Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_3/V16NO384.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 12KB

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 05:29:34
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #384
To: Space Digest Readers
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Space Digest                Mon, 29 Mar 93       Volume 16 : Issue 384

Today's Topics:
                       Commercial point of view
                               Omnimax
Speculation: the extension of TCP/IP and DNS into large light lag enviroments
               Terraformers (was Re: How to cool Venus)
           the call to space (was Re: Clueless Szaboisms )

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Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1993 20:23:30 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Commercial point of view
Newsgroups: sci.space

Michael Adams discusses the interesting idea of an Alyeska-type
combination of megacorps to develop the moon and Mars and distributed
profits to its members.  But what profits? Moon and Mars bases are
designed for government contract pork, not to make commercial profits.
A truly commercial combine would do things quite differently.

Since its inception the space world has been dominated
by government  contracting. The core traditional goals,

the visions of Von Braun et. al., the "next logical steps"
reflect  the socialist mindset: central planning,
disconnectedness from the needs of people, and lack of
economics-oriented evaluation. The world of commerce
has a radically different  mindset than the world of political
lobbying and government contracting.

One of the best ways  to get into the commercial mindset is
to start working out business plans:

* what are the markets to be served?  how large are these
markets, and what are  the market risks (competition,
substitution, etc.)?

* what technology is in place, what needs to be
developed, and what are the technological risks?

* what steps are you taking to reduce these risks?
(insurance, redundancy,  off-the-shelf parts, etc.)

* what is the projected risk-adjusted cash flow: NPV (net
present value)  and IRR (internal rate of return)? Under
what assumptions for launch and equipment costs? As a
rule of thumb, high-risk investments like space
development should  have the following:

    up-front capital              risk-adjusted
                         IRR
        $100m                20%
        $1b                30%
        $10b                40%

Typically sums upwards of $10b only go for low-to
medium technology risk projects  with high IRR (eg
Chunnel, Alaskan pipleline, etc.).  The biggest up-front
investments in space were AT&T ($500 million in comsats,
which it lost when government banned it from the
business in 1964), and Comsat (investors put up $1 billion
for comsat  monopoly).  These were long-term
investments; Comsat did not show a major return for
nearly 20 years and is only now becoming a hot stock
(paradoxically, now that its monopoly has been curtailed).

Biotech stocks typically lose money for their first
10-15 years.  They also have a very high technology risk,
as well as a high risk of FDA  not approving their products
(similar  to the risk of government action in space, such as
banning AT&T from the comsat market).   As a result,
typical up-front capital is $10-$100m  for a research
company with several related  products, with an expected
IRR of 20-30%.  As a result, typical investment capital in
space projects will be in the $100m-$10b range, not
the >$10b range for large-scale projects using mature
technology like tunnels and pipelines.

The hottest new space opportunities right now may be direct
broadcast satellites and phone cell satellites.  The biggest
barriers are launch costs ($10,000/kg to polar, $50,000/kg
to Clarke orbit) and the radio frequency regulatory
environment. Launch costs only need to come down a
small amount (factor of 2) compared to the SSTO orders-
of-magnitude goal.   Remote sensing also needs about a
factor of 2 to 4 launch cost reduction to be profitable
without subsidy.  Contrary to the assertions of a certain
poster who should know better, commercial users
desparately want launch costs to come down, as well as for
reliability to improve. Russian launchers, if allowed to be
offered freely against unsubsidized competition,  and if
marketed properly,  might accomplish such reduction.
The current comsat market is >$4 billion/yr (not counting
ground stations) and growing 10-20%/yr even without
launch cost reductions.  With a factor of 2-4  launch cost
reduction DBS,  cellsats,  and truly commercial remote
observation could expand the market to >$15 billion per
year.   As a result, a fully-reusable, a good marketing of
Russian technology, or a  low-refurbishing cost,
fully reusable _satellite_ launcher could find very high
demand.  The latter -- an  SSTO Atlas-2
or Ariane 4 clone -- is itself a good candidate for
commercial development, if the technology
is sufficiently mature.

The fans of socialist gigaprojects have for years
been predicting the immenent death of these markets
("replaced by fiber"); meanwhile they have been growing
10-20%/year during a recession, Comsat stock is at new
all-time highs (again), etc. in parallel with the
boom in fiber.  Fiber & comsats serve quite different
niches, both are growing rapidly, and technology is
advancing on both sides.

Here are some longer-term markets to consider:
* High-thruput microgravity/vacuum/gas-plasma
processing of native materials
* Native propellants for stationkeeping, high
maneuvarability, orbit changing, etc. for satellites, esp.
comsats and military satellites.
* Shielding for military spacecraft.
* Direct reentry (smuggling, blockade running, etc.)
* Large-array satellites from native materials: DBS, DSN,
ELINT, emergency SPS, etc.
* native precious metals: asteroid platinum group, high-quality
gold ores (Mars?  Mercury?)
* Climate modification: ethane to quench chlorine radicals
(ozone problem), dust in upper atmosphere to block
sunlight (global warming), mirrors, etc.

Keep in mind also current tech progress on earth that can
be spun off into space: designer catalysts and chemical
microreactors, automation, etc.  A sad fact is that NASA
has spent very little of its budget exploring these possibilities.
In general, NASA and its contractors are not interested in "commerce"
except as an excuse to justify  more government pork.  Time for
NASA to shelve the old pork barrel fantasies of lunar & Martian glory.
If NASA wants to stay in the space business, it should devote itself
to turning space into a business.  Developing a commercial mindset is
crucial, and exploring the future with business plans is a good place
to start.


--
Nick Szabo                     [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Mar 93 07:58:37 GMT
From: Mikael Jargelius <[e-mail]>
Subject: Omnimax
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

Here in Stockholm we have a new Omnimax theater. It opened last October. The
first show was "The dream is alive", really nice.

On my way to the solar eclipse in Hawaii in -91 I visited the Rueben Fleet
Space Theater in San Diego and saw "Blue planet" and "Ring of fire", the latter
being about the volcanic areas around the Pacific. That was my first visit to
an Omnimax theater and I really enjoyed it.

In Singapore in early January this year I saw a film called "The first emperor"
at their Omnimax. Not too thrilling IMHO, really..

Mike
--
                                                                    *
----------------------------------------------------------------- * -----------
Mikael Jargelius  -  [e-mail]                  *
Swedish Institute of Microelectronics                 *     *        *
--------------------------------------------------------------- * -------------

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

Date: 29 Mar 93 09:54:33 GMT
From: Greg Stewart-Nicholls <[e-mail]>
Subject: Speculation: the extension of TCP/IP and DNS into large light lag enviroments
Newsgroups: alt.internet.services,sci.space

In <[e-mail]> M. Sean Bennett writes:
>   How are we to devide the domains to deal with other worlds?
            ==
 Who is this 'we' ???
>        (yes I know this sounds mad - but if we have not made some
>   form of descision we will have moonbase.nasa.gov - implictly
>   making that instalation part of the USA..a dangerous precedent)

Umm ... dangerous for whom ??
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
 .sig files are like strings ... every yo-yo's got one.

Greg Nicholls ... [e-mail] (business) or
                  [e-mail] (private)

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

Date: 29 Mar 93 08:12:42 GMT
From: William Reiken <[e-mail]>
Subject: Terraformers (was Re: How to cool Venus)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Del Cotter) writes:
>
> Gas             Volume                  Mass/kg
>

    What about tritium?  There should be traces of it there.

Thanks for the other info also.

                        Will...

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

Date: 29 Mar 93 08:06:24 GMT
From: William Reiken <[e-mail]>
Subject: the call to space (was Re: Clueless Szaboisms )
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] ("Phil G. Fraering") writes:
>
> Come to think of it, if nuclear waste is a relevant topic for
> sci.space, then this should be too... I think I'll post this
>

    She's fine.  I have been reading alot of AIAA papers and as a result
have got the idea that nuclear waste is a relevant topic for sci.space.  Why
not use nuclear waste for powering the thermo-generators that NASA proposes for
their Mars missions?  We are dumping it in our oceans and god knows where else
and it is polluting everything.  We can then advantage of our current level
of technology and develop safe and more economical ways of using it.  Dumping
it all over the world and forgeting about it is just not going to work.

    Dumping it on the Sun has been proposed.  Great, now the sun is our
incenerator.  But the problem is that all the material that we are dumping
may one day be needed for our very survival here on earth.  Either we must
acknowledge that we need to find a way to use it (by recycling), or we will
get buried in it.

    Now back to Mars.  There is no reason that we can not use alot of (not
all, because nuclear waste is not created equally) the waste for backup
power plants here on Earth.  There are very few technological barriers to this
problem.  Also such use will prepare NASA for real use in space and on other
planets.  Oil is not going to be here forever.  We need to ration our energy
creating materials.  And like it or not nuclear waste is already here.  It is
to late to go back.  Thermo-nuclear piles that create electricity are just as
good as nuclear waste buried 25 miles under the earth and not doing anything
for anyone.

    Basically what I am saying is that by balancing our energy resources
oil and other finite energy resources will last longer and we can use more
of them for things other than fuel, ie., plastics, etc...

    Of course the whole thing must be thought out and done right the
first time or as close to the first time as possible.  Of course we can
not be recklessness about doing such a thing either.




                            Will...

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 384
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