How Far and Fast Can the Commercial Space World Grow?

coondoggie writes "The development of the commercial space industry has in the past been slow and deliberate, but that seems like it's about to change with a whirlwind of developments that could shape or break its immediate future. Today the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics is holding a hearing to go over the Federal Aviation Administration's 2012 budget request, which includes close to $27 million — nearly a 75% increase over 2010 — in the budget for the group tasked with overseeing commercial space development. They're also evaluating the need for a longer regulatory ban. Also this week the Government Accountability Office issued a review of the issues the commercial space industry and the FAA face (PDF) going forward "

Comments

Sky is the ....

[W1sdOm_tOOth]

Oh, wait....

Re:Sky is the ....

[molecule1]

this business is really taking off. opportunities are out of this world.

What will commercial space companies do?

[petes_PoV]

So far the only areas commercial space outfits have been able to turn a profit is communications and TV satellites. There's not a whole lot in the way of raw materials they've been able to exploit. Not that much in terms of tourism/leisure - apart from a few bored billionaires. And no space-based manufacturing or processes that would come close to break even.

So the speed of development seems to be limited by companies' ability to find things in or about space that can be commercially exploited. It's still not clear what else there is out there that would be a profitable venture.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[swanzilla]

I think navigation and weather satellites are paying the rent as well. Your argument is still very valid with those included, however.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[Wyatt Earp]

Both navigation and weather satellites are government programs, funded and maintained with government money.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Commercial communication satellites have been very marginal in terms of profit for years. There is a glut of manufacturing capability compared to the demand.

(AC because I work in the industry)

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[jafac]

Yes. This was a hard-sell item to Queen Isabella, too.

Nor was Spain able to monopolize all the profits. Can you imagine how to even calculate what the "value" of those profits is? We're talking about the "New World".

Now - this is not going to happen in our "Isabella" lifetimes. Whether we ever break Faster Than Light travel or not.
But multiply that above "value" times tens, or hundreds of thousands of worlds.

The word "Profit" seems trite.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[khallow]

It's worth noting that both SpaceX and Scaled Composites both earned profit on designing and flying new launch vehicles. There's also a growing imaging satellite market.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[khallow]

The word "Profit" seems trite.

It means you get more out of an activity than you put in. The moral connotation is just a distraction.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[Teancum]

In addition to navigation, and telecommunications, reconnaissance is also a huge field (of which weather satellites are only a very small part). Google Earth is but another example of this kind of survey system that absolutely depends upon satellites to function, not to mention how businesses like farmers or mineral exploration companies use satellite information to map the surface of the Earth to find mineral composition and "mass concentrations" in the Earth that might yield profitable mining operations. Those are all very profitable.

The one new thing that has changed in the past decade is the opening up of commercial tourism to spaceflight, which is a genuinely new area of profitable enterprises that until now hasn't really seen its full potential. It is also very much price sensitive in terms of a price/demand curve that expands exponentially as you can drive down costs.... something these other areas of profitable business. For the most part, a telecom satellite costing a couple billion dollars to build can fly on a rocket that costs $20,000/kg to launch into orbit or more, so prices points really don't matter. Military and other government satellites or even the big fancy deep space probes are also in a similar position and don't require cheaper rockets. Pretty much the only current activity which will expand significantly if you can get spaceflight down to about $100/kg is tourism. At that point, it isn't billionaires flying but mere millionaires or even folks who won big at the racetrack. The range of people who can afford a ticket expands considerably. It would be much easier to justify spending $500k on a ticket to a Bigelow habitat if you can spend a week in space and in orbit, as opposed to a mere 4-10 minutes in something like SpaceShip Two flying with Virgin Galactic.

As for other ventures in space, mineral extraction and solar power farming seem like fairly good bets.... provided you can get launch costs down considerably. At the moment they aren't profitable and won't be with current costs, but if you can lower those costs to some reasonable threshold and be able to generate fuels in space from extra-terrestrial sources (like the south pole of the Moon), it may be possible to be able to send stuff to the Earth at a more reasonable price. That will take a whole lot of infrastructure development and will be extremely costly as well as labor intensive to put together before any of that can happen.

For solar power farms, one interesting application that may be profitable right now is for remote power sources for military operations. For example, bringing truck loads of diesel fuel into Afghanistan is a nightmare for many reasons (snipers along the route alone are a problem) and simply throwing that away for running electrical generators might be replaced by an antenna array that is much harder to interrupt by some insurgent group. Paying $100/kWh seems more reasonable when you look at it in that context, where even defensive arms can include things like rail guns or other electrically powered devices that are cheap in terms of the logistical re-supply of those materials in a combat zone. Some al-Queida folks getting to a crate of rail gun bullets would find them useless, for example. Such devices simply aren't even possible at the moment at an air base because of a lack of power, and this particular "military application" could provide at least the initial capital to get power satellites started. For civilian purposes, remote outposts like a mining operation in a wilderness area far from existing power grids might serve a similar role. Throwing an antenna grid on top of a deep off-shore oil drilling platform might be a practical and cost-effective way to supply energy to that platform, to give yet another example.

Some other potential operations could be to mix exotic metals that normally couldn't be made on the Earth... due to gravity normally getting in the way to separate those mixtures into their base metals. Some pharmaceutical processes have also been specul

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[ArsonSmith]

you have a pretty liberal, brain washed, view of profit. It means you have added value to something. whether you've taken raw materials and refined them into something of more value and sold it, or you brokered a deal that allowed someone else to get something they wanted.

investment + labor = value add = profit

With your line of thought then everybody in the world is ripping off companies every day because they get more in their paycheck than they put into the company ie ~$0.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[rtb61]

Yes, not much out there at all, just the rest of the universe. Columbus, Cook and Marco Polo all had a hard time at getting funding too. You know what, we all have very little idea about what we can do up there, basically because we aren't really up there yet but, given time people just like you will use hind sight to claim credit for all the things eventually done up there.

Why would you live in a colony in space, well assuming your life in measured in hundreds of years and not tens, you avoid all the inevitable calamities that befall homes bound to the earth, tornadoes, wild fires, hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, floods and, various venomous pests. The only real question is given the opportunity is whether people will participate in a human adventure in space. If greed is your only motivation then can you be considered truly human or are you technically alien.

The real catch with space development is pollution, the more that goes up there and more the commercially greed driven it is, the more minute fragments there will be whizzing about in orbit at high speed waiting to eventually strike something or for it's orbit to decay, often taking many years.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[houghi]

Commercial spaceflight? I can see it now. 3 weeks between a fat guy and a crying kid on your way to Mars.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[khallow]

Value add isn't profit. They can be and usually are different. For example, rent seekers traditionally have profit that exceeds their value add (their value add can actually be negative BTW) while businesses in competitive markets fall the other way.

With your line of thought then everybody in the world is ripping off companies every day because they get more in their paycheck than they put into the company ie ~$0.

That's where the concept of trade comes in: voluntary, mutually advantageous transactions.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[Kjella]

Yes. This was a hard-sell item to Queen Isabella, too. Nor was Spain able to monopolize all the profits. Can you imagine how to even calculate what the "value" of those profits is? We're talking about the "New World".

No, just no. Didn't they teach you this in school? America is where they ended up, but that wasn't where they thought they were going. They were looking for an alternative to the Silk Road, the land route to India and China. The goods to be traded were luxuries such as silk, satin, hemp and other fine fabrics, musk, other perfumes, spices, medicines, jewels, glassware and rhubarb. They thought they knew approximately how long the sea route would be based on Earth's circumference, it was only a matter of finding the way and they'd have a very profitable trade route by cutting out all the middle men and not having to travel through hostile territory. That is why they called the natives they encountered Indians - they thought they had come to India. That was the business venture laid before Queen Isabella, it was a risky gambit but with a high, known reward. Quite different than space, where nobody really knows how to turn a profit yet..

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[CrimsonAvenger]

They thought they knew approximately how long the sea route would be based on Earth's circumference

Yes, they did. Which is why everyone thought Columbus was a crackpot - everyone knew that the distance from Europe west to China was close 15000 miles.

Note that Columbus was a distinct minority in thinking that China was close enough to reach with the ships of the day.

Note also that Flemish fishermen had been drying fish in Newfoundland before Columbus ever sailed. And that Columbus probably knew this, since he was a sailor himself.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "Profit" seems trite.

It means you get more out of an activity than you put in. The moral connotation is just a distraction.

Of course it's matter of defining "you", and timeframe. If it's "you humanity" get more out of an activity than you put in "during current millennium", then it's quite different from "you stockholders" get more out of an activity than you put in "during this quarter".

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[Maritz]

If the Shackleton crater and others like it on the moon hold usable quantities of water then they'd be useful as a fuel source for missions deeper into space as it'd be much more cost effective to get fuel from the moon's much lower gravity well than the Earth's. One thing we can be quite sure of at this point is that whoever finds out the truth about the feasibility of this will likely be a private interest.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[khallow]

Of course it's matter of defining "you", and timeframe. If it's "you humanity" get more out of an activity than you put in "during current millennium", then it's quite different from "you stockholders" get more out of an activity than you put in "during this quarter".

I remain leery of any claim to net benefit over the timescale of millennia. That's probably because I've never run across an activity with large cost to us now and sufficiently massive benefit in the far future to break even, much less measure any sort of profit.

Re:What will commercial space companies do?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Asteroids worth trillions in minerals and a ready source of free energy to process them?

But why?

[MrQuacker]

The real question is why do we need to go up there in the first place?

Communication and physics research satellites seem to be the only thing people are launching. Until more tech that is space-only is developed, we really have no reason to go up there.

Supply and demand. We have no demand, so therefore there is no supply.

What we should be focusing on is how to create the demand.

Re:But why?

[h4rr4r]

Tourism is a huge demand. You get it down to $10k and I will take a ticket right now. Lots of other folks would be buying at $100k.

Re:But why?

[microcentillion]

What we should be focusing on is how to create the demand.

Promise hot blue alien sex. You'll have more demand than you can handle.

Re:But why?

[0123456]

Tourism is a huge demand. You get it down to $10k and I will take a ticket right now. Lots of other folks would be buying at $100k.

One of the space tourism guys was saying recently that there's a surprising amount of demand for spaceflight in the million-dollar range, where people who could afford to fly on Soyuz can't afford the time required for the training (AFAIR Soyuz passengers have to train as crew, whereas a true tourist flight would only take a small amount of training).

Re:But why?

[webmistressrachel]

Hey - how do you know Andorians will like you any more than your pink counterparts, slashdotter? :-P

Re:But why?

[MrQuacker]

Our fleshy appendages arent barbed.

Re:But why?

[dicobalt]

Ok so you will pay $10K. That isn't totally unreasonable, but how many times are you willing to pay 10K to visit space? If there aren't enough sustained customers they will not be able to stay in business. Then you have the question of safety.

Re:But why?

[c0d3g33k]

The real question is why you don't have enough imagination to figure out reasons why we might want to go up there. We wouldn't have those satellites in orbit at all if people approached things with your attitude. The opportunities always seem obvious in hindsight, but it takes a pioneering spirit to seek new ones out and make them real.

Re:But why?

[h4rr4r]

There are probably millions/hundreds of thousands willing to pay that price. Safety is not an issue for many. I am willing to take the same risk as a soyuz trip presents at that price.

Re:But why?

[calmofthestorm]

This, though in my opinion the biggest tech advances to come out of Space exploration are right here on earth.

Re:But why?

[webmistressrachel]

:-) Cats!!

Re:But why?

[hedwards]

One of the ideas I've seen floating around is actually traveling far distances by going into space and then dropping down where you're wanting to go. I think that's the most likely application for this, at least in the near term. The other one being an orbiting hotel.

Re:But why?

[VortexCortex]

http://xkcd.com/893/ -- note especially the alt text:

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

I mean -- its not like our space faring civilization will ever just build itself us.

I mean -- It's not like theres ever been another dominant life form that's now utterly extinct due to one or two slightly above average asteroids striking the Earth -- You can be complacent because you're ancestors were not dinosaurs... I suppose you believe Mammals are impervious to extinction events since we're so prevalent and adaptable (tell that to the anaerobic life that was killed off in the great origination catastrophe --- hint: our oxygen levels drop a bit more, we won't be having this discussion, it'll be the anaerobes' turn again).

In short: Life on Earth finally got decent brains! Let's not flippin' waste them due to insignificant BS and artificially important economic issues -- Anything less than advocating space exploration is burying your head in the sand (and ignoring the fossil record found there).

Those that don't know their history are doomed; There is no second chance to repeat it for some species.

Re:But why?

[spaceplanesfan]

I would for sure.

Re:But why?

[14erCleaner]

If 10,000 people go at $10K each, you've almost recovered the costs of development. Personally, I don't think the market is that big, since the tourism guys aren't really talking about going to "space", just to 100 kilometers sub-orbital. Coincidentally, the first American sub-orbital flight was 50 years ago yesterday. Not exactly a cutting edge accomplishment.

Re:But why?

[Runaway1956]

Right on. Keep preaching, I'll sit here in the choir!

Re:But why?

[Orange Crush]

Launch costs are the killer right now. Com sats and government funded programs are the only things that can afford to get there right now. If SpaceX and others like it really manage to cut launch costs down to $1,000/lb, it opens the doors for a LOT of interesting uses that never would've been funded at today's costs to orbit.

Re:But why?

[Americano]

"Space tourism" is not a sustainable market. Once you've shot your wad and everybody with the money and interest to pay 10k for a couple hours in space has gone (and I think you'll find that the number of people both interested & wealthy enough to do this are much smaller than you seem to think)... what then?

There's still nowhere to go up there, it's a joyride. Yay, you went WAY UP IN THE AIR, got a couple lovely panoramic views as the craft inverted, and then came back down. Now what? How many people will do that more than once? It's a small fraction of the people who would do it once for the novelty of seeing it. So you built out this fleet of spaceships... and launched them a thousand times... and now... we're back where we started, with maybe a few launches a year to cater to the sustained demand - and at a few launches a year, you can bet that the price of each ride is going to go right back up into the hundreds of thousands of dollar range.

If the observation deck of the Empire State Building were the only thing to do in New York City, they'd have a lot of trouble keeping their hotels filled.

Re:But why?

[camperdave]

You say that as if it's a positive thing, Earther!

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the first time I've felt compelled to comment on slashdot. You're absolutely correct. There's nothing else so important right now, as woking out how we can be sustainable in space.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no evidence that the dinosaurs did not have space flight... Think about it!

Re:But why?

[youn]

I think it is actually that big... they are just creaming the market... why charge 10k when you have enough people willing to pay 200k to get you started and test out the system... when you have grown enough, decrease price gradually... it is a more sound business plan... if you ask me though, if they can get the price to $100, it is even is better :)

Re:But why?

[khallow]

Because that's where the money is. Doesn't mean it'll always be that way.

Re:But why?

[khallow]

There is no evidence that the dinosaurs did not have space flight... Think about it!

They aren't around now, well aside from birds who survived things the hard way.

Re:But why?

[khallow]

"Space tourism" is not a sustainable market. Once you've shot your wad and everybody with the money and interest to pay 10k for a couple hours in space has gone (and I think you'll find that the number of people both interested & wealthy enough to do this are much smaller than you seem to think)... what then?

Well, how do you explain the enduring popularity of tourism markets in general? After all, if you've spent a couple of hours on Mount Everest or Paris, does that mean you've "shot your wad?" I imagine that space tourism operators would vary their routines, come up with new trips, build interesting destinations, and do all the other tricks that normal tourism operators employ to create repeat business.

Re:But why?

[Confusador]

I think there's a critical mass of technology that is required before we can effectively create the demand, and that is what these companies are working on (launching satellites to pay the bills in the meantime). Working backwards here: I don't think that we're going to be able to do much in space manufacturing (etc) until we close the life support loop; sending supplies up constantly is just too expensive. Bigelow is working on that problem, but are currently constrained by launch costs. SpaceX, Virgin, Armadillo, et al are working on lowering those costs via various strategies. Once we get launch costs low enough, we'll be able to do more testing on life support, and once we have that we'll be able advance other technologies to sell back here on earth.

These companies are making a long bet, but it's not irrational.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

> You get it down to $10k and I will take a ticket right now.

I hope you weigh less than 5 pounds.

Re:But why?

[Teancum]

So far, the only "space tourists" that have gone up past the Kármán line have all been customers of Space Adventures.... and they've all gone orbital. Every single last one of them, including docking at the International Space Station.

While I think there will be more sub-orbital tourists than the orbital variety, and that is where the talk is coming from, where the action is happening instead of the talk it is all orbital spaceflight.

That sort of blows your whole point away, and it will be several years to perhaps a decade before Virgin Galactic is able to post ticket sales that exceed the amount Space Adventures has procured from its orbital space tourism business. I wouldn't doubt that orbital space tourism might even stay ahead of the sub-orbital variety in terms of both absolute amount of money brought into commercial spaceflight as well as the amount of profit made from that activity. So far, Sir Richard Branson has yet to send anybody into space, so what exactly is the complaint about?

Re:But why?

[Teancum]

What happens if you stay in orbit for a week? A month? A year? Are you sure that you can't do that again?

How many people do you think would like to be part of the first hundred folks who have gone past the Moon in a circum-lunar flight (re-creating Apollo 8)? How about being named the "first person in the 21st Century to orbit the Moon"? There certainly are some folks have egos that large, and even bank accounts to afford it.

It is far more than simply a joy-ride up into the sky, hanging around for a couple of minutes, and then coming back down. While the barnstorming level of playing around with sub-orbital flight certainly is more of how space tourism is currently being marketed, that is merely only the beginning. Folks have been into orbit through purely private efforts (non-subsidized by government agencies) and it will continue. It won't be just for the view.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only I had the money...

I'd send a probe out to the asteroid belt. It would be made to land and take-off from asteroids in microgravity, and do some surface ablation and spectral analysis... The more "interesting" asteroids would be tagged with transponders. This would be the start of a prospector service of sorts. If such a mission were successful, it would create another market for spaceflight on its own.

If you can figure out a way to get a way to get sizable chunks of "rare earth" metals that may exist in asteroids back home, the first ones to do it will reel in some serious big bucks.

Re:But why?

[OrigamiMarie]

Oh I don't know, maybe:

Solar collectors that beam down concentrated energy so we can power the world without burning stuff.

Getting out to the asteroids, pulling some in, and doing all of the messy, nasty refining in space so Earth can be clean.

Go read some sci-fi! There's lots of neat stuff, and some of it has really high start-up costs, but other stuff is relatively cheap and would be a license to print money (which would make some people rich, and also fund the more expensive stuff).

Re:But why?

[ShoulderOfOrion]

Never watched Star Trek:Voyager did 'ya?

Re:But why?

[Americano]

The enduring popularity of tourism markets in general is the fact that there are things to do and see once you get there. There is none of that in space, and we are long, long years away from any sort of "cruise ship in space" experience. If you have no destination to go to, and nothing to do while you're there, "space tourism" is simply not sustainable. Even if-and-when there are "private space stations" the economics of building living facilities in space will keep it a novelty experience for the ultra-rich. Just like you and I don't get to stay in the penthouse of the Trump Tower for 3 months at a time when we visit New York, we'll find that "2 hours of flight with 15 minutes of zero g and the opportunity to take some photos of the earth from orbit" are the tourism experiences that will be within reach of the "common man" - and by "common man," I mean upper middle class.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, how do you explain the enduring popularity of tourism markets in general? "

The fact that there's, uh, you know, a DESTINATION? You can GET OFF the airplane? Breathe the air? Have WEATHER? Meet PEOPLE? (I realize this is probably not a selling point for the average Asperger's Space Whackjob though) Eat food that wasn't freeze-dried? Look, do I REALLY need to explain this to you? Have you EVER been anywhere that didn't involve a game console? Jesus Christ!

"After all, if you've spent a couple of hours on Mount Everest or Paris, does that mean you've "shot your wad?""

No one considers Everest "tourism". Even if it is, it's still orders of magnitude easier and cheaper and safer. And guess what? You can WALK. You can't WALK into space. There's no Nepal in space, no sense of walking where others have treaded.

And there are more cities than Paris out there. Again I can't believe I have to explain this to you! Are you twelve!? And you can go to Paris ten times and still not see everything! Once you've floated in a farty, cramped tin can, well, what then? What else can you take pictures of? "Wow, this time I ate the freeze-dried Mac and Cheese and only puked once! Then I pooped into a Ziploc! Only 10000$!!!"

"I imagine that space tourism operators would vary their routines, come up with new trips, build interesting destinations, and do all the other tricks that normal tourism operators employ to create repeat business."

You're delusional. You can make the same arguments for bottom of the ocean tourism... What is the deal with space? When I had a CRT, I didn't have the irrational urge to visit the vacuum inside.... You guys are nuts. Completely irrational and utterly misinformed on the nature of space. It's just not that great. So there's a few millionaires with egos. How does that translate into the fantasy-levels of space technology you think we have?

Re:But why?

[Americano]

What happens if you stay in orbit for a week? A month? A year? Are you sure that you can't do that again?

Pray tell, what will you do in orbit for a week? A month? A year? What wonderful sights and experiences will you have while you're there, and where will you have these wonderful experiences - on your launch vehicle? For a month? I'm really hard-pressed to think of anybody who would consider a year floating in circles above the earth in a single seat in the space shuttle to be much of a "vacation".

How many people do you think would like to be part of the first hundred folks who have gone past the Moon

Not enough to make it a sustainable market.

How about being named the "first person in the 21st Century to orbit the Moon"?

Not enough to make it a sustainable market.

There certainly are some folks have egos that large, and even bank accounts to afford it.

Exactly, there are some folks with egos & bank accounts. Those folks will never be numerous enough to make "space tourism" a sustainable venture for regular folks. "Space tourism" is, and will continue to be - barring signficant advances in the economics of survival in space - a novelty marketed to the very wealthy. The ONLY "space tourism" that will be within reach of the "regular" people (i.e. upper middle class, nobody below that will ever be able to afford it) will be the couple-hour joyride with some photos and a few minutes of zero gravity.

Folks have been into orbit through purely private efforts (non-subsidized by government agencies) and it will continue. It won't be just for the view.

Yes, it will be just for the view. What else is there to do up there, for a "tourist"? Float around in zero-g for a month? That would appeal to about 30 Slashdotters, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't make a sustainable market. Space tourism is simply a big "Observation Deck," and unless you make significant changes in the economics of survival in space, that's all it will be. And as I said, if the Observation Deck at the Empire State Building was literally the ONLY THING you could do in New York City as a tourist, then NYC would have a lot fewer tourists.

I get the feeling reading these comments that people think we're going to be launching to some massive space station in earth orbit which is some sort of Battlestar Galactica-style pleasure ship, complete with blue-skinned Alpha Centaurian courtesans. There IS NO facility in space for tourism to be anything more than "up, look around, down." Anything else will have to be built, i.e. launched from earth and assembled in space, and constantly resupplied and operated for YEARS with perfect safety while handling a steady stream of cargo & human traffic moving to it from the earth's surface.

The ISS, designed for a crew of 6, has an estimated cost of between 35 and 160 billion dollars. How many tens or hundreds of trillions of dollars will it take to build something that could handle an operational crew of 20, and 20-30 guests at a time? And you think this is somehow a feasible economic reality within the reach of a large market of people?

Re:But why?

[CRCulver]

You're assuming that the longterm survival of the species is a strong motivator for the average person. While an catastrophic asteroid is a possibility, the probability of it happening in our lifetime, our children's lifetime, or our great grandchildren's lifetime is small. Beyond the immediate next few generations, I don't think people care so much. What matters is our immediate happiness. So why is space so urgent? Slashdotters often speak as if the conquest of space is inevitable, as does much of the science fiction canon. But I increasingly suspect that an intelligent race would more likely not go into space. Interesting possibilities I've heard speculated are that it would ultimately commit mass suicide, feeling existence is pointless, or withdraw into a virtual reality world on its own planet, which has its own opportunities for exploration and longer lifespans without the unprofitability and dangers of space.

Re:But why?

[DerekLyons]

The real question is why you don't have enough imagination to figure out reasons why we might want to go up there.

No, the real question is why buzzword filled drivel like yours gets modded insightful. The OP made a valid point - which you failed to address at all.
 
Jingoism is no substitute to actual thought.
 

The opportunities always seem obvious in hindsight, but it takes a pioneering spirit to seek new ones out and make them real.

Hogwash. LEO is a physical place just like Manhattan or Des Moines. We know to a fair degree what physically can or cannot be done there - and how much it costs to get there to do what can be done. The calculations to determine if money can be made from those activities, given the known inputs, are something any first year accounting student can do.
 
Yet despite all the years the input data has been done, and all the years a lot of people have been thinking about the data... the best we've got is blind jingoism. To any rational person that indicates that there is Problem with a capital 'P'.

Re:But why?

[DerekLyons]

I mean -- It's not like theres ever been another dominant life form that's now utterly extinct due to one or two slightly above average asteroids striking the Earth -- You can be complacent because you're ancestors were not dinosaurs..

I'm not complacent - but I'm also not ignorant. Going into space today to escape a dinosaur killer is like walking into an auto body shop to buy a pizza. It's not only pointless, it's stupidly silly - because it's going to be centuries at best before anything off planet has sufficient infrastructure, population, and capital to survive the loss of Earth.

Re:But why?

[FatLittleMonkey]

90 minutes, from anywhere with a space-port to anywhere with a recovery team. $10k a seat would be an easy sell.

Re:But why?

[FatLittleMonkey]

That isn't totally unreasonable, but how many times are you willing to pay 10K to visit space?

Apparently most of the pre-booked flights for sub-orbital flights are researchers. That's a market where they'd go up regularly.

Don't get hung up on the word "tourist", it just means "not crew".

Re:But why?

[SilasMortimer]

The problem with all of this might be a lack of imagination and might be simple arrogance. Who's to say that a creature that had some desire or need to go into space wouldn't find a way to make it trivial? My own problem with sci-fi in general is that it assumes too much. "We did things this way, therefore any sentient being would do things this way."

Of course, maybe they are all oxygen-breathing humanoids with fucked up foreheads who speak English. It's possible.

You're assuming that the longterm survival of the species is a strong motivator for the average person.

It doesn't need to be. The average person is an individual who relies on the group and it's the group that's interested in long term survival. I was recently discussing intellectual laziness with a friend and made a conjecture: Thinking intellectually requires more effort than the average person is willing to spend, therefore few do it; however, if every one of those few in a culture or society was wiped out, there would be a few who would rise from the masses to think more intellectually. Makes sense, doesn't it? We seem to have evolved in a way that we naturally delegate things socially, but if the tribe loses its main hunters, other tribe members will step up to become the main hunters. It seems to me to be a function of the group. Not everyone can take on every role at once, but those roles are important to them.

We didn't need to leave Africa to spread across the world. We didn't need to commit ourselves to the agricultural revolution. We didn't need to build cities or kingdoms or empires. We didn't need the Industrial Revolution. And we sure as heck didn't need to go to the moon. It's kind of silly at this point to say that further exploration is unimportant to humanity, doesn't it?

Re:But why?

[CRCulver]

We live in a democracy. The purpose of leaders is not to "think intellectually" but to carry out the will of the people. If voters feel that space exploration is not an important issue, then government cannot pursue. Private industry cannot bring humanity into space yet -- or possibly ever -- so massive government subsidy is the only option, and society just doesn't want it. Comparing space exploration to humans leaving Africa is risible. Slowly following game through a succession of same or similar climates is trivial compared to getting out of Earth's orbit and surviving in a total vacuum.

Re:But why?

[SilasMortimer]

You missed my point. If I expected our leaders to "think intellectually", I'd be shit out of luck on this planet. The will of the people, like it or not, will always go with further exploration unless they're convinced otherwise and that will always be for a short time. You yourself might feel it's unimportant, and that opinion is just as important as the opposite in keeping things within the realms of reality, I suppose, but the tendency for people to say, "Society is against this," simply because they are against it is wearying.

If you were not yourself alive to witness public excitement when we first went to the moon, ask people who were. You could also read accounts - they're numerous and easily available. Documentaries have been made ad nauseum about how crazy for space exploration the United States became after that. (I was about to make a comment about little boys trading cowboy hats for astronaut helmets, and that made me think of "Toy Story". Cool. I'd not thought about that correlation before.) The moon is "old hat" now, but when the next big and novel thing comes along, people will be just as excited. In general, people do know that it takes time and effort to reach that next big and novel thing, but they also know they'll appreciate it when it gets here.

Going back to my point (of which the "intellectual thought" discussion I had with my friend was only an example), anything beyond continuing to function (and possibly raise children) is something that not every person in society is going to do, but often they can still generally agree that it needs to be done. Few people putting effort into something does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that many disagree with it. Furthermore, if those few stopped doing it, it would be likely that others would take over.

Your position appears to be, "It's difficult, so screw it." The thing is that what's difficult today won't be difficult down the road because people are working on it. Why are people working on it? Because a lot of people are interested. A lot of people see benefits, real or imagined, and more importantly, we have a drive to spread out and expand. Engage in nihilism if you want, humanity as a group wants it. It really doesn't matter what the individual wants. If we can do it, some way, somehow, we will.

Re:But why?

[CRCulver]

After the first couple of moon landings, public support for space exploration fell quickly. Any ample history of the Apollo program will note how the last missions drew very little attention from the public. I disagree that humanity as a group wants space exploration. In a democracy, pubic support would mean real progress, but NASA has drawn less and less funding as time goes by, and polls regularly show that Americans would rather their tax dollars be spent on something else. You personally may be all rah-rah about space, but it is not the only possible future of our species.

Re:But why?

[Therilith]

"We have to go into space right now because the planet might possibly be destroyed by a hypothetical asteroid that could maybe hit us at some point in the near-or-not-so-near future maybe. Why are you just standing there? RUN!"

I agree that it's in our best interest to spread into space at some point, but some people are acting like our planet is at most a couple years away from complete annihilation or something...

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

>because it's going to be centuries at best before anything off planet has sufficient infrastructure, population, and capital to survive the loss of Earth.

It will be never if we wait until the above magically appears.

Re:But why?

[argStyopa]

Raw materials and energy.

One of the caps on human expansion is the limit of raw materials and energy.

Energy: just under 100 million miles from our planet is a massive fusion reactor, putting out 3x10^20 megawatts of power PER SECOND. Never needs refuelling, can't melt down.

Raw materials: at 1997 prices (it's the metric wiki used), a sub-1-mile-diameter metallic asteroid is believed to contain more than $20 trillion in gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium and ruthenium. The iron content of this same asteroid would be roughly 10x the entire world production of iron in 2004.

There is PLENTY of demand. In fact, it's all about demand. The problem is the high initial hurdle of cost/technology.

Re:But why?

[MaDeR]

Sorry, but goverments routinely do things that normal people does not feel as needed.

Re:But why?

[MaDeR]

To survive loss of Earth, humanity would have to colonize at least few star systems before this. Offworld colonies in our solar system WILL shrivel and die without Earth. To survive independently, we would need magical nanomachines that convert anything into anything. And I do not see those any time (read: thousand years, if ever) soon.

Re:But why?

[drinkypoo]

The ISS, designed for a crew of 6, has an estimated cost of between 35 and 160 billion dollars.

The ISS was not remotely designed for minimum cost, it was a technology demonstrator platform. Ask Bigelow how much these structures need to cost. Ask SpaceX how much it will cost to get them there. Don't talk to me about bullshit political constructs made real like the ISS.

Re:But why?

[khallow]

The enduring popularity of tourism markets in general is the fact that there are things to do and see once you get there.

Gee, I guess space tourism will have to do that then.

Even if-and-when there are "private space stations" the economics of building living facilities in space will keep it a novelty experience for the ultra-rich.

Until it's cheap enough for the not-so-ultra-rich. Present conditions will not continue.

we'll find that "2 hours of flight with 15 minutes of zero g and the opportunity to take some photos of the earth from orbit" are the tourism experiences that will be within reach of the "common man" - and by "common man," I mean upper middle class.

For the next few years, sure.

Re:But why?

[Americano]

So let's assume that it's TEN TIMES more expensive than it needed to be. That means to create a livable environment for six humans, it'd cost between 3.5 and 16 billion dollars. Let's assume cost scales perfectly with occupancy, and housing for a single new person costs 580 million to add: Suddenly your 40-person luxury space hotel costs 23 billion at the low end, or 107 billion at the high end. And that's *if the tech can be built for one tenth of the cost it reportedly took to build the ISS,* which is probably a VERY generous view of how cheap we could ever make this technology.

Ask SpaceX? Okay, the founder of SpaceX has asserted that "someday" they will be able to drop the cost per kilogram of payload delivered into orbit to $1,100 / kg. That's not a typo, that's one thousand, one hundred dollars, per kilogram.

The ISS has a mass of 417,000 kg (and change) - again, not a typo - four hundred and seventeen thousand kilograms. It provides living space for 6. Now, let's consider that the ISS' ~850 cubic meters of living space is not exactly the type of environment most people would consider a "vacation" in any sense of the word. So, let's assume that they:

1) Reduce the mass required by an order of magnitude - 41,700 kg to house 6 people.
2) The mass scales perfectly as you add more people - e.g., ~7,000 kg of mass are added to the space station for each new person it has to house.
3) SpaceX delivers on its promise of $1100/kg launch costs.

So, let's launch a luxury space hotel with living quarters for 20 staff and crew and 20 guests. That's 278,000 kg of space station you need to launch, for a grand total of just over 300 million dollars - JUST TO LAUNCH THE MODULES, in your fanciful world where unicorns will someday deliver magically lighter space-worthy materials and SpaceX will magically drive the costs of launching to levels far below what they are today.

Now, let's consider you'll need a construction crew; thousands of kilograms of cabin appointments, food, oxygen, water, and any other luxury "stuffs" your luxury space hotel will offer in order to, you know, operate. And food, oxygen, water, and other resupply need to happen on a regular basis. And a weekly personnel shuttle to bring staff & guests up and down. And probably some sort of shuttle/escape pod that can hold the entire staff, in case something goes really wrong with your luxury space hotel.

And further, let's also consider that none of this tech exists today, so we need to develop. ALL. OF. IT. At a R&D, development, and testing cost of - quite likely - billions of dollars.

You see where this is going? Even if they drive costs down to $1100 / kg to launch... a single 75 kg human (that's 165 pounds, certainly not a big fat fatty) will still cost $82,500 to put them in orbit. You want to eat decent food for a week? Well, how many kilograms of supplies will need to go up too? And how many kilograms of oxygen are required? And water? And... with all this, you think that any sort of "space tourism" besides a brief launch-photos-return experience will ever be anything but the domain of the idle rich with more money than sense?

Re:But why?

[Big Nemo '60]

You're assuming that the longterm survival of the species is a strong motivator for the average person. [...] What matters is our immediate happiness. [...] I increasingly suspect that an intelligent race would more likely not go into space. Interesting possibilities I've heard speculated are that it would ultimately commit mass suicide, feeling existence is pointless, or withdraw into a virtual reality world on its own planet [...]

Geoffrey Miller's take on Fermi's Paradox:

I suggest a different, even darker solution to the Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot. They become like a self-stimulating rat, pressing a bar to deliver electricity to its brain’s ventral tegmental area, which stimulates its nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, which feels... ever so good.

Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens
Geoffrey Miller

Re:But why?

[SilasMortimer]

You say the public is against space exploration, I say the public is for it. I think one of us should come up with figures to back up what we say to prove we are not simply making it up.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Space tourism isn't the be-all and end-all. It'll pay the development costs for the real money-spinner: long distance flights from airport to airport that go into space on the way. That's the concept for Spaceship 3. Is there a market for two-hour flights across the Pacific? Oh, I think so. Then other markets can become economical on the back of that infrastructure. If you can fly up to a Bigelow hotel at a reasonable cost, would a number of new couples like to spend a honeymoon in zero G?

The resources of land must have seemed pretty much limited to tourism to the first mudskippers who made the trip, but look what happened after that evolutionary step.

-Gareth

Re:But why?

[CRCulver]

The public is for space exploration only as long as a negligible amount of tax revenue is spent on it. Saying "Yeah, space is cool" but then complaining about NASA as if it is a Big Government monster instead of an underfunded wreck doesn't really seem supportive.

Re:But why?

[drinkypoo]

And... with all this, you think that any sort of "space tourism" besides a brief launch-photos-return experience will ever be anything but the domain of the idle rich with more money than sense?

I'm trying to see the problem here, and it's just not coming to me. In what way does this impede the validity of the business model in today's world of golden parachutes, subsidies, and tax cuts for the rich?

Re:But why?

[SilasMortimer]

Similarly, the public wants roads, drainage systems, sewer maintenance, garbage pickup, police service, a local fire department, and still complain about the taxes they have to pay for these. The politicians play it like pool hustlers.

As in the previous case, I bet a majority would say they support these things, but would prefer not to pay for them. Would you say that "doesn't seem supportive"? Furthermore, would you support getting rid of these public services?

Re:But why?

[CRCulver]

The public may want those things, but they also might feel that too much of their tax money is lost in wasteful spending. Keep the programs, cut the fat, they'd say. With NASA, the public is unwilling to fund NASA adequately for its goals -- people know that space exploration would require considerably more funding, but are unwilling to provide it (the study cited above gives a mere 1% of budget as a ceiling). No, that doesn't seem supportive, and as long as these attitudes persist, then I don't think it likely that deep space exploration will take off.

People can claim to favour space exploration all they want, but they aren't putting their money where their mouth is in voting.

Re:But why?

[SilasMortimer]

Gosh, you know a lot about what the public wants. As I showed figures from which I could derive my statement and you've showed nothing to support what you say, you must surely have your finger on the pulse of America, man!

1% sounds like a little and you seem to be counting on that. 1% of the United States budget is fairly impressive to me, however.

And how are people not "putting their money where their mouth is in voting"? Seriously. How? The results of those polls are fairly well known and discussed. If the people are so hard against paying for NASA, as you say, I'm kind of surprised it even still exists. Every president since Kennedy has talked about the importance of funding further space exploration... particularly when campaign season came around. Perhaps you should have saved them some headache and informed them that people don't really want it. Better hurry, because it doesn't seem like there are any candidates running on the oh-so-important "cut funding for NASA" platform. At least not any popular ones. Thank goodness the people have visionaries like you to tell them what they really want.

Re:But why?

[CRCulver]

1% is indeed little. The article linked above notes that NASA's current budget approaches that ceiling, and the organization is unable to really further man's leap into space. For years now the longterm focus on been on unmanned missions and mere circling around in orbit.

No, no one is running on a platform of cutting NASA entirely, but no one is running on a platform to massively up its funding to a level where humanity would truly move out into the solar system. Government-run space exploration is thus in limbo, and the private sector is unlikely to launch initiatives that are massively unprofitable.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does that sand in your nose feel? Don't worry, the world will pass you by without harm I'm sure.

Re:But why?

[painandgreed]

Pray tell, what will you do in orbit for a week? A month? A year? What wonderful sights and experiences will you have while you're there, and where will you have these wonderful experiences - on your launch vehicle? For a month? I'm really hard-pressed to think of anybody who would consider a year floating in circles above the earth in a single seat in the space shuttle to be much of a "vacation".

Ya, I think the same thing about the beach. I mean, it might be good for a day trip, but how much time can you really enjoy sitting beachside drinking coconut drinks? It drives me batty after just a few hours. The sun it hot. The novelty of the ocean wears out quickly. There's nothing to do. I'd rather go hiking, shopping in the city, or just stay at home and get some work done.

Still, other people like different things and plenty of people like nothing more than to spend thousands to travel to distant places and do absolutely nothing. And I have to wonder how weightlessness would do with old people. Especially people like my father who is in fine physical health for his age except arthritis of the ankles. He's spent his entire life active: hunting, in the army, and sky diving, but now can barely walk a dozen feet without pain on some days. What would he give (and he could pay it) for a few weeks of mobility again in an environment that didn't cause him pain to move?

Re:But why?

[SilasMortimer]

One could argue that every initiative since Kennedy's time was massively unprofitable. One could also argue the complete opposite. I'm not an accountant or market historian, so I won't even try to go into it. However, that sort of informed discussion is very common and easy to find. But if you're unaware, there have been actual, real-world benefits from the space program during its entire existence. Even up until this point.

Increasing the funding of NASA with the specific purpose of "[moving] out into the solar system" would be a really ridiculous, middle-management type of decision at this point. (Now that I think about it, I won't be surprised if it happens.) It's unrealistic at the moment, but I have a prediction for you: Once the problems with spending extended periods outside of this atmosphere have even tenuous solutions, public (and political) interest will not only catch up, it'll surpass safe considerations.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processings is a fad that won't last out the year."
- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice-Hall, 1957

"But what...is it good for?"
- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of DEC

(source: http://ifaq.wap.org/computers/famousquotes.html)

Re:But why?

[Maritz]

Interesting thoughts no doubt, but we shouldn't rush to anthropomorphise aliens. We shouldn't assume that they have any such thing as consumerism, or that their brains are built in a similar way to ours with similar kludges. Games, videos etc. all rely on the brain's imperfect mechanisms for processing stimulus. Our obsession with celebrity culture comes from our social/tribal background. I'm not saying they have to be completely different in every possible way, but to me it doesn't make sense to project our imperfections on 'them' whoever they are and wherever they might be.

The possibility that our own culture may produce self-improving intelligence in the next 100 years mixes things up considerably, as it might not be anything particularly similar to us that actually takes space exploration seriously, but rather something that looks back upon us as a primitive ancestor in much the same way as we look at earlier hominids.

Re:But why?

[khallow]

The fact that there's, uh, you know, a DESTINATION? You can GET OFF the airplane? Breathe the air? Have WEATHER? Meet PEOPLE? (I realize this is probably not a selling point for the average Asperger's Space Whackjob though) Eat food that wasn't freeze-dried? Look, do I REALLY need to explain this to you? Have you EVER been anywhere that didn't involve a game console? Jesus Christ!

Space is itself a destination. Plus you can put space stations up there or go other places such as the Moon. As to the experience, it's not going to be like anything on Earth. Sure space doesn't have weather as you might think of it, but it does have amazing phenomena such as weightlessness and great views of Earth or other places.

You're delusional. You can make the same arguments for bottom of the ocean tourism...

Which incidentally is a growing business.

What is the deal with space? When I had a CRT, I didn't have the irrational urge to visit the vacuum inside.... You guys are nuts. Completely irrational and utterly misinformed on the nature of space. It's just not that great. So there's a few millionaires with egos. How does that translate into the fantasy-levels of space technology you think we have?

The rest of the universe is in space. Do you really want to spend your whole life in a shrinking cradle and have no wonder about what lies outside?

As to "fantasy-levels" of space technology, I can't imagine how you ignore the past century of progress by humanity. What we'll be doing in fifty years will be fantasy to us today. But even ignoring that, we still have remarkable technologies today.

Maybe I'm "completely irrational and utterly misinformed on the nature of space" by your standards, but I haven't seen evidence that your standards have worth, much less any relevance to a discussion of humanity's future in space.

Re:But why?

[Americano]

Well, I'm sure political snark will make the business model MUCH more sustainable.

Thanks for trolling!

Re:But why?

[Americano]

The founder of SpaceX, who has every reason to talk up his chosen industry, expects that they'll be able to ship cargo to space for $1100 per kilogram - eventually.

Do the math, and figure out why shipping a 75kg human being, with all of the food, water, oxygen, and hell, 30 kg of luggage too, is never going to be anything more than a dream for anybody who is not in the "fuck-you money" bracket of the idle rich.

Here, I'll help: a 75kg person (that's ~165 pounds) will need to spend $82,500 just to ship themselves up. Let's assume that that's a *round trip* cost. Now factor in the mass of all the food, water, oxygen, luggage, and other "stuff" that they'll need to survive in space, and you're easily talking about paying the equivalent of a very affluent person's yearly gross pay to spend a week up in space in a tin can with... absolutely fuck-all to do - quite literally.

That 1100/kg figure is nowhere near what it costs today to ship someone up to space, that's the "blue sky" scenario the SpaceX founder envisions someday being able to achieve, and you know when the founder of a company says "1100 or less," he's pretty sure 1100 is easily 10-20% better than he ever really expects to achieve in practice. Today, it costs about 4,000 per kilogram - that's 300,000 just to put a 75kg human in orbit.

This notion that someday we're going to hope in a personal space craft in our backyard and fly to the moon is a fantasy. Gravity's a harsh mistress, and escaping her clutches is a bitch, unless you know some loophole in our current understanding of physics that will make flying off into space a zero-cost endeavor.

Re:But why?

[khallow]

Here, I'll help: a 75kg person (that's ~165 pounds) will need to spend $82,500 just to ship themselves up.

So? Now we're talking high end tourism not mission Apollo costs. There are a lot of people in the so-called "fuck-you money" bracket.

to spend a week up in space in a tin can with... absolutely fuck-all to do - quite literally.

Just like all those other tourist destinations. Oh right, they have weather to talk about.

I know this is just crazy talk, but maybe the same people who can figure out how to put an operating hotel in space will also use a small bit of that brain power to figure out how to entertain tourists in the most unique environment mankind has yet created.

This notion that someday we're going to hope in a personal space craft in our backyard and fly to the moon is a fantasy.

Things change. You still ignore that.

And somehow I manage to find ways to fly thousands of miles a year without having a personal aircraft in my backyard. I imagine there will be ways to fly into space at or below $1100 per kg without requiring personal space craft installed in our backyards.

Re:But why?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Do you have any numbers to back up your assertion? I've read multiple blog posts, news releases, and analyst papers addressing the market for space tourism. Most of them tend to focus around the idea that once launch prices come down and launch frequency goes up, the cost of sustaining permanent living habitats in space drops dramatically. As an analyst in the launch vehicle industry, I can tell you that this assumption is derived from hard data. If you look at any space project, orbital or suborbital, the single largest cost item in the budget is, without fail, launch costs.

All of the work I've seen done by companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, so far, seem to address this need in the launch industry (I realized Virgin is not doing orbital launches yet). The financial analysis produced by companies like SpaceX and Bigelow regarding the proposed price for launch and orbital habitation seems sound and, so far, neither myself nor most industry experts that I consult with on a daily basis have been able to find any flaws in their analysis.

So what it comes down to is that the new companies on the block are addressing a problem with spaceflight that has been present since the first space flight. If they can troubleshoot that problem successfully, then their analysis regarding the accessibility of space tourism to the public seems sound so far. I am more prone to trust that kind of work than the random reasonings of a Slashdot poster.

Now, if you have some numbers and scenario analysis to back up your assertion that space tourism costs will remain high, either because launch costs cannot be brought down or for some other reason, please link to them so that I can learn something today. Otherwise, I'd like to leave you with the suggestion that you actually do some Googling and research before you make claims like those made above, because a lot of intelligent, skilled people have addressed your concerns with hard cost numbers, and most of that information is publicly available on the Internet (though some of the more interesting stuff is locked away in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets behind a paywall).

Re:But why?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

If you're going to comment on the viability of space tourism you probably should familiarize yourself with the companies producing hardware that is intended for use in the industry. No, nobody is planning on hanging out on a launch vehicle for a week. Most folks are planning on trying their first zero-g experiment with their girlfriend on one of the space stations made by these guys:

Bigelow Aerospace

And before you start ranting about, "Promises, promises...." you should know that Bigelow has multiple spacecraft (space-station modules) on orbit that they are testing, and they are planning on some on-orbit module-docking/mating tests in the next couple years.

And as for what to do in space, people are creative. I wouldn't underestimate their imagination. I figure a lot of the people who would be interested in orbiting the Earth for a week would also be interested in helping trained scientists perform some valuable experiments on those same space station modules. Furthermore, those folks are going to have to spend some time keeping fit, physically. They will spend a few hours working out on things like orbital treadmills and so on. Finally, I wouldn't underestimate the joy that can be had from sitting in an observation deck that looks out upon a truly majestic scene. Unless you're ADD, it's pretty easy to lose yourself in a nice ambiance. I've personally spent upwards of 6 hours staring at the same large tank in a public aquarium before. There's something very calming and Zen about it.

Seriously, start doing some research before ranting. You don't even appear to have a grasp of who some of the major players in the current commercial space market are. Nor do you seem to be very familiar with the projects that are being developed to address the same concerns that you are espousing.

Re:But why?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

People do pay to use the rides at funfairs though. This would be similar, I would imagine.

Re:But why?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I think the problem is in trying to see LEO as a destination. It's not, it's just a stepping stone to juicier pickings further out.

Re:But why?

[Americano]

See some of my other posts throughout this thread. The founder of SpaceX expects that the price-per-kilogram to orbit will "eventually" reach $1100, from roughly $4000 today.

Yes, that's a dramatic reduction. Yes, that means that it's cheaper to get there. It still means that a 75kg human being is paying $82,500 for a ride into space, and that's just the launch - the costs for all of the other stuff need to be factored in as well - building & maintaining & staffing a safe, livable habitat in space for 6 people (the ISS) is estimated to have cost between 35 and 160 billion dollars. By contrast, the Wynn Las Vegas cost ~2.7 billion dollars, and has nearly 2800 rooms, and those rooms cost anywhere from ~275-2000 per night, generally - not exactly cheap.

Even if you could build living quarters more luxurious than the ISS, but housing only 6 people, do you realize what the costs of a night or two in space would be? This is not "tourism" this is "idle rich at play," and this assumes that:
1) They drive the launch costs down as far as the SpaceX founder suggests they will; he has no reason to be negative about his expected performance;
2) They find a way to build a working space station that is both safe enough & durable enough for commercial use, and at least 1/10 the low-end cost estimate of the ISS;

There is no way for the economics of this to work out as a "tourist destination" given these estimates. The BEST you could hope for would be short orbital flights that cost tens of thousands of dollars, but which consist of launch, a few minutes of zero-gravity and photo taking, followed by a return to earth. Instead of saying "I read that it's going to be way cheaper on the internet somewhere, so it must be true," you're welcome to show me how my math is faulty here, and how costs will be driven down to just a couple thousand dollars a week, which would still make it out of reach for many people, but would probably generate enough demand that it could be sustained as a tourist destination.

Re:But why?

[Americano]

And if it cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to ride the ferris wheel, people wouldn't do that, either.

Re:But why?

[Americano]

There are a lot of people in the so-called "fuck-you money" bracket.

No, there really aren't. Because those people would have to both *have the money to afford this trip,* and *have any interest in going.* When you are talking about a plane ticket that costs more than the household income of 75% of the households in the United States, you have a VERY small potential market. Realistically, your target market is people making well over a million dollars a year, and they're a fraction of 1% of the population. And then you have to find the fraction of that fraction that is interested enough to spend ridiculous amounts of money going to & staying in space.

And somehow I manage to find ways to fly thousands of miles a year without having a personal aircraft in my backyard. I imagine there will be ways to fly into space at or below $1100 per kg without requiring personal space craft installed in our backyards.

That's funny, the guy who's actively trying to commercialize space says that $1100 is his "eventual" blue sky scenario. What's the mechanism by which you envision it's going to get even cheaper than that (already a nearly 75% reduction in cost from the $4000/kg today)? Will we build giant pogo sticks? Will we ride unicorns, fueled by rainbows and wishes?

It will always be expensive (economically, and energetically) to push a human being up out of earth's gravity. It would have to be several orders of magnitude cheaper (i.e., in the $10 per kilogram range) to even be possible for a sustainable market. Where are these improvements going to come from? SpaceX thinks they can shrink the number by 75% eventually. Barring some new breakthrough in physics and/or materials science, there's no reasonable expectation that we will reach a price that cheap to enable tourism. We can speculate all we want, and we can engage in "what if" fantasies all we want, but there is no mechanism by which we reach that price point today, or anywhere in the foreseeable future.

Re:But why?

[drinkypoo]

You're a stupid ass. I was making the entirely valid point that there are a bunch of people who will pay for such an experience, so there is money to be made there. If you want to argue about whether there's enough we can do that but there's plenty of people for whom that is chump change.

Re:But why?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

People pay hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for largely purposeless crap all the time. That's why there is a market for luxuries and sports cars. :) Anyone can ride a ferris wheel, the hoi polloi don't get to see the curve of the earth however. At least not for a long time.

Re:But why?

[khallow]

That's funny, the guy who's actively trying to commercialize space says that $1100 is his "eventual" blue sky scenario.

Fuel costs for airlines are a third of the overall cost of the flight. The same fundamental limits exist for rocket-based vehicles. I see $100 to $300 per kg as the true bottom for reusable launch vehicles based either on kerosene/LOX or liquid hydrogen/LOX.

Re:But why?

[notpaul]

"... we are long, long years away from any sort of "cruise ship in space" experience."

Well ... depending on how you define that phrase, perhaps not as long as you imply.

Just a bit of Googling illustrates the fact that an orbital "hotel" (okay, perhaps more like a rented office space available on a month-to-month lease) capable of hosting a dozen people at a time is at most five years away. (Bigelow Aerospace)

Once there is a commercial capsule available for transport (SpaceX, three years), and a habitable destination available for stays of weeks at a time for mere millions of dollars per person, then the phrase "cruise ship in space" starts to sound less and less ridiculous.

Based on current projections from SpaceX and Bigelow, some cocktail napkin figures would probably place a week in space at an "orbiting hotel" in the range of about $15M per visitor.

Definitely in the realm of "billionaire tourist", but already being regularly snapped-up at a higher price than that via Space Adventures, Inc. In fact, it is widely known there is more demand than capacity for such trips NOW, due to the limited access at the ISS.

However, this calculation ignores the fact that with potentially hundreds of launches per year, costs will be reduced significantly. There indeed will be economies of scale in the commercial space industry.

In just one example, such a destination could easily spur development of a large passenger module for the Falcon Heavy rocket, which could potentially transport dozens of people per launch (estimated at $120M). In addition, larger Bigelow stations to host more people are not simply a possibility, they are already in the plan.

It is not a stretch to imagine costs for a week in space coming down into the range of "several million dollars" within a decade, in which case the market opens to quite a large number of people.

I, for one, welcome our new commercial space overlords.

Re:But why?

[c0d3g33k]

The real question is why you don't have enough imagination to figure out reasons why we might want to go up there.

No, the real question is why buzzword filled drivel like yours gets modded insightful.

I won't contest your "drivel" accusation - this is Slashdot after all, so you are quite correct (though horribly redundant). I'm having trouble picking out the buzzwords you accuse me of, however. Was it "question"? "Imagination?" "The?". Help me out here - I want to improve the quality of my writing.

The OP made a valid point - which you failed to address at all.

This may be too subtle, but: "When exploring the unknown, by definition you don't know what you will find." My point is that the act of exploration, of tackling difficult challenges, of seeking out new knowledge and experience quite often yields benefits that are unexpected and unanticipated. Judging the benefits of an activity in terms of a established framework or system alone doesn't take that into account. Negative arguments are easy when taking that approach. That's the lack of imagination I was referring to. The possible economic benefits for this kind of activity are very likely NOT going to be realized primarily in terms of things that are currently economically beneficial, but rather will come from new knowledge and experience gained as a result of trying.

Jingoism is no substitute to actual thought.

Jingoism is no substitute for actual thought. There, fixed that for you.

By the way - "jingoism"? Do you even know what that means? Because I'm not really detecting any "excessive patriotism" or "aggressive nationalism" anywhere in this thread.

Re:But why?

[CtownNighrider]

You kind of proved your point wrong with the Trump tower thing. Trump tower is extremely expensive but its still profitable.

Commercial space industry will not happen until...

[dicobalt]

someone finds a way to replace rockets with something much more sustainable, reliable, and safe.

Re:A real question: Who the fuck is Matt Welsh?

[c0d3g33k]

Ah, young padawan AC.

You should know Matt from his O'Reilly book: Running Linux (now in it's 5th edition).

If you want to know more, go to http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~mdw/

Humurous comments aside

[Colourspace]

I have worked in the electronics (and space qualified electronics) industry for some time, from the component to the system manufacturer level, for some time now. I have seen a lot of progress in the FPGA sector in particular. Silicon now seems to be running 'out of steam', though I don't doubt Intel and the like will continue to squeeze the tech for some time and continue to amaze us. On a personal level I wonder how close I am to my (hypothetical granddads) level when steam was close to its dying days, I don't know. But space really seems to be on an upward curve now. Only yesterday I sent my closest friends links to the Virgin Galactic site as although I have been no fan to date, the pictures I saw yesterday actually made me think that our long promised space age might finally be getting here. I hope so, we need to get off this rock. (and nuke it from space, it's the only way....)

Re:Humurous comments aside

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's "we", and in what way is the Earth a "rock", and in what way are the other planets in the universe not also rocks? You're delusional. "We" are staying right here in our atmosphere protected by a magnetosphere, on a nice planet with all the conditions we need for life... And in what way was a "space age" *promised* to you? The Space Age was a confluence of WWII technologies and Cold War missile programs with a bit of icing/misdirection on top in the shape of Apollo. Big whoop.

Who promised you anything at all? Do you realize how childishly deluded and naive you sound? I was "promised" a leisure society with a four hour work week. That's trillions of times easier than the delusional Gerard Kitchen O'Neill nonsense and THAT never happened either.

As a matter of fact, we've completely inverted the Space Age fantasies. Instead of cheap space travel, we have cheap computer power. That's the total opposite of what they expected!

Doesn't that tell you something? That our physical technology and energy sources peaked a long time ago, but processing information takes very little energy!

As long as your belly is full thanks to the oil economy, you can continue to transform bits into food. Not for too much longer though.

Lets all hope for Skylon

[spaceplanesfan]

The new (well anything new is well forgotten old) Skylon could really turn the space tourism in reality.
To be honest I am still sceptical of their plan, but who knows, that might succeed.
They say that only new technology they will use (and it increases performance of the engine enabling it) the precooler will be tested this June, and that they passed independent reviews by NASA and ESA.
Peoples also thought that won't be able to fly until sufficiently powerful engine (internal combustion) was developed.
Then it didn't take Wright Brothers long to create an airplane.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[nebaz]

Really, Skylon?

I'd never trust a bastard stepchild of Skynet and the Cylons.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[spaceplanesfan]

Really, that could be it. I discovered that project about month ago, and its seems promising.
Besides its like our last hope to have real access to space.
I am also a fan of SpaceX, but I somewhat don't belive that they will be able to recover the first stage.
It flies too fast at staging and has no wings, thus it bound to hit earth fast. I understand that parachutes will slow it down but not
much to keep the delicate tanks from cracking or even bending.
Until now it didn't even come to earth in one piece (at least that is more or less what I think they mean).
Space elevator maybe? but that needs huge counterweight. How to launch one is beyond our abilities. Skylon is probably easier to built.
Using an asteroid is not feasible because you need more delta-v to slow it down than to launch the same mass from earth.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[0123456]

Really, that could be it. I discovered that project about month ago, and its seems promising.

Skylon's problem is that it's too expensive to develop and not cheap enough in operation. There's no known or predicted market large enough at its predicted cost per kilo to justify the $10,000,000,000+ development cost.

It flies too fast at staging and has no wings, thus it bound to hit earth fast. I understand that parachutes will slow it down but not
much to keep the delicate tanks from cracking or even bending.

Generally speaking, tanks are cheap, the engines are the expensive part. Being able to reuse the whole thing would be nice, but if you can only reuse the engines that's still a substantial win.

And NASA looked seriously at reusing Saturn rocket stages in the past. It hasn't really been tested yet, but no-one seems to think it's impossible.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[spaceplanesfan]

Really, that could be it. I discovered that project about month ago, and its seems promising.

Skylon's problem is that it's too expensive to develop and not cheap enough in operation. There's no known or predicted market large enough at its predicted cost per kilo to justify the $10,000,000,000+ development cost.

In fact thats is not a big deal. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that Endeavour will launch costs $1,500,000,000. Heck, the ISS costs about 100 Billion (and rising). Its all about feasibility of it.
Even spaceX despite their uber low cost model already spent 0.8 Billion on their rockets.

It flies too fast at staging and has no wings, thus it bound to hit earth fast. I understand that parachutes will slow it down but not
much to keep the delicate tanks from cracking or even bending.

Generally speaking, tanks are cheap, the engines are the expensive part. Being able to reuse the whole thing would be nice, but if you can only reuse the engines that's still a substantial win.

And NASA looked seriously at reusing Saturn rocket stages in the past. It hasn't really been tested yet, but no-one seems to think it's impossible.

Yet if that engine hits the water, its bound to be damaged, and so repairing it probably will cost more.
A engines that jettison and land separately might be a good idea though.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[speederaser]

If the Skylon ever begins flying it will never be man-rated for one simple reason: engine unstart (hammer shock) is a safety of flight issue. This is one of the problems that killed NASP.

If one of the engines ever unstarts, it will suddenly become a drag producer instead of a thrust producer. With massive drag way out on the wing on one side of the aircraft and massive thrust way out on the wing on the other side, the Skylon will snap sideways to the airflow and be torn apart by aerodynamic forces.

The way the Skylon is now, I wouldn't invest in it and I wouldn't get in it.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[spaceplanesfan]

Interesting.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[MaDeR]

I do not know why so much people have thing for winged spacecrafts. Like hauling dead weight was ever good thing. Good grief.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[spaceplanesfan]

Want to buy a ticket for an aircraft that disposes its fuel tanks and engines during flight?
How much that will cost?
Besides that exactly the point. We are so used to invariant that all that we launch to space must remain there that we think of rocket weight as a dead weight.
That 'dead' weight will be returned to earth and used again to launch another payload.
Of course success of skylon absolutely depends on true reusability. If it will take 1/2 of an year to make the skylon fly again (like the shuttle) than sure skylon makes no sense.
(But I think that maintenance cost of shuttle is much higher that it should be, and it was just a way to suck money out of government - skylon on the other hand is private - so that won't be an issue)

Really the only way to create cheap access to space is to ether create a fully reusable spaceplane or some non reaction way of sending just the payload to space
(space elevator, launch loop, or something like that)
In both cases you don't discard hardware.

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[MaDeR]

"Really the only way to create cheap access to space is to ether create a fully reusable spaceplane or some non reaction way of sending just the payload to space"
You "forgot" about fully reusable rockets. Why not them? Because they do not have these cool wings?

Re:Lets all hope for Skylon

[spaceplanesfan]

Nope, I didn't forgot them.
I believe that its just not possible to recover rocket stages because they move too fast at staging and have no means to gently touch down and do that in predefined area.
It well known that even airliners have big problem to land (with wings) on surfaces they aren't designed to land (even water). In vast majority of cases not only plane can't be reused, but it is destroyed beyond recognition and kills everyone on board - recent Hudson landing is first water landing that peoples fully survived - but plane wasn't in state to be reused.
Rocket stage is similar to plane in regard to empty weight and toughness. It will have a parachute, but it won't be able to slow it down to speeds where water landing won't damage it.
Wings, fancy or not provide the necessary control to withstand air resistance and let it load the strongest parts of rocket/plane.
That's why shuttle have wings too.
The ballistic uncontrolled re-entry (and the fall of first stage) is possible only when the object in question is small and more or less round, then the toughness of material withstands the forces.

Also there is another small issue, the fact that even if we could reuse the stages, they will fall far away from launch site, so you will need
some quite large effor to transport them back.

So fully reusable rockets are possible if you attach wings to them, but NASA tried that for early shuttle concepts and it seems not to work well
But yes, if somebody creates a rocket whose stages are fully reusable (like fuel them again and go) sure it will be the answer, even better that a spaceplane.

A few ideas?

[Dyinobal]

How about asteroid mining with solar pumped lasers, or gas mining the gas giants for hydrogen (or maybe helium if we ever figure out fusion). There is a lot of possibilities but we are lacking some very fundamental things to really make space exploration viable. Like a better propulsion system to leave the gravity well of a planet.

Re:A few ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Helium has other useful applications besides fusion. Probably anything we could sift off a gas giant would be useful.

Re:A few ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any technological progress along those lines would automatically mean every other technology on Earth will be better too. Then what do we need space for?

Re:A few ideas?

[Dyinobal]

The quantity of metals you could mine from asteroids versus normal mining we do here on earth is vastly different, by several orders of magnitude. Plus you can avoid all those pesky environmental problems. Generally in space you can do everything bigger. Plus some micro gravity experiments have shown there are some materials that can only be made there. Besides that sort of attitude would of kept anyone from trying to sail across the Atlantic.

Re:A few ideas?

[Strider-]

Problem is that if you bring that quantity back to earth, you'll depress the prices to the point where it isn't worth going out to get them. Even with a 10 fold reduction in launch costs, such as what SpaceX gives us, there aren't any elements or materials in existence and of sufficient value to mine in space and return to earth. The only possible exception is Helium-3, but that assumes we can develop He3 fusion any time soon.

Even if you were to find an asteroid made from pure platinum, by the time you bring sufficient quantities home to pay for your mission you'll have depressed the platinum prices to the point where it wasn't worth going to get it in the first place.

Re:A few ideas?

[Americano]

Why would we mine asteroids, or gas giants, when we have the technology to mine all those same elements right back here on earth?

You realize that the elements available here are pretty much the same as you'd find anywhere, right? Like, Hydrogen here on earth is the same as Hydrogen on Jupiter? Considering that 70% of the earth's surface is covered, in some places miles deep, with a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, I'd say extracting hydrogen and oxygen right here on earth would be a lot more economical than building a fleet of starships and setting up a supply line to a mining operation on Jupiter or Saturn.

(And let's consider, just for a second, the fun times to be had shipping a container full of Hydrogen from Jupiter through the stresses & heat of re-entry into earth's atmosphere. If you thought the Hindenberg was a spectacular disaster, just imagine what it'll look like the first time one of those tanks ruptures! Oh the humanity!)

Re:A few ideas?

[Americano]

I have a feeling that the people you're responding to have a raging case of PHB syndrome: "Look, coal mining is done by a bunch of blue-collar high school dropouts, how hard can mining really be? The hard part is clearly just developing a rocket to get there. We can make robots at least as smart as high school dropouts, GAWD."

Re:A few ideas?

[Americano]

Why? Are these asteroids magical Asteroids of Infinite Ore? Do they have a super-fast bugged respawn rate that allows us to spawn-camp them, getting enough ore to finally corner the auction house?

You are trying to gloss over a huge number of practical economic issues, which makes it clear you haven't actually thought this premise through to its conclusion.

Re:A few ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is futile to engage Space Nutters in rational discourse. I've tried. They have a religion with absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever, therefore you can't argue with them. Facts won't sway them, physics won't stop them. Let them continue to hoot and holler and drool. Reality doesn't care. One day they'll wake up old and tired and they'll wonder how come no one ever worked seriously on life extension and anti-aging technology.

Re:A few ideas?

[R3d M3rcury]

Agreed. I'd also point out that, as you increase the supply, the price goes down so it has to be even cheaper than you think.

Imagine running across a solid gold asteroid. You'd be rich! But when you brought it back to Earth and started to sell lots of it in order to pay off the costs of actually getting it, you'd end up making less money because you'd drive the price of gold down. That would be true for anything that's available on Earth.

The real reason for mining astroids, etc. is to provide an infrastructure outside of the Earth. The Earth is a wonderful place, but it's kind of tough to get things off this rock.

Suppose I want to build a "luxury spaceliner" that'll support 2500 people. Well, it would cost me lots of money to build. Because it would be big and heavy, I'd probably have a hard time landing it back on Earth, so I'd also need to build a space port to house it. So I'd assemble it outside of the Earth. But I still have to lift all the materials up from the Earth and that would be expensive. Or I could build it on the Earth and design a really big rocket to get it up there.

But imagine if somebody was already out there mining asteroids and making worthwhile metals out of them. Why, I could buy my supplies from them and not have to deal with the expense of getting things out of the gravity well that is Earth. The person who mines the materials would also make money that I pay him for the materials. If there was enough interest in building "luxury spaceliners," supplying the materials could be good money.

But, again, there's that nagging chicken or the egg thing. Why should I mine asteroids if there's nobody to buy my ore? Why should I create space-based ore processing if there's nobody to buy my metals? Why should I build anything in space when all the materials have to come from Earth anyway?

Re:A few ideas?

[Teancum]

When you mention launch costs, you are presuming that the price point includes sending fuel up on those rockets and shipping that fuel from the surface of the Earth to some asteroid and then trying to get a conventional rocket designed for flying off of the surface of the Earth to be able to return with that fuel barely making it back to the Earth.

That is a whole lot of assumptions that I think simply are false and misleading when being discussed about the economics of extracting minerals in space. Yes, a one liter bottle of water in LEO costs $10k for a cheap one and as much as $100k or more when you consider how it got there in the first place. But how much would it cost to extract water on the Moon or from an asteroid and be able to fill tanks for a return flight? That really changes the arithmetic. What about if you could build "Von Neuman" machines or at least a spacecraft factory on an asteroid so you didn't have to ship that metal there in the first place? It would cost an initial investment that might be huge, but the recurring costs might be considerably less.

I certainly haven't gone over the numbers, but it may be possible to cheaply refine some metals like Platinum, Gold, Silver, or other relatively rare metals on an asteroid and be able to cheaply send that back to the Earth (or elsewhere) for a price that is less than its value per ounce. You just have to make sure you aren't bringing the propellant from the Earth to do that.... which is where the logic fails when trying to point out how expensive it is to do stuff in space.

If you drove an automobile from New York to Los Angeles and back, how much more do you think it would cost if you needed a fuel tank towed in a trailer behind your car to make the entire trip without hitting a refueling station along the way? I don't even think such a vehicle would be legal without a DOT commercial license and hazardous materials handling endorsements. That is precisely the logic being used to explain why it is impossible to cost-effectively mine extra-terrestrial bodies.

Re:A few ideas?

[Teancum]

When the California Gold Rush happened in 1849, there were hoards of people who traveled to San Francisco (or overland) for the chance to "make it rich". Some fairly wealthy people spent the modern equivalent of a million dollars or more to make the trip too. Furthermore, in spite of being able to claim they were rich (and many did become quite wealthy), the price of gold did drop considerably compared to almost all currencies world-wide because that hoard of gold ended up flooding the world commodity markets at the time.

In other words, everything you are worrying about here has happened before, and indeed multiple times. Some people perhaps might be bit by the "gold bug" but if there is profit to be made, there are some folks who will take the chance to make that profit.

Also, there is no chicken-or-egg problem. If you have some ore that can be used to extract some sort of element that is particularly hard to obtain, it doesn't matter how you get it, the markets to buy the stuff already likely exist. Even Helium (He-3 and He-4) have existing markets for the stuff if only you can get it to the buyers. That is the problem, not trying to create the market in the first place.

The real issue is who is going to stick their necks out to make that initial investment, and what would be the most profitable initial enterprise to begin doing once you get there. For myself, I think ordinary water will be the material of choice in terms of its value in space for mining operations... but clearly that isn't really needed here on the Earth in terms of owning a bottle of lunar water. Its value is going to be how it is used in space for space applications.

Re:A few ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Are these asteroids magical Asteroids of Infinite Ore?

Pretty much. You've got basically a planetary core without all the pesky overlying rock.

Re:A few ideas?

[Americano]

Here's the problem with your comparison to the Gold Rush: San Francisco isn't millions of miles away in a vacuum that is completely inhospitable to human life, which requires hundreds of millions of dollars just to reach, much less extract minerals from, and ship them back to earth.

By contrast, during the gold rush, a few tens of dollars would get you set up to prospect. Some chisels & hammers, sifting pans, shovels, and pickaxes were sufficient. And yet, about half of the miners ended up losing money, and only a small number of prospectors made more than "modest" profits. Do you know how valuable those asteroid minerals would have to get to make flying out to the asteroid, extracting them, and shipping them back to earth even a break-even operation?

And for your comment about Helium: Helium-4 makes up well over 99% of the helium on earth, since Helium 4 has 2 protons, 2 neutrons, and is the stable, standard non-radioactive isotope of helium. I don't think it will *ever* be economically viable to go retrieve helium-4 from space, since, you know, we have tons of it (literally) down here on earth already. Helium-3 is certainly more difficult to obtain, but if you think building and maintaining a supply line to Saturn is easier and cheaper than developing enough Tritium breeder stock to guarantee a constant supply of He-3... well, think again.

Re:A few ideas?

[Americano]

Yeah, and you're also missing all the pesky overlying atmosphere which is sort of required by the people mining this magical rock. Oops.

Re:A few ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no and no.

First of all, not all heavenly bodies were created equal. Hell some weren't even created in the original coalescing of the Solar System (e.g. the Moon). Not to mention the varying distances from the Sun cause heavier elements to migrate towards the center.

Secondly, not all atoms of elements are created equal. There's a little thing called isotopes that tend to affect the nuclear characteristics of said atoms. For example, Helium-3 is considered to be the best fuel for fusion reactions but 99.999% of the Helium found on Earth comes in the shape of Helium-4. The Helium-3 to Helium-4 ratio is much better on the moon or even the gas giants you mentioned..

The only thing worse than someone who knows nothing is someone who thinks he knows it all..

Re:A few ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only thing worse than someone who knows nothing is someone who thinks he knows it all.."

What's worse is someone who knows very little. Like you. We have NO FUSION REACTORS.

Re:A few ideas?

[Americano]

Yes, yes, and yes. Put down the Star Trek DVDs and engage your fucking brain.

He-3 on the moon is the same as He-3 on earth. There will never be a time where it will be cheaper to extract it from the moon, or Saturn, or Jupiter and ship it back here to earth than it is to manufacture it through tritium decay here on earth. Period. Full stop.

There is NO economically viable future in "mining asteroids" or "mining the moon" or "extracting gases from jupiter." Why? Because we'd have to strip-mine half of Canada to get the materials to:
1) Build a fleet of mining & transport vehicles;
2) Launch them into orbit;
3) Wait while they fly to some other planet;
4) Deploy their super-duper whiz-bang automated mining / extraction equipment in enough quantity that they can reasonably hope to extract volumes enough to be useful back here on earth;
5) Fill the transports;
6) Wait while the transports RETURN to earth;
7) Find some way of offloading the cargo from those transports back down to earth's surface;
8) Relaunch/redeploy the transport back to jupiter. Repeatedly. Over the course of tens of years;

And somehow, all this has to happen *without a single error,* or you've created a significant disruption in your supply line, which ruins all the industries relying on your fancy supply network. Oh, and what happens if the mining machinery breaks down? Will we have repair crew on site? Do you really think we'll be able to send a livable human habitat to Jupiter for a mining and tech crew which is probably 10-20 men strong for a *reasonable* amount of money?

And let's not overlook the simple fact that *none of this tech exists today,* so we might as well assert that we'll send space miners out to Jupiter riding fucking space unicorns, with space leprechauns riding shotgun to show them where all the ore is at the end of the rainbow.

Re:A few ideas?

[Teancum]

I think you forget just how remote San Francisco was in the 1850's. It was quite literally on the frontier of European civilization and required expeditions that did indeed cost in today's dollars the equivalent of millions of dollars to travel to that destination from places like Germany or England. For some of the sailing ships, it was close to hundreds of millions of dollars in today's "inflation adjusted" money.

Not only that, but it took the better part of a year or more to get there, as they had to sail around the southern end of either South America or Africa to get there... a journey of tens of thousands of miles. If instead they took the overland route, they had to do that on foot and for the most part there weren't even roads which were built to get that done. It was also an incredibly hostile and alien environment where a great many people did die due to a lack of understanding how to survive the alkaline flats of the great basin.

Your list of implements needed for a successful trip is very short and if somebody actually had that list of equipment, they would most likely be dead. A successful overland wagon trip to California in the 1850's included a whole bunch of items ranging from materials to smith and machine items to several kinds of domesticated animals to make life much easier once you arrived. As a matter of fact, those stupid miners who brought nothing more than a pickaxe and a bowl for panning typically did die of starvation as they were "city slickers" who knew so little about what it takes to survive in the wilderness that they were usually destitute. Fortunately, most people during the era were accomplished farmers and knew a thing or two about how to live off of the land if they needed to do so. They were used to being self-sufficient.

If people do become successful in establishing a permanent presence in space, many of those skills or at least attitudes need to be rekindled and re-examined.in terms of how people did pioneering activities. Trash heaps tended to be comparatively small because almost everything was either repaired or reused, with complex items becoming heirlooms handed down from one generation to the next. Just that by itself, attempting to develop an advanced industrial society that has equipment which can be repaired by mere mortals because it is designed to be repaired by mere mortals, where you don't necessarily get the flavor of the month for some gee-whiz gadget.... that might have usefulness by itself. Throw-away land-fill in waiting stores like Wal-Mart or K-Mart simply won't exist in a true frontier area, and people will have to adapt with that fact of life.

Re:A few ideas?

[Maritz]

The OP's points are fairly nonsensical I'd agree (mining hydrogen on gas giants?). Your point isn't rational at all however, it's just one big ad-hominem. Are you referring to anyone who supports space exploration? Then you set up a strawman/false dichotomy where we choose between anti-aging research or space exploration. The Space Nutters (your capitalisation) you refer to aren't very common, are they? Soft target.

Re:A few ideas?

[Americano]

If people do become successful in establishing a permanent presence in space

They will not, at least not on any scale that would be commercially viable, and your vapid wishful thinking will not change one iota of the economic reasons for that. There is *no place to go* and there is *nothing to do,* in the "tourism" sense. And from the "exploiting raw materials" perspective, there is no resource on Jupiter that would be cheaper to produce there and ship back to earth that wouldn't be cheaper to simply find a way to extract/produce here on earth.

Your statement that the wilderness was alien and hostile traveling overland to San Francisco just underscores the fact that you don't know what "alien and hostile" means. The environment of earth is an environment that humans are eminently evolved to survive in. Incredibly alien and hostile = "no air, no water, no place to grow food - simply standing there without actively expending enormous amounts of energy and resources to keep your little bubble of "earth-like" atmosphere sustained around you will result in your death." Sort of dangerous = "You might have to deal with dysentery or have to scare off a bear or two, and it's a long walk." You obviously have zero sense of perspective about the issue, given that you are comparing interplanetary travel to overland travel to San Francisco, and suggesting that they are even remotely "similar" in any way.

Re:Commercial space industry will not happen until

[spaceplanesfan]

Exactly.
However, laws of physics are somewhat against us. Its damn hard to bring anything to Mach 25.
Its not even about gravity, Heck, using plain cannon, you can reach 180km, well above edge of space.
Take a look for example at skylon about which I posted in this thread.
It seems more or less possible, and already there are many investors. When they complete demonstration program, they will be given a lot of cash.
It about the fact that rockets are just the only proven way to access space, and we always will want a better horse, especially due to the fact that creating the 'automobile' of space is damn expensive.
If one were to prove that you can build the space elevator, launch loop, a space gun or whatever, regardless of costs it would be built.
Maybe a true spaceplane will be one.

Meaningless growth

[wcrowe]

As someone pointed out recently, our brightest minds in computer science are laboring at ways to get more people to click on links. Similarly, the commercial space industry will develop quickly, but it will be focused on putting enormous ads in the sky, or something equally useless.

Re:Meaningless growth

[ShoulderOfOrion]

Someone mod the parent insightful.

Re: How to create the demand.

[Anonymous Coward]

How 'bout an "X Prize" for the first Moon Base?

rockets are holding us back

[currently_awake]

Chemical rockets are the limiting factor, the tech is so marginal that only extreme efforts allow spaceflight with such poor tech- and that means tiny safety margins and huge flight cost. Human space travel will never be more than a curiosity until we advance our to orbit launch capability. Guns of one sort or another (gun powder, rail gun, electromagnetic catapult) are the only available tech that will give us affordable space flight within our lifetime.

Re:rockets are holding us back

[Anonymous Coward]

Might as well say "never". Anyone with even the tiniest connection to reality understands this. If there were such a great commercial market to see the Earth from high up, bring back Kittinger's balloons. What's that? No one cares? Only some megalomaniacal millionaires? Oh, so it's not commercial then... Once they've blown their loads and a few thrill-seekers will have tumbled around low-Earth orbit in fragile, but brightly-colored tin cans, it'll be over.

The thing about space is that there's no "there" there. What are you going to do there? You can't go outside. You can't touch anything. You can't breathe. Your body starts to fall apart the minute you're weightless. It's utterly empty and hostile.

Re:rockets are holding us back

[cbhacking]

Space elevators are theoretically possible with modern material science, and that science is still advancing. There are other problems to be worked out, of course, but they are *being* worked out already.

I'm not saying I'm sure we'll see a space elevator in my lifetime, but I wouldn't bet against it. There's a huge technological advantage to having one; every other option requires either lifting all the power to get out of the gravity well with you (and nothing short of nuclear energy will do that with sufficiently high energy density to move beyond the "marginal" category that rockets are in), or requires providing all the energy necessary to escape gravity in an extremely short time (the guns you mention).

Re:rockets are holding us back

[MaDeR]

No, it is not possible with current material science. At least not space elevator at Earth. Carbon nanotubes are promising, but we cannot make them in any significant quantity with minimal required quality.

Re:A real question: Who the fuck is Matt Welsh?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come people like you, calling themselves "c0d3g33k" and all kinds of other leet names can master every last bit of arcane trivia about every single language, OS and fad out there; but the simple apostrophe owns you all the time? It's means IT IS. That's all you need to know. The smallest symbol on the keyboard and you can't master it?

Inconsequentially...

[dreamer.redeemer]

...compared to the rate of growth of everything space related after the construction of the first space elevator. The way I see it, every rocket that isn't on a space elevator building mission is a waste of time/money.

space elements

[priceslasher]

The obvious reason you would want to mine elements in space is so you can have elements in space without having to bring them from earth. To make spacehouses with or whatever.

Re:Commercial space industry will not happen until

[drinkypoo]

You're thinking about it all wrong. Massive space tourism, you're right. But unmanned mining robots, possibly partly remotely operated, could be preparing packages which get sent back to Earth so that we don't have to do crap like mining here. Power generation could also be moved offplanet to avoid crap like coal and nuclear plants spewing nuclear waste into our atmosphere.

Regardless of how it eventually happens,

[IronDragon]

Space will be settled by the impatient.

$10k is

[FatLittleMonkey]

Lamely replying to myself....

Commercial vomit comet flights are $5000 per person (plus tax.) For a couple of minutes of interrupted zero-g (15 parabolas of 30 seconds each, spread over an hour.)

$10k for a ten minute sub-orbital flight would sell like hotcakes. $10k for 90 minutes in orbit would have a waiting list of years.

Re:Commercial space industry will not happen until

[MaDeR]

Columb did not wait for steel ships.

just what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

Great.

It isn't even real yet, and we've already staffed up a government agency to regulate it to ensure that it sucks just as much as air travel.

Re:A real question: Who the fuck is Matt Welsh?

[c0d3g33k]

The so-called 'l33t' name is actually my Quake 1 deathmatch name, which involved no more than 20 seconds or so of thought when during its selection. ("Hey - let's play some Quake deathmatch!". "Ok.". "Hurry up and pick a name - everyone is waiting!". "Ok - how about c0d3g33k?". "Awesome - let's play.") This happened to be the time I had to choose an online nick when signing up for Slashdot, and to my eternal regret, I chose my Quake nick. So as you can see, I'm really just a thoughtless dumbass, not the l33t master of all things trivial and arcane you think me to be. It's really that simple. Wait - did you see what I just did there? It's clear I am now its master. Fear me, dread apostrophe, for I have learned your arcane ways. Thanks, Mr. AC - I couldn't have done it without your help.