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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #620

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 620

Today's Topics:
                Infrastructure

Administrivia:

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Date: 22 May 91 04:32:08 GMT
From: usc!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!dali.cs.montana.edu!ogicse!sequent!muncher.sequent.com![e-mail]
Subject: Infrastructure

>>What about delivery and processing of
>>extraterrestrial materials in competition with launching from earth?
>
>Gee Nick, what current or even near term market does that serve? :-)

Didn't say it did.  It is a possible scenario that subsidizing
launching of certain payloads could jeopardize an otherwise profitable
competing venture of a different kind.  For example, the if the LLNL
proposal to pay $1,000/lb for up to 1,000 tons (total tag $2.2 billion)
was restricted to _rockets_, that could jeopardize the development of
an otherwise profitable EML or gas gun.  If it was restricted to
_launchers_, that could jeopardize the development of a comet-fragment
capture mission (a commercial version of which I am designing at this
very moment).  If the prize specifies something neither _extremely_
general nor satisfying a current need, it ends up weeding out alternatives
that could turn out to be better pathways into space.


>I think that is an excellent idea. I can think of two ways to
>promote that. We add a provision stating that ANY delivery of water
>to LEO qualifies for payment. Eventually the payments from the act
>will be so low that only extraterestrial resources can meet the
>demand. When this happens we will see people to out to the Moon
>and asteroids to meet the demand.

Comets, most likely.  But _no_ source should be specified; the decision
should left up to the industries investing the money.

No, I am not seeking investors for my scheme yet, hold those checks.
We have some unfunded space exploration left to do.

A caveat about water: the largest need is not water, but fuel. LH and LO
from water are the first that come to mind.   In the ice fragment
business scenario, most of the money needs to be spent not on the
capture itself, but on processing the comet material into various products
after it has already been delivered into earth orbit, and adapting current
space infrastructure, including upper stages and stationkeeping modules,
to be refuelable.  Not by central dictate, BTW, but by joint business
ventures with upper stage makers.

When refueling is considered, we may find that CH4 could be
a better fuel than LH if the mass itself is cheap: it is much
easier to handle and store, greatly reducing the tankage equipment
(which still must be launched from Earth), and not much less efficient.
A market-driven space economy might choose CH4 if that can be extracted
from CC asteroids or comets and stored more cheaply than LH.

Subsidizing water could jeopardize the development of this alternative.

So the the policy must not only be very general but it must be
ammendable to account for new possibilities as they arise.  We
must look at the market needs along each step.  Doing central
planning stuck along one preconceived, unchangeable infrastructure
is a recipe for disaster.

It may be useful to clarify our thinking by categorizing self-sustaining
infrastructure into primary vs. secondary and current vs. [speculative]:
"Speculative" means only that the infrastructure currently is not
or does not support a primary market; it is not a value judgement on
its ultimate viability.

primary: a space export; serves need on Earth
    commercial:
        * satellite communications
        * remote sensing
        * navigation
        * [semiconductors]
        * [pharmaceuticals]
        * [beamed solar power]
        * [He-3, metals, etc.]
    government:
        * defense
            -- hardened communications
            -- hardened remote sensing
            -- [ballistic missile defense]

secondary: service for supporting primary industries
    commercial:
        * launch services
        * space bus/platform services
            -- stationkeeping
            -- power
            -- cooling
            -- communications
            -- computation
        * [space material resources for fuels, shielding, etc.]
    government:
        * exploration
        * basic research

I contend that the most useful infrastructure development will
have the following qualities:

 * Address primary needs in preference to secondary.
 * Address current needs in preference to speculative [] needs.
 * Address rapidly growing markets in preference to slow markets.
 * Government should dictate design only in those areas it is
   directly responsible for: defense, exploration, and basic research.
 * All other design, development and operation is the right and
   responsbility of industry.
 * Speculative, secondary markets should be addressed only by
   exploration and basic research.

Exploration and basic research (quite distinct from infrastructure
development) should address the following:
    -- pure science
    -- improvements to current industry (this should be
        X-research projects _only_, not development
        of actual operational systems).
    -- research and prototyping for speculative [] industries
       with a demonstrated theoretical capbilitiy to produce
       gains of at least a factor of 10 in some economically
       very important variable.
Most exploration and research is likely to fail, at least for the
second and third categories.  Any one exploration or research project
should take up only a tiny fraction, not more than 5% of the budget.

Here are some good/bad/ugly examples of infrastructure
development, and research support of infrastructure development,
to illustrate:

Good examples:

* NASA & DoD purchase of private launch services
    (secondary service for govnt roles of defense & exploration)
* NASA purchase of commercial scientifiic data
    (primary service for govnt role of exploration)
* ACTS (research project to advance technology in the largest and
    fastest growing primary commercial space industry; not intended
    to itself provide services)
* X-launchers (similar to 50's X-planes and ACTS, goal is
    to develop new technology for the current market of
    launch services, without dictating design or operation
    of the actual services).


Bad examples:

* NASA contract to SpaceHab to build Shuttle module
    (direct subsidy, no market being addressed)
* NASA contract to ISF to build space factory
    (direct subsidy, not enough customers, neither a current
        nor primary market)

Ugly examples:

* Shuttle
    (attempt at centrally planned operation of space
         infrastructure co-opting all alternatives)
* Freedom (even worse: not only centrally planned, but
    "infrastructure" with not even the pretense of a market)


>Another way would be to simply add a payment for delivery of
>water to LEO from extraterestrial sources. By making the payment
>large enough we can cause it to happen almost anytime.

This scheme assumes we need X from the ground and Y from extraterrestrial
materials.  X and Y are better decided by the market, not by government
preconception.  Paying for Z amount of water, regardless of its
origin, is the better solution.



--
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

--
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

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End of SPACE Digest V13 #620
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