Bigelow Plans...

[HIP2BSQRE]

February 12, 2007 - 4:48 p.m. PDT


Founder Robert T. Bigelow to Reveal New Information at National Space Symposium

Las Vegas, NV 02/12/07– We will be making a very important and exciting announcement at the National Space Symposium on the week of April 9 in Colorado Springs, and we hope you will plan to be in attendance.

For the first time, we will be presenting our business plans that we have kept to ourselves until now. This information that we plan to announce on April 10 at the Bell Aerospace Exhibit Center should help support the private space movement.

We look forward to seeing you there.

- Robert T. Bigelow

The likes of Bigelow and SpaceX are going to make the VSE plans look very silly before 2014.

[JIS]

He needs 6-8 crew ferry plus one cargo for every two crew missions each costs about $70mil. To assembly a space hotel he needs about three assembly flights with three modules ($1-2B ?).
5 paying costumers needs to pay between (14 mil for the crew flight + 7 mil cargo =) $21mil per flight per person + some fee for the station + training + insurance to make a very optimistic bussiness case.
Are there around 100 turists per year willing to pay around $25mil?

The first flight of the real hardware could be before 2014 but no real component exists yet. Maybe Atlas 5 but this can hardly achieve $70mil / flight including space ship.

[Jim]

He isn't just going after tourists.

Plus the VSE won't have any real flights (ARES I-1 doesn't count)  by 2014 either

[JIS]

Jim - 13/2/2007  1:11 PM

He isn't just going after tourists.

So you say that non-tourists will pay more? How many non-tourists could be there?

Plus the VSE won't have any real flights (ARES I-1 doesn't count)  by 2014 either

Which is not relevant to the Bigelow bussines case.

[Jim]

JIS - 13/2/2007  8:18 AM

Jim - 13/2/2007  1:11 PM

He isn't just going after tourists.

So you say that non-tourists will pay more? How many non-tourists could be there?

Experiments, adverts,  long  duration "astronauts" vs tourist

So just using your simplified business figures, if a commercially available access to LEO is available for about 25million a seat before 2014, hows  a 300million Aries I shot (@50million a seat) going to sit with the US tax-payer ?

With my crystal ball, I foresee that the space news for the begining of the next decade won't be about a Aries I test flights, but commercial flights achieving LEO for less.   NASA will turn up late to the party, with a poluting (which will become important PR wise) stick and nowhere to go for another six years.  Griffins successor will be full of "Well, who could have predicted ten years ago when we start this VSE journey that a commercial altenative for LEO access would be available", and the answer will be anyone who believed in commerce.

NASA should have the faith to abandon ARIES-I and believe in  LEO COTS solutions for 2010's and start with an ARIES V to throw enough hardware (not fuel) up into LEO for a proper "exploration vehicle" - noones going to sit in an Orion for more than a week.  Not a new argument I know, but this VSE plan is displaying a singular lack of faith in modern enterprise.

[JIS]

Yes, but tourists are better for bussiness. Up and down 5 tourists every couple of weeks is much better than long duration.  Tourist can take a camera put on a nappy and go. Long term astronauts need toilet, shower, lot to eat, something to research, lot of exercise a lot of tools and briefings. It is OK as long they pay several milions per week extra.

[JIS]

Achilles - 13/2/2007  1:36 PM

So just using your simplified business figures, if a commercially available access to LEO is available for about 25million a seat before 2014, hows  a 300million Aries I shot (@50million a seat) going to sit with the US tax-payer ?

Bigelow crew vehicle doesn't exist even on the paper (unlike Orion/Ares 1). Atlas V would make the seat price a lot higher than $25m per seat.
Orion can stay at ISS for 6 months and can be used for ISS orbit adjustment too. It is very unlikely that any private ship can be more safe/reliable than Orion/Ares 1.

But I really believe that private industry can eventually take over most of the LEO flights. I wouldn't say it happens before NASA lands on the Moon.

[Jim]

JIS - 13/2/2007  8:55 AM


1.  Bigelow crew vehicle doesn't exist even on the paper (unlike Orion/Ares 1). Atlas V would make the seat price a lot higher than $25m per seat.
Orion can stay at ISS for 6 months and can be used for ISS orbit adjustment too. It is very unlikely that any private ship can be more safe/reliable than Orion/Ares 1.
2. But I really believe that private industry can eventually take over most of the LEO flights. I wouldn't say it happens before NASA lands on the Moon.

1.  There is no way anything can be more expensive than Ares  hardware and operations.  The  $50 mil per seat for orion was for 6 crew.

2. It going to happen before the Ares V launches

Atlas V, Falcon 9 crewed capsule , whatever its coming sooner and it will be less that 300million a shot.  Sure an Orion could stay at the ISS for six months but it wouldn't take six months of supplies with it -ie with rotation of the supply-capsules who needs 6mths duration in LEO ? ISS Orbit adjustment - ATV (certainly after 2016)

NASA landed on the moon nearly 40years ago. My moneys on COTS being in LEO before the sick stick.

[Jim]

Achilles - 13/2/2007  9:14 AM

Atlas V, Falcon 9 crewed capsule , whatever its coming sooner and it will be less that 300million a shot.  Sure an Orion could stay at the ISS for six months but it wouldn't take six months of supplies with it -ie with rotation of the supply-capsules who needs 6mths duration in LEO ? ISS Orbit adjustment - ATV (certainly after 2016)

NASA landed on the moon nearly 40years ago. My moneys on COTS being in LEO before the sick stick.

the $300 million for CEV launch is only for the LV (the stick)

[JIS]

Yes the CBO estimated the Ares1 cost to about the same as Delta4H ($200mil) plus launch services plus Orion.
I've used extremely optimistic numbers for Bigelow: $70mil per launch vehicle + spaceship + launch services to get current Soyuz rates $25mil/ticket.

[JIS]

I'm just guessing what are the Bigellow plans.
Current Atlas V $100m per flight compared to $200m for Ares 1 doesn't seem to be low enough. Even alleged $50mil for Falcon 9 (without Dragon) is still higher than Soyuz.

[Jim]

JIS - 13/2/2007  9:47 AM

Yes the CBO estimated the Ares1 cost to about the same as Delta4H ($200mil) plus launch services plus Orion.

Delta4H cost ($200m) is the launch service cost (vehicle, operations and spacecraft integration)

Ares I equivilent is much higher ($300-400million)

[JIS]

Jim - 13/2/2007  3:53 PM

JIS - 13/2/2007  9:47 AM

Yes the CBO estimated the Ares1 cost to about the same as Delta4H ($200mil) plus launch services plus Orion.

Delta4H cost ($200m) is the launch service cost (vehicle, operations and spacecraft integration)

Ares I equivilent is much higher ($300-400million)

Than there must be a mistake in CBO as it quotes D4H $200mil for hardware and $150mil launch services. The same as for Ares 1 (which has additional $100mil as NASA overhead). Delta 4M and Atlas 5M are quoted $100m hardware plus $100m launch services.

I think that these numbers are more like total program cost divided by launch per year. According to this philosophy STS would be $1B per flight.
Ares1 would be about $450m per flight + Orion.

That's the problem of NASA gigantic overhead. The only way how to solve that would be to sack most of the NASA employees.

[Jim]

The D-IVH numbers I quoted are near what NASA would pay for them.  When NASA procures commercial launch services, which is a ride to space, hardware is included. There is no separation of hardware and operations like for the STS.

"That's the problem of NASA gigantic overhead."   MSFC is the one of the larger reasons for this

[jongoff]

JIS,

He needs 6-8 crew ferry plus one cargo for every two crew missions each costs about $70mil.

I've actually heard numbers closer to ~$60M as the price LM/Bigelow would need to charge for Atlas V based manned missions.  That includes paying for a third party capsule solution and the price for the visit to Bigelow's facilities.  That was the profitability point for moderate traffic levels.  YMMV.

To assembly a space hotel he needs about three assembly flights with three modules ($1-2B ?).

First off, it's important to remember that Bigelow has never said he's building a space "hotel".  My guess is that when the dust clears it will be more of a space research or industrial facility with a subsection being more hotel oriented.

Second off, $1-2B for the two assembly flights he actually needs?  Where do you get your numbers from?  I'd be amazed if he spent more than $250-500M on two or three construction flights.  He isn't flying it on the Shaft of the Shuttle.  He's flying it on commercial vehicles, which are a *lot* cheaper.

5 paying costumers needs to pay between (14 mil for the crew flight + 7 mil cargo =) $21mil per flight per person + some fee for the station + training + insurance to make a very optimistic business case.

If they can get an 8 person capsule like they think they can, the price per person all things included will actually likely be in the $8-10M range, not in the $20M range.

Are there around 100 tourists per year willing to pay around $25mil?

If space tourism were his primary market, and if it was really going to be as expensive as you claim, then yes there would be a problem.  But since you're off on the cost numbers by about a factor of 2x, and since space tourism per se isn't his primary market...

The first flight of the real hardware could be before 2014 but no real component exists yet. Maybe Atlas 5 but this can hardly achieve $70mil / flight including space ship.

The first flight of test hardware was last year.  The first inhabitable module (Sundancer) is scheduled for sometime in 2009-2010.  Even assuming they run into some snags (or that the first Sundancer doesn't work), I'd be amazed if they didn't have habitable volume on-orbit before 2012.  

As for Atlas pricing, my sources say you're wrong.  At low flight rates, yes they have to charge more.  But if they get even moderate demand from Bigelow, it'll double or triple their Atlas V 401/402 flight rate.  And all the payloads are nearly identical, which cuts a bunch off of overhead costs for the launches.  They seriously believe they can make money off of a launch price well below what you are suggesting.  But hey, what do they know.  They've only been flying rockets for 40+ years now.  ;-)

Seriously, your analysis isn't *that* far off, space *tourism* using Atlas V is only a marginal market.  It'll be cheaper than Soyuz, and a better destination/experience, but Bigelow has said all along that he expects to make more money off of other revenue streams.

~Jon

[ApolloLee]

Achilles - 13/2/2007  1:10 AM

The likes of Bigelow and SpaceX are going to make the VSE plans look very silly before 2014.

Well, if NASA does it right (I know, big "if"), they will concentrate on getting us to the Moon and Mars while folks like Bigelow and SpaceX conquer Earth orbit.

The way NASA doesn't look silly is if they treat private space industry as a growingly equal partner.

[JIS]

First off, it's important to remember that Bigelow has never said he's building a space "hotel".  My guess is that when the dust clears it will be more of a space research or industrial facility with a subsection being more hotel oriented.

Really? He didn’t say he’s building space hotel for tourists? Than I lived in a mistake.

Second off, $1-2B for the two assembly flights he actually needs?  Where do you get your numbers from?  I'd be amazed if he spent more than $250-500M on two or three construction flights.  He isn't flying it on the Shaft of the Shuttle.  He's flying it on commercial vehicles, which are a *lot* cheaper.

I think he said he already spent several $100m flying one test bed with NASA heritage technology and off shelf technology. I’m just not convinced that he can built several full scale space modules and launch them for another $250-500M.
I think he’ll spend this money only for testing. The real hardware will cost twice more. Therefore $1-2B in next ten years before his habitats will start the real operation. That’s my guess.

5 paying costumers needs to pay between (14 mil for the crew flight + 7 mil cargo =) $21mil per flight per person + some fee for the station + training + insurance to make a very optimistic business case.

If they can get an 8 person capsule like they think they can, the price per person all things included will actually likely be in the $8-10M range, not in the $20M range.

5 paying costumers along with 2 pilots and housekeeping persons = 7 person capsule. But why not to build 15 crew space ship?

Are there around 100 tourists per year willing to pay around $25mil?

If space tourism were his primary market, and if it was really going to be as expensive as you claim, then yes there would be a problem.  But since you're off on the cost numbers by about a factor of 2x, and since space tourism per se isn't his primary market...

I wonder what other market is there. Maybe Americans, Europeans and Japanese will buy couple of places a year to get to ISS. Maybe Pakistani or Iran would buy one or two places to send their heroes to the Space.
Or, is there any demand from private corporations to do any manned research in the space? Could you name an example? Why not to cooperate with NASA or partners and do research at ISS instead?

The first flight of the real hardware could be before 2014 but no real component exists yet. Maybe Atlas 5 but this can hardly achieve $70mil / flight including space ship.

The first flight of test hardware was last year.  The first inhabitable module (Sundancer) is scheduled for sometime in 2009-2010.  Even assuming they run into some snags (or that the first Sundancer doesn't work), I'd be amazed if they didn't have habitable volume on-orbit before 2012.

I hope they don’t use the same schedule philosophy as Kistler or SpaceX as it usually takes two or three times longer than planned.
 

As for Atlas pricing, my sources say you're wrong.  At low flight rates, yes they have to charge more.  

The higher flight rates can materialise when there is somewhere to fly and some reliable space ship. This can take 5 years (according to you schedule) or another 10-15 in more realistic case.

But if they get even moderate demand from Bigelow, it'll double or triple their Atlas V 401/402 flight rate.

The current flight rate is 1-2 missions. Are you saying that 2-6 flights per year are enough to lower the Atlas V price to $50mil?
I think they said they need something like 16 flights per year. It’s really long way to get there.
Even building extremely simple suborbital SS2 is taking at least 4 years from the first demonstration flight. So Atlas will wait a long time for its cargo.

But hey, what do they know.  They've only been flying rockets for 40+ years now.  ;-)

and still can’t build a space ship carrying humans for less than couple of billions. They have to wait for others.

Seriously, your analysis isn't *that* far off
~Jon

Unfortunatelly, yes. One has to be patient. Only the most paranoid and patient prevail.