Hey Raoul! Rien a dire a propos de la poesie? J'ai pensee a toi, et tes commentaires culturels, quelquechose bien manquant dans la plupart des discours spatials, quand je l'ai ecris.

You've touched on one of the key issues for the next step: our approach to space transportation.

Introduction:

One of the key fears that I had when I brought up the transportation example in another post regards a key element in aviation industry strategy.

The big airlines tend to operate a hub and spoke strategy, which happens to be very similar to the EML-1 strategy I advocate for its operational efficiencies, especially at serving a multitude of destinations.

The smaller airlines like Southwest and JetBlue operate a point-to-point strategy which effectively functions in exactly the way that you mention.

The smaller airlines also happen to be eating the big guys' lunch right now.

What's one of their value advantages? They fly lots and lots of the same plane.

The big guys have a variety of craft that they operate, both themselves and in partially or wholly-owned subsidiaries. You need different techs with different skills to fix the different planes with different parts at different facilities and that's very expensive.

When you fly the same plane everywhere you need lots of the same spare parts inventory. Each piece is comparatively cheaper because you buy in bulk. Your techs know the plane inside and out, and over time they'll get to know the entire fleet (unless you use temps, in which case forget that value-added). You can order the planes in bulk, so you get a fantastic price on each one.

Economies of scale are part of what makes profit.

I. Destination-driven design

Interestingly, our solutions, I believe, are exactly the opposite of the aviation example.

In designing on a macro scale for destination specific craft, you'll end up with a lot of different vehicles optimized for each destination. Each one will be cheaper earlier on, as you'll be adapting each one to the minimums needed to achieve the destination, but overall you'll end up having to support multiple and unique vehicle-specific needs.

And each of your destinations effectively becomes a cul-de-sac.

A vehicle optimized to go to the ISS won't be much good for going to any of the other destinations we've discussed. The ISS will become an isolated outpost for microgravity science for scientists that seem rather ambivalent to it.

A vehicle optimized for going to the Moon and back clearly will not serve to go to Mars, and vice-versa.

EML-1 of course becomes a null destination for human occupation and all its opportunities are lost.

You also lose your ability to double-check your systems post launch. You also can't do stuff like go out to grab malfunctioning satellites.

(-Aside- What if we could spend 10% of the cost of ADEOS to fix it from an orbital logistics point instead of throwing it away? Oh the perils of relying on robotry!)

Your space infrastructure thereby has to support multiple supply lines for relatively small amounts of quantities purchased. Suppliers have a hard time justifying the expense of supplying small quantities of expensive custom-design parts.

As we've seen with the STS, they'll tend to go out of business or close down the line to focus on other, more profitable lines of business, thereby increasing, not decreasing, the cost of those needed parts. That's also true with the Boeing 757. There's not enough demand, and other planes have broader capabilities that overlap those of the 757 enough to make them a better investment. Boeing will continue to supply the parts market for a while, then sell off the business to someone else when they can't support it any more.

As the bills mount for the intial designs of each one of the destination specific vehicles (ISS, Mars, Moon), the pressure will mount to make it a best two out of three (-major sarcasm- or better yet, one if we ditch the ISS), and one of the vehicles will succumb to the budget axe.

Within the space community the chasm between the Moon and Mars crowds will spill over with vitriol and bile as each side tries to support its own agenda by tearing at that of the other side (you know, comme fait les politiciens) rather than demonstrating the merits of their own position.

The public will get disgusted and figure out that, hey, the Moon's probably cheaper in the near-term, so let's go there. The Mars crowd that survives the auto-immolation that follows has to go back to their robotic probes for a couple of decades. The public figures out that, hey, don't we have a lot of stuff there already? I keep seeing new pictures of Mars every once in a while, why do we have so much stuff in the pipelines? Why are we paying so much for this? The pie continues to shrink.

After a while the mono-mission Moon base becomes too expensive to support and is closed down. The Mars folks try to make another salient into public opinion, but the public figures that if the Moon's too expensive then Mars is way too expensive.

But we can do it for less than you spent on the Moonbase! cry the Martians plaintively. Yes, says the public, but we've got a lot of very expensive old folk to take care of (i.e. 20-30 years out time frame) and your project's right out.

Eventually even the ISS succumbs to the budget ax to help pay for ground-developed pharmaceuticals and exotic medical treatments.

An absolute tragedy and travesty for our space development, the worst thing that I can imagine in my most terrible nightmares.

II. Capabilities-driven

On the other hand, you can design your space vehicle so that the core piece of it can serve a number of functions and missions with only minor, mission-specific bolt-on pieces:

-A heat shield for the return to Earth sufficient to allow the core piece to be reused. Use that experience to design the second generation heat-shield for use on Mars.

-A propulsion unit for space operations that provides for operation from ISS to EML-1 or the Moon or an asteroid initially, Mars in the v2.0 upgrade based on our operational experience of the first generation.

-Legs for landing on the Moon or Mars. The first generation might be scaled for slightly over Moon gravity landings. Once we've got some experience with the materials stresses in vacuum we can design a second generation to serve both destinations.

-A cargo truss

-A small passenger compartment (i.e. taxi out to the Mars cyclers or just more room for a longer trip.

It may not even be a capsule. It may be a cylinder (we know a thing or two about those), maybe about the size of an RV.

The point is that as you expand your capabilities you're going to need more and more of those core vehicles to handle the traffic to and from your different destinations.

Mass production allows companies to make a profit. It gives suppliers a reason to stay in business. Each additional vehicle costs less to make and less to buy.

It's critical to the space industry to achieve this capability to show that it can be profitable and a worthwhile investment.

Do all of the vehicles need to be designed to some NASA spec? No, just to a standard interface between the components, set perhaps by engineers with the ISO.

NASA will help by buying some of the early ones to ensure access to ISS, but they'll also help by offering suggestions to the designers based on actual experience on the first couple of lemons that come off the assembly line, so that by the fifth vehicle or so they've got the kinks worked out and are producing solid reliable components.

There could be competition between heatshield designers (For the smoothest ride use AeroGlide! The platinum standard in reentry heat shields).

There could be a Boeing core module (with 31.5" seat pitch) and an Airbus core module design a little bit wider in cross section (with Champagne and leather seats).

Everytime time that people went into space, be it to the ISS or the Moon, it would be in one of these. Not all of them would come back (maybe two of three), but enough
Hey Raoul! Rien a dire a propos de la poesie? J'ai pensee a toi, et tes commentaires culturels, quelquechose bien manquant dans la plupart des discours spatials, quand je l'ai ecris.

You've touched on one of the key issues for the next step: our approach to space transportation.

Introduction:

One of the key fears that I had when I brought up the transportation example in another post regards a key element in aviation industry strategy.

The big airlines tend to operate a hub and spoke strategy, which happens to be very similar to the EML-1 strategy I advocate for its operational efficiencies, especially at serving a multitude of destinations.

The smaller airlines like Southwest and JetBlue operate a point-to-point strategy which effectively functions in exactly the way that you mention.

The smaller airlines also happen to be eating the big guys' lunch right now.

What's one of their value advantages? They fly lots and lots of the same plane.

The big guys have a variety of craft that they operate, both themselves and in partially or wholly-owned subsidiaries. You need different techs with different skills to fix the different planes with different parts at different facilities and that's very expensive.

When you fly the same plane everywhere you need lots of the same spare parts inventory. Each piece is comparatively cheaper because you buy in bulk. Your techs know the plane inside and out, and over time they'll get to know the entire fleet (unless you use temps, in which case forget that value-added). You can order the planes in bulk, so you get a fantastic price on each one.

Economies of scale are part of what makes profit.

I. Destination-driven design

Interestingly, our solutions, I believe, are exactly the opposite of the aviation example.

In designing on a macro scale for destination specific craft, you'll end up with a lot of different vehicles optimized for each destination. Each one will be cheaper earlier on, as you'll be adapting each one to the minimums needed to achieve the destination, but overall you'll end up having to support multiple and unique vehicle-specific needs.

And each of your destinations effectively becomes a cul-de-sac.

A vehicle optimized to go to the ISS won't be much good for going to any of the other destinations we've discussed. The ISS will become an isolated outpost for microgravity science for scientists that seem rather ambivalent to it.

A vehicle optimized for going to the Moon and back clearly will not serve to go to Mars, and vice-versa.

EML-1 of course becomes a null destination for human occupation and all its opportunities are lost.

You also lose your ability to double-check your systems post launch. You also can't do stuff like go out to grab malfunctioning satellites.

(-Aside- What if we could spend 10% of the cost of ADEOS to fix it from an orbital logistics point instead of throwing it away? Oh the perils of relying on robotry!)

Your space infrastructure thereby has to support multiple supply lines for relatively small amounts of quantities purchased. Suppliers have a hard time justifying the expense of supplying small quantities of expensive custom-design parts.

As we've seen with the STS, they'll tend to go out of business or close down the line to focus on other, more profitable lines of business, thereby increasing, not decreasing, the cost of those needed parts. That's also true with the Boeing 757. There's not enough demand, and other planes have broader capabilities that overlap those of the 757 enough to make them a better investment. Boeing will continue to supply the parts market for a while, then sell off the business to someone else when they can't support it any more.

As the bills mount for the intial designs of each one of the destination specific vehicles (ISS, Mars, Moon), the pressure will mount to make it a best two out of three (-major sarcasm- or better yet, one if we ditch the ISS), and one of the vehicles will succumb to the budget axe.

Within the space comion

Hmm, I like that idea. A recreational vehicle sized cylinder. Something for about half a dozen people. I can't believe I ever just assumed "capsule".

I've never been partial to a lifting body, as cool as they are. How much do we ever really use the full cross-range capability of the Shuttle anyway?

Put the heat shield on the end with a parachute on the other? Offset the center of mass to ensure proper re-entry profile? Use a lengthwise shield? Oh this is cool.

Thanks for the idea, Raoul,
Ken