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Launch Limits Lifted
TOTKChief writes: "Apparently, Uncle Sam now doesn't want to keep an artificial advantage in commercial spaceflight launches. I personally think this is great -- allowing commercial booster companies unfettered access to space will allow for market action to take place, which should eventually drive down launch costs and allow for R&D efforts to further lower launch costs. " What's going on is that Russian rockets don't have sales caps here - or at least they're expiring, and aren't being renewed. This means more launches with Russian rockets, which means more stuff, hopefully, going into space.
Here's something I wrote over 10 years ago about this ridiculous situation:
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 89 10:46:54 PDTo m!jim@angband.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
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From: mordor!lll-tis!oodis01!riacs!rutgers!pnet01.cts.c
To: ucsd!nosc!crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: re: Private launch costs
John Roberts writes:
> Another problem: the USSR has just one "company" to supply all its launch
> needs. If the US has 10 private launch companies, will it have to have 10
> times the USSR's launch volume for all the companies to have good economy
> of scale?
The Soviet government's effectiveness in space activities can, in general,
be attributed to the fact that while our private sector is more effective
than the Soviet public sector, our public sector is LESS effective than
the Soviet public sector. Why this is so becomes obvious when you
consider that the Soviet public sector has no private sector to tax --
any costs are born by itself, directly, whereas in the US (and other
relatively free market economies) the governments have the luxury of
becoming fat and lazy at the expense of the private sector.
It is a simple matter of accountability, the US private sector is
most accountable for its costs, the Soviet system is next most
accountable for its costs and the US government is least accountable
for its costs.
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Jim Bowery Phone: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981 Join the Mark Hopkins Society!
La Jolla, CA 92038 (A member of the Mark Hopkins family of organizations.)
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Seastead this.
There is more to it than "protecting an American monopoly". The production of launch vehicles is a strategic industry. For national security, the USA must have a viable, domestic launch capability. Some payloads are too sensitive to be launched on foreign launch vehicles. The Russians and French may not always be willing to launch American satellites. It is in the USA's interest to keep both the Russian and American industries healthy.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
This won't markedly increase the "stuff going into space" anytime soon. For that you need a market, and right now, that market is pretty stable. From 1990 to present, there have been around 150 satellites a year launched on an average of about 70 rockets. Even the big build-up of satellite constellations in the late 90s (along with the entry of new spacefaring nations like Brazil and India) didn't change this much, although for a time, it resulted in much rocketry investment and several startups in the cheap-access-to-space field.
But make no mistake: with Iridium failing to sell at a penny on the dollar (that's right, 1% of the investment so far, and the buyer walked away), its strongest competitor Globalstar perilously close to bankruptcy, ICO just emerging from Chapter 11, Orbcomm losing money despite orders, and so on, the LEO constellation market is pretty much over and done with.
[See Lloyd's Satellite Constellations for more info.]
With the end of speculation in the LEO constellation business [as well as a tanking tech stock sector], Rotary Rocket failed to get further investment despite an operational vehicle. This pretty much put the kibosh on anyone like Kistler or Beal or energizing the Cheap Access to Space market by dramatically reducing launch costs, at least anytime soon.
It may seem counterintuitive, but there actually are only a limited number of things you can do in space. Communications satellites in GEO are one; scientific satellites in LEO are another. And there are already plenty of commercial devices selling the data they collect.
What the launch limitations did was two things. First, they were political cover for an administration burned by Loral malfeasance in assisting China with a launch. Second, they were a simple protectionist measure aimed at giving homegrown companies (Rotary, Beal, Kistler) a window in which to develop vehicles and compete for business against the established American leaders, Boeing and Lockmart.
The irony is that most post-Soviet space vendors (Khrunichev, Energiya, Ukraine's Sea Launch) have partnered with one or more of the leading American vendors, who are now able to steer customers to a "preferred" international partner, in effect recapturing lost business. There has been no new American vendor to reach maturity. Whether these quasi-monopolies constitute improved American competition for the global satellite business, which pretty much remains a zero-sum game, is an exercise for the reader.
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{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
The concept of limiting US access to Russian space hardware really irks me. What the earlier restriction basically did was blackmail Russia into accepting the US terms. Russia needs Western capital to support their space program, and this law used that need to protect an American monopoly. This is no different from Microsoft tactics, using an organizations weight to manipulate the internal affairs of another country. Forcing Russian companies to make costs no more than 7.5% less than Western prices under the threat of losing that critical business seems, at least on the surface to be nuts. It hurts Russia, meaning we have to continue to pour money into their economy through non-job-creating means such as foreign aid and IMF loans, and it hurts American companies who need cheaper access to space.
Thank heavens that the Clinton administration... (wait, that's not right! The Senate has to legally ratify such treaties... that means that this was a bipartisan effort. Sorry, Bill, but you ain't gonna find a legacy here.) got something right. These restrictive and punitive protectionist measures only hurt our economy as well as foreign ones. This is certainly A Good Thing(tm) for both the US and Russia.
I've heard the story, too bad it isn't true. Please stop spreading this myth.
Paul Fisher invested several million dollars of his own money to develop and patent the space pen. See this page.
By the way, pencils are a bad idea. They generate airborne graphite particles that contaminate the crew compartment.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Trying is the first step toward failure. - Homer Simpson
While this will be good for the satellite business, I don't think it will help drive down costs that much, beyond satellite technology. Beyond that you basically move up to space stations or planetary exploration.
Neither of these are particularly profitable, and even if they were, the investment needed would be far too high to outweigh the risk. I'm not sure what money could be made off a space station. Tourism is a possibility, but the market for it is too small, even if you could make a lot of money per person. Medical research is a possibility, but again I don't think there is much of a safe investment there either.
Planetary exploration stands to make no profit, until you have ships big and fast enough that could fly out and start mining the asteroid belt. Current technology levels for exploring mars or other planets is far better suited for scientific discovery than for a corporations bottom line.
So the conclusion is this: while privitization is sometimes good, it's not a blanket solution. The government still needs to pump money into it's own programs (space station, mars programs) until there is enough technology that can be transfered to private corporations that will allow for profitability. Most emerging markets followed a similar path, with most of the modern tech industry being a good example, after military technology was transfered to private corporations.
... with the US aerospace and launch industry, let me just say that you're fooling yourself if this is going to in anyway increase competition and/or inspire Darwinism. The American aerospace industry (at least on the top level) is a far cry from anything remotely resembling that. This move will do nothing to assist the aerospace industry at the level where true competition exists at. Of course, I also believe that it would do the aerospace industry a great boon if we took to heart Russian pragmaticism. The Russians don't have the greatest safety record, but their frontiersman attitude of improvising and practicality is something NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, JPL, etc. should take note of. To give an example, the US spent on upwards of a million dollars researching, designing, and then fabricating a writing tool that could write in space, upside down, under water, etc. Know how much the Russians spent? $0.99 They used pencils.