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We list here a selection of common questions with regard to high
altitude suborbital spaceflight and the development of an industry
around it. We present some answers and references to resources dealing
with these issues.
- How can a
suborbital rocket company make money?
- Is there really a market for passengers to pay
$100k ticket prices for 30 minute suborbital flights?
- We've heard before about great new space businesses
on the horizon such as talk in the 1980s of microgravity manufacturing
in LEO and in the 1990s about orbital RLVs drastically lowering
the cost to orbit. These all failed to pan out. Why will the suborbital
space companies do any better?
- Who will
regulate the suborbital launch industry?
- Will suborbital RLVs be safe? Will they, for example,
only be allowed to launch from remote sites?
- Is there a danger that strict regulations could
suffocate the industry?
- Will it not cost hundreds of millions of dollars
to certify a suborbital vehicle for passenger travel?
- Could government agencies do more to accelerate
or encourage this industry? If so, which ones?
- What are
the two or three major impediments to the development of a robust
market for private human spaceflight, whether into suborbital
space or beyond?
- How much money does it take to develop a suborbital
RLV?
- Is the technology
currently available to startup companies capable of robust and
reliable vehicles for passenger spaceflight?
- The energies involved in suborbital spaceflight
are about 25 times less than for orbital flight. So how can suborbital
vehicles help in the development of orbital RLVs?
- Why not just use sounding rockets for science
applications? How is a pilot useful?
- Which is better: vertical-takeoff-and-landing
(VTOL) or horizontal-takeoff-and-landing (HTOL)?
- Isn't it true that rocket engines are inherently
dangerous and so rocket vehicles can never be as reliable and
safe as airliners?
- How frequently will suborbital space transports
fly?
- What about long distance cargo and passenger services
via suborbital vehicles (e.g. the famous claims of one hour express
flights between New York and Tokyo)?
- Why did you and others develop the Suborbital
Institute, what are the Institute's key issues, and what was the
general Congressional response to these issues during your recent
visit to Washington?
1. How can a suborbital
rocket company make money?
Commercial applications include:
- Remote sensing & Reconnaissance -
- At 100km a vehicle can see a ground area of nearly 2550
km (1600 mile) diameter.
- Low earth orbit observation satellites typically pass
over a particular area only once or twice per day. The suborbital
vehicle can fly at any time.
- Suborbitals can see a much bigger area than what is seen
by airplanes or by high altitude balloons.
- Space tourism:
- Riding a rocket to 100km will be the thrill of a lifetime.
- Passengers will experience microgravity, marvel at a spectacular
canopy of stars, and observe the clear curvature of the
earth.
- They will fly past the commonly held boundary to space
and can legitimately call themselves space travelers.
- Scientific & Technical Applications:
- Astronomical & space science observation experiments
- Magnetosphere experiments
- Atmospheric experiments
- Microgravity
- Earth sensing experiments.
- Testing & calibration of equipment intended for satellites
and deep space probes.
2. Is there really
a market for passengers to pay ticket prices in the $100,000 and
higher range just for a 30 minute suborbital flight?
As mentioned above, riding a rocket to space will be one of the
most exciting and incredible experiences any person could ever
have. So far, only a few hundred humans have ever reached space.
Millions of people, especially those who grew up during the Moon
Race period, see space travel as synonymous with a positive and
wonder-filled future. Many will consider even a short visit to
space to be a marvelous fulfillment of a dream that they have
had all of their lives.
Space Adventures
reports that it currently has about one hundred people who have
either place deposits or paid the full $98k ticket price for a
suborbital ride when it becomes available (ref).
Virgin Galactic reports that they also have over 100 people who
have signed contracts for the company's $200K tickets (ref.)
The fact that so many people would pay real money even before
such vehicles are available is a clear indicator of strong interest
in such flights. Note also that over 30,000 people have indicated
an interest in flights as indicated by their registration information
entered at the Virgin Galactic website.
The Futron/Zogby
Public Travel Poll in May of 2003 of wealthy households (incomes
greater than $250,000 per year) found that "19% would pay
$100,000 for 15-minute suborbital flight." That represents
a few million potential customers in the US alone.
Note that a flight will most likely be packaged with a "space
camp" type of training period that lasts a fews days or a
week or so. This might also include a flight on an airplane that
flies parabolic trajectories to provide short periods of microgravity.
So the complete package deal will provide an extended and fulfilling
experience that culminates in the spectacular rocket ride to space.
3. We've heard before about great new space businesses
on the horizon such as talk in the 1980s of microgravity manufacturing
in LEO and in the 1990s of orbital RLVs drastically lowering the
cost to orbit. These all failed to pan out. Why will the suborbital
space companies do any better?
First of all, it is important to examine those cases individually
and understand the specific reasons that they failed.
Microgravity industries simply never get off the ground because
with the cost to orbit in the range of 10 thousand dollars per
kilogram to get to orbit, no manufacturing business could possibly
make a profitable return on that kind of expense just for transportation.
The orbital RLV startups of the 1990s did not fail because of
technical flaws. Instead, the failure of the low earth orbit satellite
constellation projects, such as Iridium, Teledesic, and Globalstar,
caused the expected market for replacement satellite services
to disappear.
There are several reasons to be optimistic about the successful
development of a suborbital industry:
- The cost of entry to suborbital businesses is much lower (see
below) than for orbital industries. This allows for a diversity
of efforts to test many different market niches and technical
approaches. It also, most importantly, allows companies to make
mistakes and still survive.
- The commercial markets discussed above are genuine and viable.
- Most industries start small and grow. The PC industry, for
example, was dismissed for many years as a threat to the mainframe
and workstation companies but was able to develop and grow over
many years and it eventually came to dominate the entire computer
industry. The hope and expectation of the SubOrbital Institute
is that suborbital markets will allow spaceflight to follow
a similar step-by-step development path.
1. Who will regulate the suborbital launch industry?
This is an issue of ongoing legislation and negotiation but most
likely the framework will allow the Associate
Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) at
the FAA to regulate the high altitude, rocket powered segment
of a suborbital mission.
If a system uses a first stage, aircraft segment of the mission,
this part will be regulated under the usual FAA AVR regime.
The AST provides a license for each launch of an ELV. The suborbital
RLVs will require a multi-flight license.
See the Regulations section
of the Resources page for further
information.
2. Will suborbital RLVs be safe? Will they, for
example, only obtain permission to launch from remote sites?
Eventually RLVs should reach the safety levels of commercial
aircraft. Until then, special precautions will be taken such as
launching only from licensed spaceports in remote, low populated
areas.
3. Is there a danger that strict regulations
could suffocate the industry?
Yes! The SubOrbital Institute is therefore working hard with
regulators and Congress to insure that the regulations provide
for an industry that the public can trust but do not prevent the
creation of such an industry in the first place.
4. Will it not cost hundreds of millions of dollars
to certify a suborbital
vehicle for passenger travel?
How exactly suborbital vehicles for commercial public space
travel will be regulated is still being worked on as AST develops
regulations under the guidelines of the Commercial Space Launch
Amendments act.
Note that the AST issues licenses, not certifications.
5. Could government agencies do more to accelerate
or encourage this industry? If so, which ones?
The Department of Commerce and even the Post Office could provide
appropriate stimulators.
FAA is a regulator. Their job is to ensure public safety and then
passenger safety.
If this is to be an industry, a business, a center of profit,
then we must have partners in the Department of Commerce.
The Post Office is suggested solely because of their long history
in Air Mail. Air Mail provided a stable market for the early air
carriers. Small airlines, and charter companies paid the rent,
by hauling mail.
NASA can help in two ways. FIrstly, NASA can fund research groups
at universities and other scientific organizations to fly their
suborbital experiments on the new commercial RLVs rather than
on expendable sounding rockets.
Secondly, NASA is also a technology shop. It produces all sorts
of hardware, software, and operations technques that rocket and
spacecraft companies may find of use.
The Department of Defense also can support technology investment
that is relevant to national security. DoD should not be alone,
but that they will have areas of interest separate from civil
markets. USAF invests in supersonic aircraft just as NASA has
done research on subsonic aircraft. Industry invests into actual
vehicles.
1. What are the two or three major impediments
to the development of a robust market for private human spaceflight,
whether into suborbital space or beyond?
- High costs of insurance
- Lack of proven examples of profit in the suborbital industry.
2. How much money does it take to develop a suborbital
RLV?
This varies considerably with the type of vehicle and the applications
towards which it is aimed. Taking advantage of volunteer labor
and donated equipment, some X PRIZE projects will probably fly
for a few million dollars.
Burt Rutan, on the other hand, has reportedly received funding
in the $30 million range for development of the SpaceShipOne project,
which also aims to win the X PRIZE..
However, most of the X PRIZE projects will not become commercial
vehicles. Rutan, for example, has said that he sees the SS1 as
a prototype and proof of principle system and has no plans to
commercialize it.
Commercial projects range from the few tens of millions to the
$50 million range.
1. Is the technology currently available to startup
companies actually capable of robust and reliable vehicles for passenger
spaceflight?
Absolutely. Suborbital is 64 times easier technically then orbit
in
terms of energy, and it's 10-20 times less capital.
2. The energies
involved in suborbital spaceflight are many times less than for
orbital flight. So how can suborbital vehicles help in the development
of orbital RLVs?
Suborbital vehicles may not lead directly to orbital vehicles
but they can help in a number of indirect ways:
- Prove the robustness and reliability of rocket engines and
of vehicle structural components.
- Develop low cost operations as in small, highly automated
ground control systems and in vehicle self-diagnositics.
- The requirements for the first stage of a two-stage orbital
system will match closely to that of suborbital vehicles.
- The profits from suborbital operations will be reinvested
into vehicles of increasing capability and eventually into the
building of orbital vehicles.
See the article Suborbital
spaceflight: a road to orbit or a dead end? by Clark S. Lindsey
- The Space Review, Dec. 15, 2003, for a survey of views on how
suborbital RLVs can lead to development of orbital RLVs.
3. Why not just use expendable sounding rockets
for science applications? How is a pilot useful?
Reusable vehicles that fly frequently will greatly reduce costs
compared to expendable sounding rockets. Fast turnaround will
greatly expand the type of science applications.
A pilot or a passenger in charge of an experiment can monitor
the instruments and possibly fix simple problems that would otherwise
cause the experiment to fail if they occurred in an unmanned vehicle.
Furthermore, the fact that someone will be there means that the
testing, redundancies, and backups can be decreased and thus lower
the costs of the system.
4. Which is better: vertical-takeoff-and-landing
(VTOL) or horizontal-takeoff-and-landing (HTOL)?
Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages. The Suborbital
Institute includes members who are pursuing both types of vehicle
designs.
5. Isn't it true that rocket engines are inherently
dangerous and so rocket vehicles can never be as reliable and safe
as airliners?
There is no inherent reason that rocket engines cannot eventually
become as reliable and safe as turbojets. It was initially believed
that turbojets were inherently dangerous: large rotating pieces
of machinery, temperatures in the combustors above the melting
point of metal, operation in uncontrolled environments, millions
of moving parts, etc. Yet, today turbo equipment runs safely for
hundreds of thousands of hours with just routine maintenance.
Many rocket engines actually have fewer moving parts than turbojets
and, unlike the latter, only need to perform for a few minutes
per flight. Rocket engines simply have not yet flown enough to
develop the levels of reliability for which they are capable.
To save costs since they only need to be used once, the engines
on expendable rocket vehicles have narrow safety margins. The
economics of the suborbital RLV business, on the other hand, depends
heavily on robust and reliable engines and so developing such
engines is a top priority.
Since they will be both static tested and reused in flight many
more times than engines on ELVs, RLV engines will clearly provide
greater reliability.
In fact, a big benefit of the development of a suborbital rocket
industry will be the development of reliable, long-lived rocket
engines. This will assist the development of such engines for
orbital RLVs.
6. How frequently will suborbital space transports
fly?
Initially vehicles will probably fly in the weekly or bi-weekly.
Eventually, they will fly daily and even multiple flights per
day.
7.What about long distance cargo and passenger
services via suborbital vehicles (e.g. the famous claims of one
hour express flights between New York and Tokyo)?
The energy that it takes to fly long distances, such as New York
to Tokyo, are no so far from what is needed to go to orbit. So
such capabilities will not be among the initial generation of
suborbital vehicles.
Also, there is considerable uncertainty as to the size of the
market for super high speed long distance transport. There are
certainly situations where high value items would warrant the
cost of such a delivery. For example, a crucial part in California
might be required to repair a broken semiconductor assembly line
in Malaysia that is causing millions of dollars to be lost each
hour the line is inactive.
However, it is not known whether such services could support
a dedicated services. See Conceptual
design of a global fast package delivery system - MIT
thesis by Kurt Palmer 1998 and Suborbital
Reusable Launch Vehicles and Applicable Markets, October 2002
for further discussion.
We note that some suborbital space tourism services may fly fairly
short horizontal distances, e.g. a few hundred kilometers, just
to provide the novelty of landing at a different spot than where
they started. For example, perhaps a flight beginning in Mojave,
California would end up in Las Vegas or Reno, Nevada.
1. Why did you and others develop the SubOrbital
Institute, what are the Institute's key issues, and what was the
general Congressional response to these issues during your recent
visit to Washington?
We needed a trade association. NSS (National Space Society)
is an association for enthusiasts. The Planetary Society is interested
in science. The AIAA is focused on larger organizations. The suborbital
industry is new and so it needed a new advocate of its own.
The institute's key issues are to promote the development of
a profitable and successful suborbital human industry. Currently
the institute is focused on keeping the Department of Commerce
involved in the suborbital industry.
Modified
on August 11, 2005
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