NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/sci/space/18890

Text File | 1993-01-07 | 5.7 KB | 110 lines

Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: sparky!uunet!techbook!szabo
From: [e-mail] (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Marketing SSTO
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- [phone]
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 09:02:30 GMT
Lines: 100

A good point was made about accounting costs in the Shuttle
vs. SSTO cost thread: what we are trying to find from the
data determines what accountingg method we should use.
To replace the Shuttle the amortization+operation cost of the
new system should be less than STS's mean operational costs +
the amortization costs of any new orbiters, facilities, and
improvements beyond the current.  To get a historical
perspective on  what SSTO's costs might be, _if done like
STS_, we need to compute the total cost of STS, including
amortization of the c. $30 billion STS development costs.
When pondered in this light, SSTO doesn't look too good does
it!  Keep in mind that STS promised cost/lb. breakthroughs
every bit as dramatic as currently promised for SSTO; when
proposed STS was compelling for the same reason SSTO is
compelling today.

Cleary, we do not want to do SSTO like we did STS.  I suggest
SSTO strategy should be very different, almost the opposite
of the strategy used for STS.  STS combined astronaut and
satellite launching; there should be two very different SSTO
vehicles for these very different markets.  Shuttle
was designed and built by a commitee from NASA and the DoD
for the vague, sweeping purpose of lowering launch costs; SSTO
should be designed not to lower launch costs for everybody, but
to provide large service improvements to specific markets, for example
reducing the cost and increasing the reliability of delivering
satellites to orbit.  Shuttle was a single design centrally
planned; SSTO should come in several competing varieties.
STS was an entire "system" that needed new launch pads and was
part of a centrally planned strategy that included a a uniquely
sized, dependent set of payloads (Spacelab, Galileo, Magellan, Hubble,
etc.); SSTO should stand on its own as a launcher in the current
infrastructure, launching current payloads better.  For example,
a satellite-launching SSTO should be designed around current
comsat/upper stage pairs; an astronaut-launching SSTO might
be designed around Apollo, Soyuz, or the Shuttle cabin.

Alas, currently the program is headed in direction of the
swamp which bogged down the Shuttle, with strong lobbying
for NASA to take over the project as a new Clinton start-up.
This is great politically -- I came up with this idea well
before the election, when it first looked like the Democrats
had a fighting chance -- but it could be a disaster functionally,
as it puts SSTO down the same bureacrat-hobbled path that made
Shuttle amortization+operational costs over an order of magnitude
higher than promised, after inflation.  Furthermore, most
SSTO designs show astronauts going up and deploying satellites
like the Shuttle, with serious loss of mass for the payload on
the one hand, and limited complement or lab space for astronauts
on the other.  Automated satellite deployment has been used
since 1957, fer cryin' out loud!  Astronauts either have better
things to do, or nothing at all, in which case ferget 'em.

Which market should SSTO go for?  Clearly if there are several
SSTOs for several different purposes, there is no one answer.
So far, the replacement of STS has been a major goal.  However,
the astronaut market has a serious drawback.  It is a market
of civilian space agencies and ephemeral political winds.
These agencies up until now have insisted on having a central role
in designing and "man-rating" astronaut spacecraft.

Perhaps we can change this habit, both through politically efforts and
by the marketing of astronaut-SSTO to multiple space agencies.
For example, two competing astronaut SSTOs could provide commercial
astronaut services to a wide variety of government space agencies,
including many countries that currently have no access to spaceflight
other than via government agencies of Russia or the U.S.

The market for satellite launch, civilian and military, is much
larger and more reliable than the astronaut market, and probably
should be the focus of the first commercial SSTO.  If SSTO can deliver
cost reduction as promised, the subsisized and glutted launch markets
won't hurt it nearly as much as they have small rocket companies
promising small improvements.  Dramatic launch costs reductions,
even a factor of two to four, make economically viable large new
markets, including cellular phone and direct broadcast satellites,
economical private-sector earth imaging, etc.  An ELV launch operation
subsidized by 50% would soon be spilling red ink in the $billions,
while the SSTO folks rake in the profits!

Given the vast market potential of large cost/lb. reductions,
we should concentrate far more on making SSTO launch
cost reduction a technical reality, and far less on add-ons
such as satellite repair, astronaut capsules, etc.  The goal is to
_reduce_ costs, not to drive up costs by adding on side paraphanalia.
We want to bring big improvements to the current market, not pretend
like STS that we can design an all-encompassing, expensive "system"
that is supposed to change everything for everyone.  Once SSTO is
built and reduces costs for the large markets, then we can add on
the other nifty stuff as economics and politics permit.  I think
we will find that the best add-ons will be radically different
than the Shuttle-style paraphenalia we envision today.

SSTO's improvements for the current space market should stand on their own.
SSTO should not depend on any other new project for its rationale or
its success.


--
Nick Szabo                     [e-mail]