Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 05:29:34 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #384 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk 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 ) Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to "space@isu.isunet.edu", and (un)subscription requests of the form "Subscribe Space " to one of these addresses: listserv@uga (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle (THENET), or space-REQUEST@isu.isunet.edu (Internet). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1993 20:23:30 GMT From: Nick Szabo 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 szabo@techboook.com ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 93 07:58:37 GMT From: Mikael Jargelius 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 - mikael@inmic.se * Swedish Institute of Microelectronics * * * --------------------------------------------------------------- * ------------- ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 93 09:54:33 GMT From: Greg Stewart-Nicholls Subject: Speculation: the extension of TCP/IP and DNS into large light lag enviroments Newsgroups: alt.internet.services,sci.space In <1ovhnjINNpv7@gap.caltech.edu> 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 ... nicho@vnet.ibm.com (business) or nicho@olympus.demon.co.uk (private) ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 93 08:12:42 GMT From: William Reiken Subject: Terraformers (was Re: How to cool Venus) Newsgroups: sci.space In article , mt90dac@brunel.ac.uk (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 Subject: the call to space (was Re: Clueless Szaboisms ) Newsgroups: sci.space In article , pgf@srl01.cacs.usl.edu ("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... ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 384 ------------------------------