From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Subject: Re: Space markets
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 02:31:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.165453.2505@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes...
>In article <1992Aug26.175857.5940@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:
>>
>>Fine. Come up with PRIVATE money, not public funds to build and launch the
>>station. According to you and Mr. Szabo, it's a goldmine of opportunites out
>>there. 
> 
>There is a goldmine of opportunity up there, but it's not coming from space 
>stations.  It's coming from commercial satellites, primarily in the
>communications business.  The U.S. commercial space sector is growing at 
>the phenomenal rate of 20%/year during a recession, according to U.S. 
>Dept. of Commerce figures. 

The Szabo holy grail of commercial development will never happen without
the partnership of the government agencies that he so passionatly spurns.
In the commercial world not one manager of of a program will dare to use any
technology that has not been "proven" by the military or NASA on government
sponsored space flights.  The solar arrays, batteries, power systems and
upper stages were all proven as a military or NASA program previous to their
adoption for commercial use. It is a fallacy based upon wishful thinking
that commercial space development will push technology forward.

Why do I say this? Because I am flying three distinct new technolgies on our
SEDSAT 1 satellite and very little of the money comes from "commercial"
development.  We are flying the most efficienct solar cells in the world (26%),
we are flying the most advanced batteries in the world, (Nickel Metal Hydride),
and we are flying the most advanced processor in the world (SCC-100 100
MFLOPS performance in a 53mm X 73mm X 10mm package). We are also flying the
first deployment of a satellite into a higher orbit by a tether system. Why
is a student group able to do this? Because the commercial world hasn't the
intestinal fortitude to use the technology before it is "proven" by others. Why
are we being allowed to fly this technology? Because we are the cheapest game
in town and we have spread the risk and cost in such a way as to be invisible
to the idiot crowds.

>The market for mobile communications, including establishment of good
>telephone service in the 4/5 of the world that doesn't now have it,
>and direct broadcast is potentially in the high $10's of billions per
>year.  This is much higher than NASA's budget, and in the private sector.
>The main drivers in this biz are launch cost and reliability -- a factor
>of two improvement in each could make a tremendous difference -- and
>communications tech like compression and circuit design.  

Look at the troubles Iridium is having raising their capital for a commercial
venture  and they have a great business plan with a high rate of return. The
prime problem they have is that it is new tech and no one has sufficient 
intestinal fortitude to bankroll them, therefore they are spreading the risk
and lowering their own returns by going into partnerships with many companies.
This has delayed the program for at least two years.

>There might be a small market for automated space manufacturing
>platforms, a la COMET and Fairchild Leasecraft, but NASA and SSF
>have distorted that market beyond recognition.  In the next century,
>there is vast potential for manufacturing from materials native
>to space, but again NASA is ignoring that potential in favor of
>the obsolete vision of astronaut-driven space development.

Where I come from mights grow on a Chicken's rear end.  The fact is that even
though the budget is under extreme pressure, NASA has funded, not only SpaceHab
and COMET but they are doing the all important preliminary work on Spacelab
and sounding rocket materials development flights.  Your statment above and
others that you are making recently clearly show that you are completely out
of touch with what is going on and the character of your posts is one of 
virulent hatred of spaceflight in general.


>There is no need for tiny-market HLVs; commerce can share launchers with the 
>military and civilian space agencies.  The civilian agencies should be 
>following the lead of military and commerce, instead of living in their 
>own world building space stations, then building HLVs to support them, 
>none of it relevent to the commercial market.

In this above statement you contridict your own reasoning. If commerce is so
able to perform without the military/civilian/spaceindustrial complex to
subsidize the costs. 

Space Station Freedom does not need to justify its cost based initially upon
its commercial return any more than the Panama Canal did in its early days.
Look at your history books, the Panama Canal took fifty years to return its
investment to the US treasury in the form of reduced costs in transport and
increased taxes due to the increase in commerce. Additionally the U.S. 
treasury never made a dime on the reduced costs that the canal provided to
other countries around  the world. Making Freedom justify its return on
investment before it is launched with concrete numbers is shortsided and
wrong from the beginning. It is the unexpected discovery or process that is
spawned from the space station that will pay back the dividends to America
and the world.

I have read some posts on here that try to twist some of my previous posts
regarding our efforts to build an incremental capability to launch 
heavier and heavier payloads.  You are wrong and have not listened to what was
posted. That is all I have to say on that.

Dennis Wingo, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Oh and by the way the World Space Congress was awesome. Too bad those who
so easily attack NASA and the Military and the development of space in general
do not go and see how we are changing the world for the better by the
development of SS Freedom and other programs.




Newsgroups: sci.space