Bigelow Plans...

[jongoff]

JIS,

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

I didn't say that his facilities wouldn't do space tourism, only that it isn't his only or even primary market.  At least according to what he's actually said, as opposed to what the press has reported about his projects.

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.

At least as of his latest announcement, he's only planning on one more module.  And a lot of that cost was the cost of setting up business, getting a team together, getting experience etc.  Linearly extrapolating from there is a way to get a number, but it's going to be way off on the conservative side of things.

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.

I think your guess is wrong.  Bigelow's total budget he plans on putting into this project is $500M, and I'm pretty sure he'll pull it off.

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

First, remember that "housekeeping person" as you call them probably aren't going to be going up and down on every flight.  If you've got 16 flights per year, there's no reason for them not to stick around on-orbit for a few months.  As for a 15 person spaceship, the reason not to do it is that it'd be so big it couldn't be launched on existing or near-term vehicles.  

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.

One of the markets Bigelow has discussed was trying to get foreign countries that don't currently have manned space programs involved with sending an astronaut once or twice a year.  If the price tag is really only in the $10-15M, there may be several countries that might be interested in doing that on a regular basis.  The recent news with South Korea shows that their may be something to this market.

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?

Cost, the fact that ISS doesn't want to have people docking there frequently, bureaucratic hassles, etc.  ISS is just a lousy place to have to deal with commercially.  At least that's what I've heard from people looking at the commercial microgravity market.  A low-overhead site with frequent opportunities to visit, that was also substantially lower cost could change the dynamics of that market drastically.

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.

And once again handwaving and assertations.  Notice that unlike Kistler or SpaceX, Bigelow has already flown stuff, and not too far behind schedule either.  And it worked.  
 

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.

I really doubt it's going to take 10-15 years to make a reliable spacecraft, and get a destination up there.  I'd be surprised if a commercial project couldn't have something like that into flight testing within 2-3 years.

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?

Bigelow was quoting a demand of up to 16 flights per year.  4 extra flights per year could probably get it close to $50M, especially since the flights would all be using the same payload going to the same trajectory, and using the same version of Atlas V.  But I for some reason was thinking they were flying 2-4 per year, not 1-2.  My error.  I should have said that with moderate demand, they could increase the current flight rate by a factor of 4-6x.

I think they said they need something like 16 flights per year. It’s really long way to get there.

Sure, but Atlas V and Delta-IV were built to be able to handle much higher flight rates then current demand provides.  And if all of those flights are with the same payload, same vehicle version, same trajectory, that will make payload processing a lot easier.

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.

Apples and oranges.  SpaceShip2 requires building and certifying a new airplane, developing a very large hybrid rocket motor (in-house I might add), and many other complications that just aren't needed for an Atlas V capsule project.  And once again, you can't reason from just one or two data-points.  Just because one company takes 4 years to do something doesn't mean another company couldn't do a project of similar performance requirements in 2 years or 6.  

~Jon

[JIS]

jongoff - 14/2/2007  9:31 PM

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

First, remember that "housekeeping person" as you call them probably aren't going to be going up and down on every flight.  If you've got 16 flights per year, there's no reason for them not to stick around on-orbit for a few months.

You need an additional life boat.
 

And once again, you can't reason from just one or two data-points.  Just because one company takes 4 years to do something doesn't mean another company couldn't do a project of similar performance requirements in 2 years or 6.  

~Jon

So which company could built a true manned space ship before NASA?
Is there any company with a potential in California? Has it demonstarted any capability for an orbital flight?

[Zond]

JIS - 14/2/2007  6:43 PM

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.

This article says that: "Bigelows plan is to establish a habitable commercial space station for research, manufacturing, entertainment and other uses." But i have serious doubts about the financial viability of an industrial facility in earth orbit. So my guess is that Bigelow's modules will be primarely used as a space hotel in earth orbit. Only if we get out of earth orbit do i see a potential for other uses.

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.

Any link to back your claims up? This article says that he had spend $75 million when they launched Genesis 1. Bigelow is rich, but i don't think he has $1-2 billion.

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?

If you can squeeze 15 persons in a ten ton space capsule Bigelow and Lockheed-Martin will be very interested.

I think Bigelow should be able to get sundancer and the BA330 with $500 million. And space tourists will be his main revenue source. I do have serious doubts about other markets and if the space tourist market is big enough at a price level of $10-20 million. If they can get the price down to $1 million or lower then the amount of customers should increase substantially.

[jongoff]

JIS,

You need an additional life boat.

Maybe, maybe not.  It all depends on the traffic level, if the personnel transports can carry extra people down in emergencies, etc, etc.

So which company could built a true manned space ship before NASA?  Is there any company with a potential in California? Has it demonstrated any capability for an orbital flight?

Well, there are several that could do it.  Lockheed, Boeing, SpaceHab, possibly SpaceX, and possibly others.

The thing to remember, is that especially if you're going the capsule route, the launch vehicle can be done by an entirely different group.  The Atlas V team has demonstrated reliably the ability to put payloads into orbit.  All that is needed for a "manned space ship" is the actual capsule/space ship to be put on top.  And unlike Orion, this vehicle doesn't have to be anywhere near as capable.  Bigelow's picked an orbit that allows for first-orbit rendezvous, so unlike the Orion which needs to be able to hold multiple people for up to 6-7 days in space, the capsule that services Bigelow's hotel might only need a couple of hours worth of life support.  There are many other ways in which a commercial capsule for the Earth-to-LEO market can be substantially cheaper and quicker to develop than the approach NASA is taking with Ares-1/Orion.  The single biggest benefit being that Atlas V exists, and the capsule doesn't have to wait five-six years before the vehicle is ready for it to ride on.

There really are huge differences involved here, and there are plenty of competent companies that could provide the orbital manned portion.  

~Jon

[Jim]

Wouldn't include spacehab.  they don't build hardware.  Alenia would be the builder

[Bill White]

The "other" revenue stream?

Media, marketing, sponsorships and brand value enhancement. And everything related.

Get Nike to pay for logos on the flight suits worn by tourists. Get Virgin Atlantic to buy a "gate" analogous to gates at global airports. "Attention, our flight to Virgin's LEO Gate One is about to depart." X million Virgin frequent flyer miles gets you an SS2 trip. XX million miles gets you to Bigelow's hab.

Verizon cell phone ads: "Can you hear me now?"

Add this revenue stream to all the others and we start to approach being able to close a business case.

= = =

Sell time shares to people like Tom Hanks. Buy 10% of a Bigelow hab and reserve 4 weeks usage. I betcha we could find 10 people willing to pay $50 - $100 million each to OWN a 1/10th share of a LEO facility. Larry Ellison of Oracle likes to buy large yachts. This would trump that, big time.

[Bill White]

A link to a recent article on name rights:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/19/commentary/sportsbiz/index.htm

Citibank is payiong $20 million per year to "name" a baseball stadium. If a Bigelow hab has a 7 year life expentancy and the name can be sold for $10 million per year, that is $70 million towards launch costs with essentially ZERO additional cost to Bigelow.

[marsavian]

Jim - 16/2/2007  11:14 AM

Wouldn't include spacehab.  they don't build hardware.  Alenia would be the builder

It could also be Ball Aerospace via a Spacehab Apex design.

[Jim]

Bill White - 16/2/2007  12:40 PM

A link to a recent article on name rights:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/19/commentary/sportsbiz/index.htm

Citibank is payiong $20 million per year to "name" a baseball stadium. If a Bigelow hab has a 7 year life expentancy and the name can be sold for $10 million per year, that is $70 million towards launch costs with essentially ZERO additional cost to Bigelow.

Not a good analogy.  

Stadiums get 20-40k people visting them 100 times a years and TV coverage for 2-3 hours on those days.  

The exposure for bigelow is a small fraction of this and like was the money will be proportionally less

[Tony Rusi]

Jim,

Great story!

Private Space Module Orbiting in "Tip-top Shape" - IEEE Spectrum - Feb.12.07 - James Oberg.


Much more detail than usual from Bigelow. Good job! But they are only pressurizing to 7.5 psi anyway. And just how long of an interval is there between re-inflations? Just because they say it is holding air "better than on the ground" does not really mean anything. When they inflate to 15 psi and never, ever reinflate, then you really have something. Spacesuits and the ISS all leak a little bit over the long term. Also, running some kind of test, where you have a hull rupture and then have humans or robots repair it sucessfully, will really be the icing on the cake. The Bigelow architecture, with all the electrical and mechanical equipment mounted on a central truss and with all the walls exposed for easy repair, is actually an advantage for Bigelow vs. the ISS in this regard. When TRW and GE did their space station architecture studies, they ran with the same approach. I have heard that Bigelow's upcoming April announcement will "make everyone sit up and spit out their coffee." I can't wait to find out what Mr. B. has cooking! Bigelow's full scale module has around 20,000 cubic feet of internal volume. That is three to four times the internal volume of a single ISS module. There is nothing preventing Bigelow from manufacturing a module 100 feet in diameter and 600 feet long at some point in the future, using the same facilites he has now. He will have to drop the factor of safety on the vectran restraint layer from 4 to 1.125, but without a debris shield, it would weigh less than 50,000 pounds, the nominal launch capacity of a single Atlas V. Something that size is a start at what Gerard K. O'Neill was thinking about with his "Island Three" design.

Are we witnessing the birth of the "Space Colony" era??

[jongoff]

Zond,

This article says that: "Bigelows plan is to establish a habitable commercial space station for research, manufacturing, entertainment and other uses." But i have serious doubts about the financial viability of an industrial facility in earth orbit. So my guess is that Bigelow's modules will be primarily used as a space hotel in earth orbit. Only if we get out of earth orbit do i see a potential for other uses.

I wouldn't be so sure to discount industrial/research on-orbit.  Previous commercial space microgravity research projects have run into problems for many reasons, such as:

1.  Infrequent flight opportunities.  In the commercial world, you need to be able to iterate, and to react quickly.  If you're having to fill out paperwork and wait a year or two between launch opportunities, you're not going to be able to compete against ground-based research, even if space based research has some real advantages otherwise.
2.  High amount of paperwork/commercially unfriendly environment.  NASA has shown time and again that it just doesn't get it when it comes to working with commercial entities.  The overhead of dealing with NASA slows things down and drives up costs.

If you have flights going to Bigelow's station up to once every two weeks, it makes it a lot easier to iterate on experiments.  You can send up new equipment, personnel, materials, etc on each flight if necessary.  While you have one researcher in orbit figuring stuff out, you can have several technicians on the ground modifying hardware and getting it ready for the launch window.  This kind of fast, low-overhead iteration is one of the keys to commercially successful research and development.  

As for the business environment, this is Bigelow's expertise.  He earned his billions by finding ways to deliver affordable commercial real estate that met peoples needs without excessive paperwork.  

Any link to back your claims up? This article says that he had spend $75 million when they launched Genesis 1. Bigelow is rich, but i don't think he has $1-2 billion.

I'm with you on this one.  I'd be seriously surprised if Bigelow had spent more than $300M by the time Sundancer starts taking paying customers.

If you can squeeze 15 persons in a ten ton space capsule Bigelow and Lockheed-Martin will be very interested.

Yeah, but I doubt it can be done safely.  Might be possible, but you'd have to stretch the capsule substantially.  But I agree that with Atlas V's higher marginal costs, the more passengers you can fit in a capsule per flight, the lower the per-seat price will be.

I think Bigelow should be able to get sundancer and the BA330 with $500 million. And space tourists will be his main revenue source. I do have serious doubts about other markets and if the space tourist market is big enough at a price level of $10-20 million. If they can get the price down to $1 million or lower then the amount of customers should increase substantially.

I agree, I just don't think that will happen with capsule on ELV approaches.  Even SpaceX, if they manage to deliver on Falcon 9/Dragon is still going to need to be charging in the $5-10M per seat range.  The point where most models predict rapidly increasing demand is in the $1-5M per seat range.  

~Jon

[Jim]

marsavian - 16/2/2007  12:45 PM

Jim - 16/2/2007  11:14 AM

Wouldn't include spacehab.  they don't build hardware.  Alenia would be the builder

It could also be Ball Aerospace via a Spacehab Apex design.

Ball only does the spacecraft bus,  (ie. propulsion, attitude control, telemetry, power etc).  They have predesigned buses.  As for the habitable volumes and TPS, that is not Ball's expertise.  

Once again spacehab doen't build anything.  They have other contractors do it for them.  So as for contractors that can build a manned spacecraft, spab is not among them.

[jongoff]

Jim,

Not a good analogy.  

Stadiums get 20-40k people visting them 100 times a years and TV coverage for 2-3 hours on those days.  

The exposure for bigelow is a small fraction of this and like was the money will be proportionally less

Yeah, I'd be surprised if you could turn advertising into a serious reliable revenue stream for a Bigelow station.  You might be able to get some money at some point, but getting a recurring revenue stream from it just sounds unrealistic.

~Jon

[Bill White]

Jim - 16/2/2007  11:46 AM

Bill White - 16/2/2007  12:40 PM

A link to a recent article on name rights:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/19/commentary/sportsbiz/index.htm

Citibank is payiong $20 million per year to "name" a baseball stadium. If a Bigelow hab has a 7 year life expentancy and the name can be sold for $10 million per year, that is $70 million towards launch costs with essentially ZERO additional cost to Bigelow.

Not a good analogy.  

Stadiums get 20-40k people visting them 100 times a years and TV coverage for 2-3 hours on those days.  

The exposure for bigelow is a small fraction of this and like was the money will be proportionally less

Foot traffic is far less important than mass media exposure. The rights deal would need to be packaged to get air time on "Good Morning America" and so on and in the marketing world ~$10 million per year is a tiny drop in the ocean.

The "first" such deal would make the nightly news on every major network and to maximize revenue Bigelow would need to book interviews on Larry King, etc. . . but if that were done, ~$50 to $100 million merely for name rights would seem easy to justify. Every time a celebrity tourist flies up to the Bigelow hab, they could be required to tout the prime sponsor.

Imagine if the first Bigelow tourists did live on-orbit interviews with Letterman, Oprah, Jay Leno etc . . . "Live from the XXX habitat"

Also, remember the movie Talladega Nights?

Product placement for Wonder Bread has been valued at over $15 million and that is for painting a Wonder Bread logo on a fictional NASCAR auto.

= = =

Jon Goff write: "I wouldn't be so sure to discount industrial/research on-orbit. "

Okay. But now suppose Intel or Apple or IBM is approached to sponsor a deal to use their computers to analyze the research? Might IBM pay a several million per year (and give the R&D people free computers) in exchange for product placement on the Bigelow LEO facility?

[Bill White]

PS -- Its not either/or

Use this publicity money to cover some of the initial overhead and R&D costs for the first facility.

Anyway, I predict Bigelow will incorporate some of these ideas into a revenue model that blends together several very diverse sources of income. And in early April we will learn if my prediction is correct.

[Jim]

Bill White - 16/2/2007  1:32 PM

Foot traffic is far less important than mass media exposure. The rights deal would need to be packaged to get air time on "Good Morning America" and so on and in the marketing world ~$10 million per year is a tiny drop in the ocean.

The "first" such deal would make the nightly news on every major network and to maximize revenue Bigelow would need to book interviews on Larry King, etc. . . but if that were done, ~$50 to $100 million merely for name rights would seem easy to justify. Every time a celebrity tourist flies up to the Bigelow hab, they could be required to tout the prime sponsor.

Imagine if the first Bigelow tourists did live on-orbit interviews with Letterman, Oprah, Jay Leno etc . . . "Live from the XXX habitat"

The first mission would get hugh exposure but it would die down quickly.  50-100, no more like 5-10.  decals on the sides of rockets didn't amount to much.  

A stadium gets media coverage every year and for years every time a game is played.  After the novelty dies off, the station would get little.

PS.  your prediction is the $50-100 million.   Advertizing revenue was already planned and naming rights is a subset.

[Bill White]

Jim - 16/2/2007  12:53 PM

Bill White - 16/2/2007  1:32 PM

Foot traffic is far less important than mass media exposure. The rights deal would need to be packaged to get air time on "Good Morning America" and so on and in the marketing world ~$10 million per year is a tiny drop in the ocean.

The "first" such deal would make the nightly news on every major network and to maximize revenue Bigelow would need to book interviews on Larry King, etc. . . but if that were done, ~$50 to $100 million merely for name rights would seem easy to justify. Every time a celebrity tourist flies up to the Bigelow hab, they could be required to tout the prime sponsor.

Imagine if the first Bigelow tourists did live on-orbit interviews with Letterman, Oprah, Jay Leno etc . . . "Live from the XXX habitat"

The first mission would get hugh exposure but it would die down quickly.  50-100, no more like 5-10.  decals on the sides of rockets didn't amount to much.  

A stadium gets media coverage every year and for years every time a game is played.  After the novelty dies off, the station would get little.

PS.  your prediction is the $50-100 million.   Advertizing revenue was already planned and naming rights is a subset.

~$50 - $100 million IF THEY ARE CLEVER and come to play with the right mind-set. A engineering mind-set might only get ~$5 million. I agree. ;-)

Donald Trump, George Steinbrenner or Richard Branson? Different story. IMHO. Lousy engineers, but terrific at generating buzz and making money from that buzz.

Perhaps the aerospace community is not ready to embrace PT Barnum. I can accept that. However, with one trillion dollars being spent every year by Americans on marketing, finding $50 million for a space themed business should not be too difficult.

= = =

In 2004, the owner of Red Bull spent $600 million on marketing. In one year. Other sources suggest Red Bull will spend $900 million on marketing in the current year.

http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2005/0328/126.html

If Robert Bigelow and Dietrich Mateschitz were to have a good "first date" sort of meeting, Bigelow scoring a 7 year deal at ~$10 million per year would be small potatoes for Red Bull.

Mateschitz, 60, typifies a new class of billionaires who got rich not by inventing a new product but by selling an ordinary one inventively. Donald Trump gets a premium for his Manhattan apartments because he has propagated the notion that a Trump building is superior to comparable property across the street. Sidney Frank made billions by selling Grey Goose vodka, nearly indistinguishable from bottom-shelf brands, at a rich price.

"When we first started, we said there is no existing market for Red Bull," Mateschitz recalls, in a thick Austrian accent. "But Red Bull will create it. And this is what finally became true."

Done well, NewSpace can find money in this same way.

[Comga]

Tony Rusi - 16/2/2007  10:46 AM

.....But they are only pressurizing to 7.5 psi anyway. And just how long of an interval is there between re-inflations? Just because they say it is holding air "better than on the ground" does not really mean anything. When they inflate to 15 psi and never, ever reinflate, then you really have something.

Is Bigelow planning to inflate to 15 PSI?  Why? Neglecting the fact that people can  exist comfortably at <8 PSI, with the normal 19% Oxygen content, what's wrong with 7 PSI and 40% O2?.  

And you may know this:  How much leakage was Bigelow expecting?  That would give us a basis for comparing the statement that Genesis I is experiencing less leakage than expected.

[Comga]

Jim - 16/2/2007  10:52 AM

marsavian - 16/2/2007  12:45 PM

It could also be Ball Aerospace via a Spacehab Apex design.

Ball only does the spacecraft bus,  (ie. propulsion, attitude control, telemetry, power etc).  They have predesigned buses.  As for the habitable volumes and TPS, that is not Ball's expertise.  

Ball does spacecraft buses with their electronics, ADC, etc, and although some of their craft are "predesigned" every one gets extensive modifications for just about each mission.  

Moreover, they are working with SpaceX, and not likely to compete with them.  Their business model is to sell spacecraft, instruments, subsystems, and missions to committed customers, not building ahead of sales as entrepreneurs.

[Bill White]

A further comment:

FedEx and Budwesier both aired "space themed" commercials during the SuperBowl.

Fed Ex:



Budweiser:



The Bud clip is only 13 seconds however I saw the whole thing earlier today while watching the Daytona 500.

Anyway, if companies like FedEx and Budweiser are willing to run ads like these without ANY actual private sector activity, if Bigelow can present a credible case for deploying a real life facility, then I see little reason to doubt that he can win several multi-million dollar deals.

For the record, I agree with Jim about the value of a few decals. However, a Red Bull deal would include painting the entire Bigelow habitat to "look like" a can of Red Bull. Also for the record, I think Red Bull just tastes nasty. ;-)