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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #578

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 578

Today's Topics:
                 The Un-Plan

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Date: 16 May 91 08:13:23 GMT
From: ogicse!sequent!muncher.sequent.com![e-mail]
Subject: The Un-Plan

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ken Sheppardson) writes:

>  You posted your budget for the space program a while back, as I recall.
>
>  Could you go one step further and give us a timeline out to 2050 or
>  so describing what steps you think we should take to realize our
>  'long-term potential for large scale space assembley.' In particular,
>  could you tell use when you anticipate a US permanent presence in space?

We have had a permanent U.S. presence in space since 1958.
At the bare minimum this will last until Voyager and Pioneer
are totally eaten away by cosmic radiation, billions of years from
now.

But what we really want is a growing, self-sustaining
permanence, that is not buffeted by political whim, and which
leads ultimately to the expansion of human civilization into
the solar system.

I am _extremely_ hestitant to do write such a plan, because people
take long-range "plans" far too seriously.  There are _so many_
possibilities that need to be explored, and we do _not_ know which
ones are the best.  The best ones we probably haven't even thought of
yet.  Focusing on one narrow plan will be extremely destructive towards
progress towards the eventual goal (which for this plan is space settlement).

Nevertheless, if it can help us disengange from the current narrow
focus of NASA and much of the space community, I will present an
alternate scenario, based on what we have learned since 1958
rather than pre-space-age paradigms.  Since this scenario is
based on likely rather than improbable outcomes, it assumes that
technology advances.  Since it is based on taking advantage of
new knowledge, it assumes that space development paradigms don't remain
mired in a 1953 Collier's magazine.  For these reason it will seem
quite a bit "sci-fi" in spots (hopefully with a cyberpunk bent :-)
If any sci.spacer's have a problem with that, go back to fiddling
with your Saturn V core memories and drawing your Manned Mars Missions
and don't bother to read further.  This is about working towards
2050, not staying in 1991 (or worse, 1953).

To make up for the necessary sci-fi, I will get rid of the economic
_fantasy_ that pervades the current space development paradigms.
Money will not come magically gushing out of the IRS at our beck
and call: money will have to come from real world motivations,
including, not so trivially, the ability to pay back the money.

N.B. all money is figured in 1991 dollars.




Without further ado, the Un-Plan:

1995-2004 Efforts:

(1) The NASA budget to which you referred.  Highlights included:

* exploring _all_ of the planets, and many asteroids and comets, in the
way explorers need: repeated missions, where the intruments
are chosen based on the discoveries made by the previous ones.
Infrared asteroid/comet search missions are top priority, but there
are many others to all corners of the solar system.

* technology research concentrating on potentially large advances (a
factor of 10 or more) in tensile strength, superconductivity, and
other parameters important to a wide variety of future needs, including
the various second-generation launcher possibilities, upper stages,
communications, mining, manfucturing, and exploration.

* Large-scale spending on individual astronaut projects is curtailed
for this period, leaving only those Shuttle flights essential to
SpaceLab.  The futility of HLV and government chem rocket research is
realized and these avenues of search abandoned.  This leaves more
than enough money to explore every planet and moon several times
over, to sample asteroids, to launch many different kinds of
telescopes in every wavelength.  Politicians grow to like these
projects for the same reason explorers already like them: they
are _quick_: R&D takes two years or less.  For explorers,
this means new instruments can be designed and launched based on the
results of the previous mission.  Science adapts and knowledge advances
rapidly.  For politicians, this means that the missions are launched or
even completed within their term of office, and they reap the poltical
windfall of the new discoveries and excitement.  This difference alone
could bring huge increases into the NASA budget.  For these reasons,
small, quick, inexpensive projects soon surpass the large, slow,
all-consuming projects in political popularity, and the effectiveness
of explorations is increased many-fold.  Budgets rise, but
effectiveness rises even faster, so that the gain in knowledge is
much greater than the gain in budget.

(2) A much higher budget for NSF, to perform basic science advances.

(3) Converting several DoD, DOE and NASA labs into Department of
Commerce labs, charged to meet international challenges with the
most efficient and advanced of technologies, whether they be
earth based or space-based.  This provides an economic backbone
to support government budgets and a market for future space industries.

(4) Development of further commercial space industry.  NASA and
other government support should follow the leads and adapt to the
needs of private industry. Direct-broadcast and phone-cell satellite
technology is strengthened.  Frequency allocation is turned over to the
free market; deregulation increases the efficiency of bandwidith usage,
creating ample, inexpensive bandwidth for new space communications
industries.  Navigation, microgravity/vacuum. remote sensing all need
to be strengthened and deregulated, and most of all, new ideas need to
be contiually generated and communicated between industry and NASA.
Launchers and other tools are _secondary_ industries, not the primary
motivators. Once out of the lab industries should be entirely the
province of industry, with conversion done in a fair, efficient, and
open manner.


1995-2004 Outcome: divide these into "fairly certain, assuming we
engage in the above efforts" and "could go one way or the other,
I'll pick one."  Anything beyond 2004 is in the latter category.

Fairly certain:

* Our sample size of earth-crossing and Jupiter-crossing asteroids and
  comets is increased 1,000-fold, so that we find several small objects
  that can be captured into earth orbit for less than 500 m/s impulse
  delta-V.

* Private industry reduces chem rocket entry-level costs to the orbit
  of choice to $1 million.  Cost/max. lb. LEO ranges from $2,000 to
  $6,000.  The biggest savings come from "rocket clones" which
  standardize payload sizes and interfaces, much like container cargo
  has been standardized for ships, trucks, and trains for Earth surface
  transportation.  These standards are developed by commerce and
  defense, the end-users (as opposed to promoters) of space.

* By 2005 the number of circuits in a satcom is 500 times what it
  was in 1975, its computing power is also 500 times greater, and it
  uses only 1/10 of the frequency.  This is due to government basic
  and industry applied research along these promising avenues of advance.
  As a result, direct-broadcast satellite TV and radio replace most
  local stations, and  phone-cell sats replace most local towers,
  after first capturing the large market niche currently without
  cellular service.  The smaller size of satellites, and cheaper
  entry level costs, makes in-space testing over a factor of 10
  cheaper than previosly possible, thereby greatly increasing the
  rate of spacecraft technology development, including electric
  engines, laser communications, hardened electronics, handling of
  fluids (fuels) in microgravity, and a host of other improvements.
  NASA needs to conduct its research in these areas on a scale
  the will best fit these fast-growing industries.

Pick one (these could go either way.  We learn from our new
discoveries and adapt to the new circumstances);

* Material resource issues are resolved in the following manner:

-- Ureleite diamond is too sparsely distributed, and artificial
   diamond has become too cheap, to pursue this opportunity further.

-- Water has evaporated from most meteor-shower debris.  However,
   there exist some recently calved fragments that contain water
   ice, protected by an indulating layer of dust from the Sun's
   rays.  The sample size is large enough that some trajectories
   are computed (by 2005 grade schoolers can do this at home on
   their Mac) that use gravity assist and aerobraking to capture
   ice fragments into Earth orbit for only 500 m/s impulse delta-v.

-- small amounts of nickel-iron regolith are found on several
   earth-crossing objects, the closest of which is only 1,000 m/s
   away from LEO.


* By concentrating on neglected paradigms, private industry produces
  the following breakthrough space industries:

-- phone cell satellites are deployed and  evolve to carry most
   of the Earth's mobile _and_ much of its long-distance traffic, a
   market of over $10 billion per year.  The cost of making a
   long-distance call from the U.S. to Eastern Europe decreases by a
   factor of 10.

-- Direct broadcast satellite radio and TV largely replace local
   stations.  Ted Turner fired the first shot in the mid-80's, but the
   real impact doesn't start until the launch industry
   price-cutting wars, electric/chemical hybrid upper stage,
   roof-blanket receivers and radio-frequency markets
   in the mid-90's.

-- navigation satellites are combined with mobile databases to
   produce a "yellow pages" that can also give directions to
   exactly where a business is.  A fundamental shift in
   shopping and travel patterns occurs.

-- Vacuum manufacturing, based on wake-shield technology for
   producing very pure vacuum in a space with otherwise poor
   vacuum quality, is developed by private industry with research
   support from NASA.  The combination of high vacuum and micgravity
   turns to be the perfect way to produce several low-T(c)
   superconductors, CCD chip material, and GaAs.  Most progress
   comes from inexpensive (< $1 million) piggyback satellites
   and sounding rockets, leading to a very large diversity
   of experiments, with quick turnaround time and minimal red tape.
   Most experiments fail, but a small fraction unexpectedly
   produce breakthroughs.  As the industry grows, it builds larger
   factories for the more proven products, with the emphasis on
   quick experiment and production turnaround times -- just-in-time
   manufacturing.  Since the "fabs" produce large amounts of heat,
   large radiators must be launched, which at $5,000/kg is very
   expensive.  During this period only the most expensive small
   batches are produced; large-scale manufacturing remains prohibitive.

-- several new industries emerge, which we cannot possibly
   forsee now.


* technology advances:

-- NSF grantee discovers mass-produced, LN-cooled superconductor.

-- Laser communications increases thruput of space-to-space
   communications by a factor of 1,000.

-- stuff which we cannot possibly foresee now.


2005-2014 Efforts:

* NASA and DoD place orders for comet fragment material:

  -- NASA orders $100 million for scientific samples: 10,000
     times the mass of Apollo samples for 1/10 of 1% of the cost,
     for the most primitive, scientifically interesting samples in
     the solar system.   There is so much, most of it is used
     for materials processing and microgravity physics experiments,
     with a large amount left to distribute among hundreds of
     universities and research labs on Earth for analysis.

  -- DoD pays $500/kg for 1,000 tons of shielding and heatsink mass,
     for the first cometary material captured into orbit.

* Several consortiums compete for these prizes, launching captures.

* Capture technologies are simple: mylar to melt the water out
  of the dustball, a thin bag around the dustball to hold the
  steam, and a redundant array of solar-thermal engines, the entire
  lot massing only 1,000 kg.  No automation more complex than that for
  CRAF, Cassinni, or a 1990-era oil rig ROV is needed, and by 2006 that
  sort of automation is cheap: the cost of the first capture is
  about $300 million, with revenues of $600 million.  To ensure
  little risk, sub-scale machinery is launched on mass-produced
  Pegasus clone rockets for $4 million a pop, and extensive in-space
  tests of all the components are performed before the capture is
  attempted.

* After years of basic research in superconductors and testing of
  dozens of different kinds of prototypes, the first EML launcher
  is produced by Sandia Labs, under the jurisdiction of the
  Department of Commerce in 2012.  It is a Pegasus clone, launching 455
  kg into a high-earth orbit, which can be adjusted to 200 kg into
  GEO or 150 kg to LEO.  Sandia builds 2 of these launchers, one in
  Hawaii and one in Peru, and auctions each off to a different high bidder.
  Patent rights are given away, and other companies build improved
  launchers.  As a result, a very competitive EML industry at
  $1,000/kg to GEO, $2,000/kg to LEO emerges.  Those launch companies
  that fail to buy in, sticking to chemical first stages, soon go out
  of business.

* Effort also goes into gas gun and laser launch research.


2005-2014 Outcomes:

* Gas gun and laser launch research fail to materialize.

* The first comet capture costs $300 millions, and nets revenues
  of $600 million.  The profit margin of 100% sets a new record for
  projects of this size.  $billions more enter from Earth's private
  industries, which all told have $10,000 billion a year to spend,
  compared to NASA's puny, political $14 billion.  The motive of
  private industry to keep costs down and revenue high ensures that
  the projects do not succumb to bureaucracy.

* The biggest market for captures turns out not to be NASA
  or DoD, but industry.  Water ice sheets are used as radiators to
  cool the hot fabs, reducing the amount of mass needed
  to be launched for a factory by a factor of 3.  Silicon, gallium,
  arsenic, and many other chemicals are processed from the fragment
  and provide factory raw materials, reducing the amount of launch
  mass needed by another factor of 3 immediately, and by a much
  larger factor over the longer term.  Thermal methods (mylar mirrors
  are thousands of times more efficient per unit mass than solar cells)
  are used manfacture hydrogen and oxygen.  Business partnerships
  are formed to created refuelable upper stages and stationkeeping
  modules.  The cost of fuel is reduces by a factor of 10 within
  5 years.  This makes further comet capture missions nearly 10
  times cheaper.  Positive feedback: by 2014 the cost of fuel has
  dropped by a factor of 100 and shows no signs of levelling off.
  Betwen 2010 and 2014 pharmaceutical, semiconductor, etc.
  production goes from $100 million a year to $100 billion a year,
  with the mass thruput increasing by a factor of 10,000 and prices
  dropping by a factor of 10.  By 2014, over one-fourth of the world's
  semiconductors, one-tenth of the pharmaceuticals, and many other
  products made in the vacuum and microgravity of space from
  comet fragment material.


2015-2024 Efforts/Results:

* Given the factor 100 drop in fuel cost, and factor of 1,000 drop
  in the cost of water and other basic life-support elements, and
  a growing in-space industrial infrastructure, industry starts designing
  quarters for human mechanics and near-site teleoperators.  The
  obsolete concept of a "space station", whether a Von Braun
  wheel or a NASA tin can on struts, is never considered.
  Instead, the first space settlement -- and it is a long-term habitat,
  because manned launch costs are still $2,000/lb. or higher, and
  industry does not need mechanics who have to come home every year --
  is built around a rotating tether, based on earlier research on
  high tensile-strength materials.  At each end is a large domes carved
  from comet fragment ice.  As with all captured ice, it is surrounded
  by thin layers or bags that reflect sunlight and do no degrade in the
  space environment, materials knowledge gained from LDEF and its numerous
  smaller follow-ons, each of which built on the findings of the previous.
  Volatile elements are plentiful; recycling is only needed to minimize
  garbage.  Even before the first humans to permanently settle space
  (Mir long since went bankrupt) arrive, large greenhouses have been
  carved out of the comet by ROVs, and a wide variety of food planted.
  (Former President Quayle is pleased to see Belgian Endive included :-)
  The gravity is needed for health and efficiency; an unhealthy crew
  that spends a big chunk of each workday exercising and going to the
  john is not worthwhile.  The cost of adding the tether is
  insignificant compared to the improved crew morale and productivity.

  As a result, living costs have been reduced from the bizarre $1,000
  million per man*year of the cancelled Freedom proposal, to a reasonable
  $3.75 million per year: a factor of 266 reduction in the cost of
  manned spaceflight, bringing it within reach of industry.  At this
  time also space tourism, aborted in the ill-fated Mir Lottery of
  1990, also begins with a much more solid economic footing.

* Using technology and know-how gained from comet captures, and
  having by now millions of well-tracked asteroids to choose from,
  industry undertakes the first capture of earth-crossing and
  Jupiter-crossing asteroids.

New industries emerge:

* Solar Power Satellites, built from asteroid materials.  The
  first market is to supply the appetite of space industries
  themselves.  The second market is Japan, where 150 million people pay
  $.20/kwh for electricity.  At first small (< 100 kw) arrays are
  launched from Earth, later larger (< 10 MW) arrays are crudely
  manfuctured from comet dust.  By 2024 100 GW powersats are being
  manufactured from asteroid regolith and placed in GEO orbit over the
  equator beneath Japan, Europe, and elsewhere.

* Containerless processed metals, aluminum foam, and thousands of
  other new materials are produced and exported to Earth.

2015-2024 Outcome:

* By 2024 there are 200 people living permanently in space; 70
  new people in 2024 alone.  They all earn their keep.

* By 2024 1/10 of Earth's electricity comes from SPS.  A significant
  amount is also used in space itself by the other exporting industries.

* By 2024 space exports $1,000 billion per year to Earth, 1% of the total
  human GNP.

* Motivated by the space industry and increased wealth in general,
  spending on exploration increases:  permanent science stations
  exist around or on all the planets and moons in the solar system.


2025 - 2034 Efforts:

* In 2025 the first interstellar probe is launched: a 1,000 kg
  payload is powered by a 10,000 ton Bussard Ramjet manufactured
  from an asteroid in situ, and accelerated to intersteller ramjet
  speed by 100,000 tons of comet deuterium.  The mission: fly
  through 5 star systems within 50 years, star-aerobraking 200 kg
  telescopes that are permanently captured into each system and take
  pictures of all major planets, dust belts, etc. over a lifetime
  of 25 years.  First stop: Alpha Centauri.

* By 2029, NASA puts permanent manned bases on both the Moon and Mars: a
  frivolous, nostalgic exercise done for $8 billion, only 2% of the
  cost NASA proposed in 1990, and not far from the same time frame.
  Statistical historians calculate that if NASA had chosen SEI instead of
  the asteroid-search and advanced-tech programs in the mid-90's,
  a straightforward extrapolation of NASA delays and cost overruns
  up to that point would have put humans on Mars well after 2029, at
  a cost not one hundred but three hundred times as high as what, thanks
  to the hard work of explorers and researchers, actually occured.

* Industry continues to expand: 100,000 GW of SPS are put in every
  year, part export and part space industry use.

* Rotating tethers are manufactured from comet material.  By
  simple scheduling, tethers raise humans and cargo from high-altitude
  balloons into orbit, while mass is simultaneously dropped, parachuting
  into the ocean.  As a result, the cost of human and cargo into
  L-4 or L-5 (by far the largest industrial regions) drops from
  from $10,000/lb. to $100/lb. in a decade.

  Research continues towards "beanstalk"-type materials to lower the
  cost still further.

* Industry switches from tethered ice shelters to melted, hollowed
  out asteroids with hundreds of square kilometers of living space
  each.  Energy to melt the asteroids is solar-thermal, trivially
  cheap from vapor-deposited mylar mirrors.  _Cooling_ is the hard
  part: injection and bathing in cold comet gases.  For a cost
  of $10 billion, 100,000 square kilometers are created during
  this decade, providing homes for 100,000 immigrants per year by
  2034, as well as farms and a nature preserve.   The cost of living
  is still high, so most immigrants work for $10 million per year
  wages in the space industries.   Unmarried or "space-widowed" workers
  are replaced by families.

* By 2034 50% of the world's electricity comes from SPS, and
  5% of the world's manufactured goods come from orbital factories.
  Space exports $10,000 billion per year to Earth, 5% of the total
  human GNP.   This is $100 million per worker, though the actual
  wage is only $10 million per year, since the capital investment
  from Earth and the levels of automation are still very high.


I refuse to speculate further.  :-)



--
Nick Szabo                [e-mail]
"If you understand something the first time you see it, you probably
knew it already.  The more bewildered you are, the more successful
the mission was." -- Ed Stone, Voyager space explorer

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V13 #578
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