a flight suit).

That will happen once spaceflight has become enough routine.

[gregpet]

One aspect that I have thought about is how much redundancy (physical design & testing) has to go in to each payload given the expense of launch today.  If you can bring launch costs down substantially you could just send a 'cheap' replacement up if you have a problem.

And then the broken one is then repaired/recycled by a salvage company (using robots) that exists through cheap access to space...

Using fuel provided by a fuel depot that is only possible through cheap access to space...

I guess this could be the virtuous circle...

[storme]

What I'm mostly interested in, are the new applications that cheap launch will enable.

As chalz noted down-thread, Space tourism has been discussed to death. It seems clear to me that if a small market exists at $20-40 million, a larger one will exist at $10, $5, $1 million. How big that market is, is up for debate, but it's not a debate I personally find very interesting.

This forum is filled with people who are excited about the space: why? what future potentials do you dream of? Self-replicating robots seem a necessary long-term endgame of a multi-star exploring civilization, but that technology is a long way off.

Put another way, if space is going to be a long-term viable project, there have to be applications. Comm sats, spy sats (and to a lesser degree weather/environmental sats) have been the killer applications of the early space age. What will be the applications going forward? Surely there a people out there drawing up business plans for the next 50 years.

Put another way, if *you* had $500 million and wanted to invest in the future of space, what would you invest in?

[MikeAtkinson]

By 2020 there will be over 50 superyachts above 100m, these cost $300-1500M to build and have running costs of > $50M/year. Charter rates are typically $1-2M/week with 50% extra fees on top. Some of these are owned by billionaires with only a few $B in assets (the lowest I found was $1.2B).

The problem for billionaires wanting to impress their friends and clients and to reward their loyal staff is that all their peers either have a superyacht themselves or can easily charter one. What they need is a personal space station!

At the sort of cheap launch prices talked about on this thread, a $500M station with $100M running costs (including launch) seems possible. 10 visits/year would enable a billionaire to impress >40 friends or clients per year. Charter rates would be $3M/week + flight.

There are approximately 400 people who could afford a personal space station and more than 2000 who could afford a charter. At $500M per station the market might be 1/year, so $2B could be used for NRE and a production cost of approx $200M. Each personal space station could generate 5-30 launches/year.

[Elmar Moelzer]

Hehehe, whenever I hear personal space station I think of a certain James Bond movie

[macpacheco]

The main problem with space tourism today is not the cost but the inconvenience. You practically have to train as an astronaut for months before flight. What you want is to be able to turn up on the day (or maybe the day before) with at most a certificate from your doctor confirming your fitness to fly - no training, nothing (other than a safety briefing as on an aircraft and perhaps putting on a flight suit).

That will happen once spaceflight has become enough routine.

Unlikely, launches subject astronauts to 6g's for long enough. At least you need some centrifuge training.
Might not be months, but I believe 3-5 days worth of training (centrifuge, high altitude chamber for starters) is unavoidable.
That's one aspect that Skylon would be interesting. It's ascent breathing oxygen should be far less g intensive. Perhaps about 2.5g's.

[ioconnor]

I thought the F9 was about 4G. Something the average person could handle right off the street.

[KelvinZero]

The problem for billionaires wanting to impress their friends and clients and to reward their loyal staff is that all their peers either have a superyacht themselves or can easily charter one. What they need is a personal space station!

I like this! Maybe not personal, but probably not ISS. This does seem a reasonable prediction about how the kind of space tourism would change.

I expect the number of space tourist candidates would increase at least by a few times, and I imagine that would make the ISS not a suitable destination.

I think this could create an opportunity for someone such as Bigelo. I don't see it as a space hotel entirely disconnected from the government though. The fact that they are commercial should mean they don't refuse money from anyone, and there are things the ISS is not good for because you want to keep it a pristine laboratory environment.

I would speculate that this new space station would have a fair bit of volume. That was not a goal for the ISS but it would be more pleasant for tourists. I think some ISS projects would move to it, any that might interfere with the really sensitive experiments done there. BLEO technology development might be a good candidate, perhaps simulations of working with asteroid materials in zero-g, to see how much trouble it will cause.

I don't think this would be stealing budget from the ISS, rather the ISS project and its people would now be working with two destinations, and be able to perform more diverse work.

In addition to this the length of stay may increase. Some semi-retired billionare could still do a lot of PR for their company by becoming the first permanent space resident.