Why NASA fails to reduce costs

[DarkenedOne]

Just take a look around you to practically every consumer industry. In each one you find a simple truth whether it be computers, cars, airplanes, and etc. That truth is that as a product is produced in greater number the price per unit goes down. The reason for this is simple. As the unit number goes up better more advanced manufacturing technology is used to produce individual units more inexpensively.

For decades now it has been a forgone conclusion that in order to accomplish our goals in space we need to lower launch costs. The goal of lower launch costs is one that all sectors of the space industry share including the military and commercial. The way to do accomplish this is same way we do it in every industry. Through volume.

Unfortunately NASA and it's strategy for human spaceflight has failed to decrease launch costs at all. In fact NASA per kg launch costs are considerably higher than commercial rockets. NASA's method of conducting human space flight has been and largely continues to be to construct enormously large and expensive launch systems. Simply put these launch systems are a waste of time and money. For one they are useless to every other sector. No one except for NASA has any need for rockets that are able to lift over 30000 kg. On top of that such systems are incredibly expensive to develop and maintain.

Point is NASA needs to start using multiple launches on smaller rockets rather than using only one or two launches on a large rocket. It is only once the number of launches becomes sufficiently high that prices for ELV will come down and reusable launch vehicles will become economically efficient.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Yeah, except launching multiple humans into space requires a fairly large rocket.

The Soyuz aint exactly tiny...

 

[Gravity_Ray]

Just take a look around you to practically every consumer industry. In each one you find a simple truth whether it be computers, cars, airplanes, and etc. That truth is that as a product is produced in greater number the price per unit goes down. The reason for this is simple. As the unit number goes up better more advanced manufacturing technology is used to produce individual units more inexpensively.

For decades now it has been a forgone conclusion that in order to accomplish our goals in space we need to lower launch costs. The goal of lower launch costs is one that all sectors of the space industry share including the military and commercial. The way to do accomplish this is same way we do it in every industry. Through volume.

Unfortunately NASA and it's strategy for human spaceflight has failed to decrease launch costs at all. In fact NASA per kg launch costs are considerably higher than commercial rockets. NASA's method of conducting human space flight has been and largely continues to be to construct enormously large and expensive launch systems. Simply put these launch systems are a waste of time and money. For one they are useless to every other sector. No one except for NASA has any need for rockets that are able to lift over 30000 kg. On top of that such systems are incredibly expensive to develop and maintain.

Point is NASA needs to start using multiple launches on smaller rockets rather than using only one or two launches on a large rocket. It is only once the number of launches becomes sufficiently high that prices for ELV will come down and reusable launch vehicles will become economically efficient.

I agree with your post DarkenedOne and I doubt anybody will explicitly disagree with you on your post.

In your examples you use cars, planes, and computers; however the problem is that “human Space Flight” does not have a destination and so it cannot be mass produced yet.

It is not NASA’s fault that there is no destination yet. They tried to build a destination (massive rotating space stations) and to do that they built what in their mind was a reusable launch system to build these space stations (the space shuttle). However, as usual politics got involved and the space shuttle became the Frankenstein critter you see today. Then they got stuck in that and never did make the massive orbital space stations. So here we are, and I am not sure it’s entirely fair to blame it all on NASA. They do what they can with a new fickle administration every 4 years and a bunch of morons on Capitol Hill politicizing everything that NASA does. It’s like being between a rock and a hard place.

So now we are finally doing it right. NASA gives a RFQ and somebody like SpaceX or Orbital makes it happen. No more cost+ deals, no more jobs programs from United Space Alliance. Once these launch systems are up and running you will have companies like Bigelow building their own stations up there and the beginning of larger human needs to launch people to space will appear, which will lead to the reduction of costs based on economics of scale.

 

[believer_since_1956]

Human rated systems are expensive because.

1. They are not mass produced
2. To protect lives you have to use the highest reliability rated parts. An example is an Operational Amplifier which cost $0.14 in a plastic package for commercial and consumer electronics. Will cost sometimes as high as $100.00 in a ceramic hermetically sealed package. The main cost difference will be the exhaustive testing at the factory and the paper trail necessary to trace down any manufacturing issues with the device wafer lot if there is a problem.
3. Design reviews and cross checks, various analysis.

All these are done to protect the crews. Sadly they are not always successful however no one wants to overlook any issues that can be caught. When we miss anything which unfortunately does happen with human efforts/adventures we learn and incorporate the lessons learned in the new designs and procedures.

 

[DarkenedOne]

I agree with your post DarkenedOne and I doubt anybody will explicitly disagree with you on your post.

In your examples you use cars, planes, and computers; however the problem is that “human Space Flight” does not have a destination and so it cannot be mass produced yet.

It is not NASA’s fault that there is no destination yet. They tried to build a destination (massive rotating space stations) and to do that they built what in their mind was a reusable launch system to build these space stations (the space shuttle). However, as usual politics got involved and the space shuttle became the Frankenstein critter you see today. Then they got stuck in that and never did make the massive orbital space stations. So here we are, and I am not sure it’s entirely fair to blame it all on NASA. They do what they can with a new fickle administration every 4 years and a bunch of morons on Capitol Hill politicizing everything that NASA does. It’s like being between a rock and a hard place.

So now we are finally doing it right. NASA gives a RFQ and somebody like SpaceX or Orbital makes it happen. No more cost+ deals, no more jobs programs from United Space Alliance. Once these launch systems are up and running you will have companies like Bigelow building their own stations up there and the beginning of larger human needs to launch people to space will appear, which will lead to the reduction of costs based on economics of scale.

Well I would have to disagree with you regarding NASA culpability. My problem with NASA is that they have continually refused any change to the Apollo paradigm. NASA with regards to human spaceflight insists on building its own rockets for its own purposes at the cost of tens of billions of dollars. Rockets that are useless to everyone one else except NASA.

Constellation was definitely a continuation of this way of thinking. Ares I and Ares V both cost tens of billions to develop and were completely useless to anyone except NASA. Once developed they were going to cost billions a year to maintain. At the same time they would only be used once or twice a year, thus making them extremely expensive on the per pound basis.

Other ideas about how to use smaller payloads from commercial launchers have been put forth over the years including things like fuel depots, which would be necessary if we want to put people beyond LEO. Unfortunately despite support from many well respected people and organizations including the Augustine Commission NASA still has not done much to experiment with such technology nor do I know of any plans to do so. Instead they continue to insist on doing things the old fashion way with their large, expensive, custom-built rockets.

I am hopeful however that COTS and the new Commercial Crew will change this though. Launching regular satellites, as well as cargo and human crew, all on one platform is bound to increase launch rates and bring down prices.

 

[rockett]

Have to agree in some respects. We need Fords not Ferraris to get launch costs down. What I am getting at, is mass production of standardized parts, for multiple vehicle configurations. If anything, NASA needs to develop design specs for these, and let multiple suppliers produce them. Quality control testing would be part of the acceptance process.

I do disagree about the need for a heavy lift however. If we are ever going to build large structures on a routine basis (i.e. moon and Mars exploration craft) we will need to get them up there. That means a semi not a pickup. Oh for a Saturn V!

 

[vulture4]

Mass production has some advantages (it contributes somewhat to fact that the Merlin is cheaper than the SSME, though most of this difference is due to a simpler design ) but once you get to the size of a full launch vehicle there is very little drop in cost with additional production, since much of the labor cannot be automated. Remember that the curve of supply always, at least in the short term, shows a price that increases as sales increase.

That's why, in the long term, only fully reusable launch vehicles can really reduce cost. The goal of the Shuttle was to vastly reduce cost, and to be useful for commercial launch services as well; at the time the Shuttle program began (remember 1973?) there were no commercial launch services with ELVs; the launch vehicles (including the Shuttle) were all built under government contract.

Also at that time autoland systems were just being developed and weren't in wide use. Although the Shuttle had one it was never really trusted, and there was no possible way to actually fly a full mission with the vehicle unmanned. So the idea that seems obvious now, that the first stage in RLV development is a vehicle that is reusable but unmanned, never came up. The vast cost of "man-rating" compared to unmanned flight wasn't appreciated, and really didn't even exist in the days when we were flying people on Redstones, Atlas, and Titan with almost no mods over the unmanned versions.

But there was a time when NASA was incomparable at reducing cost. Of course it wasn't called NASA. The NACA, which ultimately became NASA, was created in 1915 to help US industry. It's first major project, the NACA No. 10 radial engine cowling, designed in 1923, increased the speed of existing aircraft by 20MPH and saved the airlines more in gas than NACA ever spent, although even then the reality was more complex than the myth (see James R Hansen, http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter1.html ).

It was the Moon Race that changed everything; the goal was entirely arbitrary and came down from the top with a blank check. NASA is still nostalgic about those days, and its efforts to actually aid aviation are still meager and sometimes a little pathetic; better composite manufacturing processes for the 787 wings seem pretty mundane compared to flying to Mars, though they would actually be useful. Somehow during the Moon Race someone came up with the concept of "Spinoff", that useful advances could only come "free" as an accidental byproduct of human spaceflight, so that they would justify human spaceflight. So here we are at a point where actual research that would be useful and that could be accomplished at a NASA center for the cost of a large bolt on the Shuttle can't be supported because it isn't needed to send a few people to the moon (i.e. http://research.siri.org/alz).

 

[rcsplinters]

I think one thing that is impossible to overlook is the numbers of units created, the uniqueness of the units, size and technical aspect of the device.

There are exactly three entities which have achieved sustained manned spaceflight capability. One of those (china) limps along and one (United States) is within 2 - 4 flights of totally dismantling its capability. When you have a very low volume of equipment being produced, you can expect high costs, all other things being equal. The shuttle has often been hailed as the most complex most capable vehicle ever launched into space and there are three of these with a total of 6 (counting Enterprise) ever in existence.. Again, compelling drivers in cost per unit and maintenance cost. Just based on capability alone, it is difficult to compare NASA's cost and everyone elses. More on the capability point, only one craft was until recently designed for operations beyond LEO, that being Orion. Again a cost factor which no commercial or national craft is currently trying to replicate.

I could go on, but the fact that NASA's cost run higher comes as no surprise to me. They oversee the production of a product and capability which has no equal on the planet. Comparison of a system designed to transport people to the moon and possibly beyond to a system limited very specifically to LEO with little to no cargo capability isn't a fair one.

A compact car will always be cheaper than a 747. We need both as the 747 isn't very good for driving to work and the car doesn't fly particularly well. That's an extreme example of what we're seeing with NASA. I'm not saying they couldn't control costs better, but they were designing to a different mission which is profoundly more challenging. Of course, their costs are higher.

 

[stevekk]

Just take a look around you to practically every consumer industry. In each one you find a simple truth whether it be computers, cars, airplanes, and etc. That truth is that as a product is produced in greater number the price per unit goes down. The reason for this is simple. As the unit number goes up better more advanced manufacturing technology is used to produce individual units more inexpensively.

This formula will never apply to NASA.

When you develop a product for the "consumer" industry, there are the fixed costs of research and develop a particular product, and then the basic costs of manufacturing each item. Consumer goods are priced so that the R&D costs are spread across whatever volume your factory produces. It doesn't matter much that you spend 10-20 million in R&D on a new cell phone or automobile when your manufacturing quantities are in the hundreds of thousands or millions, but if your NASA, and you only build 4 of something, then it's not possible to spread out the R&D cost.

And we don't want NASA to stop the R&D either. NASA operations will never be "on-the-cheap".

It appears that their may be enough volume with Atlas, Delta, and Falcon to get some ecomonies of scale, if the only goal is reduced launch costs, but that's not NASA's primary mission. NASA needs to be leading the development of the next generation of space launch and space exploration vehicles, but necessarily finding methods to build the current generation of vehicles cheaper.

 

[DarkenedOne]

Mass production has some advantages (it contributes somewhat to fact that the Merlin is cheaper than the SSME, though most of this difference is due to a simpler design ) but once you get to the size of a full launch vehicle there is very little drop in cost with additional production, since much of the labor cannot be automated. Remember that the curve of supply always, at least in the short term, shows a price that increases as sales increase.

That's why, in the long term, only fully reusable launch vehicles can really reduce cost. The goal of the Shuttle was to vastly reduce cost, and to be useful for commercial launch services as well; at the time the Shuttle program began (remember 1973?) there were no commercial launch services with ELVs; the launch vehicles (including the Shuttle) were all built under government contract.

Also at that time autoland systems were just being developed and weren't in wide use. Although the Shuttle had one it was never really trusted, and there was no possible way to actually fly a full mission with the vehicle unmanned. So the idea that seems obvious now, that the first stage in RLV development is a vehicle that is reusable but unmanned, never came up. The vast cost of "man-rating" compared to unmanned flight wasn't appreciated, and really didn't even exist in the days when we were flying people on Redstones, Atlas, and Titan with almost no mods over the unmanned versions.

But there was a time when NASA was incomparable at reducing cost. Of course it wasn't called NASA. The NACA, which ultimately became NASA, was created in 1915 to help US industry. It's first major project, the NACA No. 10 radial engine cowling, designed in 1923, increased the speed of existing aircraft by 20MPH and saved the airlines more in gas than NACA ever spent, although even then the reality was more complex than the myth (see James R Hansen, http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter1.html ).

It was the Moon Race that changed everything; the goal was entirely arbitrary and came down from the top with a blank check. NASA is still nostalgic about those days, and its efforts to actually aid aviation are still meager and sometimes a little pathetic; better composite manufacturing processes for the 787 wings seem pretty mundane compared to flying to Mars, though they would actually be useful.

Somehow during the Moon Race someone came up with the concept of "Spinoff", that useful advances could only come "free" as an accidental byproduct of human spaceflight, so that they would justify human spaceflight. So here we are at a point where actual research that would be useful and that could be accomplished at a NASA center for the cost of a large bolt on the Shuttle can't be supported because it isn't needed to send a few people to the moon (i.e. http://research.siri.org/alz).

With regards to the benefits of greater production and launch rate automation is just part of it. I also admit that it is probably a smaller part of it for the rocket business. However very significant cost savings come from spreading out the fixed costs.

These fixed costs include the development cost of the rocket itself. For the sake of the argument lets say NASA develops the Ares V for 30 billion, but then only uses it twice a year for 30 years. That breaks down to about $500 million in development cost for each launch. Compare that to the Falcon 9 with a $500 million development cost. Then they launch it 6 times a year for 30 years. That breaks down to about 2.7 million in develop costs per launch.

Another significant fixed costs is simply all the highly skilled labor and high tech infrastructure for making rockets. For the Space Shuttle these expenses add up to something like $2.4 billion a year even if they launched no rockets. Thus the more launches that are conducted the more these fixed costs get spread out over many launches resulting in lower launch costs.

As far as Reusable Launch Vehicles you are correct with regards to their potential to reduce costs. However they only make economic sense if they have a high fly rate. The lack of a high fly rate is what made the Shuttle a economic failure. It is just like your car. You need to get so much out of it for it to make economic sense. If bought a car and used only once a year than it simply would not be worth it.

 

[DarkenedOne]

I think one thing that is impossible to overlook is the numbers of units created, the uniqueness of the units, size and technical aspect of the device.

There are exactly three entities which have achieved sustained manned spaceflight capability. One of those (china) limps along and one (United States) is within 2 - 4 flights of totally dismantling its capability. When you have a very low volume of equipment being produced, you can expect high costs, all other things being equal. The shuttle has often been hailed as the most complex most capable vehicle ever launched into space and there are three of these with a total of 6 (counting Enterprise) ever in existence.. Again, compelling drivers in cost per unit and maintenance cost. Just based on capability alone, it is difficult to compare NASA's cost and everyone elses. More on the capability point, only one craft was until recently designed for operations beyond LEO, that being Orion. Again a cost factor which no commercial or national craft is currently trying to replicate.

I could go on, but the fact that NASA's cost run higher comes as no surprise to me. They oversee the production of a product and capability which has no equal on the planet. Comparison of a system designed to transport people to the moon and possibly beyond to a system limited very specifically to LEO with little to no cargo capability isn't a fair one.

A compact car will always be cheaper than a 747. We need both as the 747 isn't very good for driving to work and the car doesn't fly particularly well. That's an extreme example of what we're seeing with NASA. I'm not saying they couldn't control costs better, but they were designing to a different mission which is profoundly more challenging. Of course, their costs are higher.

Thing is that human space flight more than other forms of space flight like satellites requires shear bulk transport. Take any mission to the moon for example. For the Constellation program it was estimated that about 2/3 of the spacecraft or about 60 tonnes of fuel was required for unmanned resupply missions. On top of that humans need things like water and food.

 

[DarkenedOne]

This formula will never apply to NASA.

When you develop a product for the "consumer" industry, there are the fixed costs of research and develop a particular product, and then the basic costs of manufacturing each item. Consumer goods are priced so that the R&D costs are spread across whatever volume your factory produces. It doesn't matter much that you spend 10-20 million in R&D on a new cell phone or automobile when your manufacturing quantities are in the hundreds of thousands or millions, but if your NASA, and you only build 4 of something, then it's not possible to spread out the R&D cost.

And we don't want NASA to stop the R&D either. NASA operations will never be "on-the-cheap".

It appears that their may be enough volume with Atlas, Delta, and Falcon to get some ecomonies of scale, if the only goal is reduced launch costs, but that's not NASA's primary mission. NASA needs to be leading the development of the next generation of space launch and space exploration vehicles, but necessarily finding methods to build the current generation of vehicles cheaper.

Costs must come down for us to accomplish our goals in space. In the 1960 it took 5% of the national budget or hundreds of billions in todays money just to put 12 people on the moon, the closest natural object to our planet.

Fact of the matter is that we will never go anywhere or do anything of significance in space unless costs come down end of story.

 

[rcsplinters]

I think one thing that is impossible to overlook is the numbers of units created, the uniqueness of the units, size and technical aspect of the device.

There are exactly three entities which have achieved sustained manned spaceflight capability. One of those (china) limps along and one (United States) is within 2 - 4 flights of totally dismantling its capability. When you have a very low volume of equipment being produced, you can expect high costs, all other things being equal. The shuttle has often been hailed as the most complex most capable vehicle ever launched into space and there are three of these with a total of 6 (counting Enterprise) ever in existence.. Again, compelling drivers in cost per unit and maintenance cost. Just based on capability alone, it is difficult to compare NASA's cost and everyone elses. More on the capability point, only one craft was until recently designed for operations beyond LEO, that being Orion. Again a cost factor which no commercial or national craft is currently trying to replicate.

I could go on, but the fact that NASA's cost run higher comes as no surprise to me. They oversee the production of a product and capability which has no equal on the planet. Comparison of a system designed to transport people to the moon and possibly beyond to a system limited very specifically to LEO with little to no cargo capability isn't a fair one.

A compact car will always be cheaper than a 747. We need both as the 747 isn't very good for driving to work and the car doesn't fly particularly well. That's an extreme example of what we're seeing with NASA. I'm not saying they couldn't control costs better, but they were designing to a different mission which is profoundly more challenging. Of course, their costs are higher.

Thing is that human space flight more than other forms of space flight like satellites requires shear bulk transport. Take any mission to the moon for example. For the Constellation program it was estimated that about 2/3 of the spacecraft or about 60 tonnes of fuel was required for unmanned resupply missions. On top of that humans need things like water and food.

Good points. Can't forget redundancy either. I'm reminded of those spare ammonia tanks on the ISS. Big, heavy and dangerous, certainly. However, if humans weren't involved, then engineers might decide to gamble a mission success on elimination of such a part. Throw some DNA into the mix and the engineer becomes dramatically more risk averse. That redundant component has to accompany the human throughout the flight. The further from home you get, the better your backups have to be. Calculating back to the ground this translates into more fuel, more booster and more cost. Of course, this is not to say that unmanned flights don't have backups also. I suspect they don't comprise the same percentage of equipment by weight, however.

Hey Mods! We need a spell checker to help language challenged participants such as myself.

 

[Astro_Robert]

I agree with most of what believer said earlier. And in fact, if you look at commercial satellite costs you will also find that they can be quite expensive for a satellite to be manufactured, even if it is for TV rather than NASA.

Keep in mind, when you buy a pickup or a laptop, yes it is mass produced, but it also has a robust repair/troubleshooting capability. You can always take your truck or laptop in for service or a tuneup. Anything in orbit has little to no on orbit repair/service capability. This lack of serviceability drives the redundancies in both hardware and software that exist even on the commercial side.

Also take into consideration the extreme environments that space hardware must operate in. The difference between sunlit and shade in orbit can be substantial to hardware that is already operating in a hard vacuum.

Finally, I do believe that a heavy lifter is required to do anything meaningfull in orbit. If you want to build a 100-ton object in orbit now it takes many launches to put up all the pieces. This drives the pieces to have more interfaces which increases complexity, adds weight and increases cost. A Saturn V class launcher could send up much larger pieces (like say Skylab) in 1 go, drastically simplifying things.

If the Bigelow modules pan out, then that wieght savings could be huge for local traffic. But for manned missions which leave the near vicinity of Earth, the mass of supplies would still tend to favor a heavy launcher.

 

[kk434]

NASA should go the russian way, thier massproduced (something like 1000 units)soyuz is relatively cheap and after 50 years of operation they launch it rutinely. Now it is even talk about producing one extra flight/year just for space tourists. There are no exact figures about the launch cost but it can be estimated: one seat costs 30-50 milions dollars so one flight is about 90-150 mil, thats wery cheap for a manned launch.

 

[EarthlingX]

Hey Mods! We need a spell checker to help language challenged participants such as myself.

Try this thread : English language links, and please complain there, if you don't find what you are looking for

 

[vulture4]

NASA should go the russian way, thier massproduced (something like 1000 units)soyuz is relatively cheap and after 50 years of operation they launch it rutinely. Now it is even talk about producing one extra flight/year just for space tourists. There are no exact figures about the launch cost but it can be estimated: one seat costs 30-50 milions dollars so one flight is about 90-150 mil, thats wery cheap for a manned launch.

It's a misconception that increasing sales lowers cost. Increasing sales due to demand increases marginal cost. You can read about it in any economics textbook. Look at the curve of supply and demand.

More specifically, ELV manufacturing is a mature technology and even a new company like SpaceX which is pushing as hard as they can with technology and has eliminated a lot of waste cannot shave much off the cost of ELV fabrication at any volume. Most of the cost difference between SpaceX and ULA results not from differences in manufacturing but from ULAs high sunk costs from the convoluted history of the EELV program and cost-plus pricing approach in government contracting.

That's why the only technology that can reduce cost is full reusability. The Shuttle technology was, for an RLV, extremely immature as it was the first such design, and vast improvements are available with technological advance.

 

[rockett]

That's why the only technology that can reduce cost is full reusability. The Shuttle technology was, for an RLV, extremely immature as it was the first such design, and vast improvements are available with technological advance.

That's why RLV will not advance without government support as a primary launch system. It is in the manufacturer's best interest to sell a new vehicle for every trip. Imagine Boeing's delight if they could sell a new airliner after every flight! True, there would be newer flights, but a ready steady market would be there.

 

[DarkenedOne]

It's a misconception that increasing sales lowers cost. Increasing sales due to demand increases marginal cost. You can read about it in any economics textbook. Look at the curve of supply and demand.

More specifically, ELV manufacturing is a mature technology and even a new company like SpaceX which is pushing as hard as they can with technology and has eliminated a lot of waste cannot shave much off the cost of ELV fabrication at any volume. Most of the cost difference between SpaceX and ULA results not from differences in manufacturing but from ULAs high sunk costs from the convoluted history of the EELV program and cost-plus pricing approach in government contracting.

That's why the only technology that can reduce cost is full reusability. The Shuttle technology was, for an RLV, extremely immature as it was the first such design, and vast improvements are available with technological advance.

1. Your understanding of the supply and demand curves is incorrect. Supply and demand curves that they teach in economics relate to a market. Here is a nice article to explain it.

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_69.htm

Here is the take away point for supply curves.
"A supply schedule shows the amount of product that suppliers are willing and able to produce and make available to the market, at specific price points, during a certain time period. In short, it shows us the quantities that suppliers are willing to offer at various prices. This happens because suppliers tend to have different costs of production. At a low price, only the most efficient producers can make a profit, so only they produce. At a high price, even high cost producers can make a profit, so everyone produces."

This concept applies to the rocket industry as well because as low cost rockets like the Russians Proton are used up high cost launch systems like the Atlas V go into service, however it does not apply to individual producers.

2. A different economic principle known as an economy of scale is what applies to a single launch system. The concept of an economy of scale is that "a producer’s average cost per unit to fall as the scale of output is increased." This concept applies very much to rocket produces.

The best recent example of this concept is the shuttle. It costs $2.4 billion a year just to maintain the shuttle infrastructure without actually flying it. It costs about an estimated $400 million for every launch. Thus if no launches are made in a year than the cost per kg of that year is infinite. If one shuttle is flown for a total of $2.8 billion than the cost per kg that year falls to $140,000. If two shuttles are launched for a total of $3.2 billion than the cost per kg that year is $80,000. The price continues to fall exponentially to $60,000, $50,000, and $44,000 for 3, 4, and 5 shuttle launches respectively.

3. Lastly RLV have the capacity to decrease launch costs only if launch rates are high enough. The reason is that there are a great deal of extra costs in developing and building RLV. Thus by logical extension the RLV has to have a higher flight rate than a cheaper to develop ELV in order to be economically justified.

 

[vulture4]

I appreciate the opportunity to debate the issue, but this is an area where there are a lot of misconceptions. Just to illustrate my point however, demand for rides on Soyuz has just gone up. If mass production led to lower prices, they would cut their price, or at least hold it at $20M per seat, but instead, with the increasing demand, it is going up to $50M per seat.

The central error, the one that is dooming our future in space, is the assertion that "we can't justify a reusable vehicle because the market isn't big enough." In fact, the demand for spaceflight is extremely sensitive to cost. The only way to increase the size of the market is to radically shift the supply curve. This requires new technology. In some markets, like electronics, this is provided by internal investment, but in space the payback period is generally too long. If we keep the cost where it is, the market will not increase in size. In fact, if the demand were higher, the current producers would actually raise their prices to maximize total profit, as we see in the case of the Russians, who are, ironically considering their recent history, acting as pure capitalists.

 

[DarkenedOne]

I appreciate the opportunity to debate the issue, but this is an area where there are a lot of misconceptions. Just to illustrate my point however, demand for rides on Soyuz has just gone up. If mass production led to lower prices, they would cut their price, or at least hold it at $20M per seat, but instead, with the increasing demand, it is going up to $50M per seat.

Since the Russians have an effective monopoly on commercial manned space launches they can pretty much charge whatever people will pay. There productions cost however do go down per unit with increase in production.

The central error, the one that is dooming our future in space, is the assertion that "we can't justify a reusable vehicle because the market isn't big enough." In fact, the demand for spaceflight is extremely sensitive to cost. The only way to increase the size of the market is to radically shift the supply curve. This requires new technology. In some markets, like electronics, this is provided by internal investment, but in space the payback period is generally too long. If we keep the cost where it is, the market will not increase in size. In fact, if the demand were higher, the current producers would actually raise their prices to maximize total profit, as we see in the case of the Russians, who are, ironically considering their recent history, acting as pure capitalists.

Your generally correct about market increasing in size in response to lower cost, however it is not always guaranteed.

Hopefully the space tourist market will provide a large number of launches if prices are brought down to more reasonable levels.

 

[vulture4]

Since the Russians have an effective monopoly on commercial manned space launches they can pretty much charge whatever people will pay. There productions cost however do go down per unit with increase in production.

Do you have any objective data to substantiate this? Why would production costs go down? There's no prospect of reducing the number of man-hours needed to produce a Soyuz given the extreme matrity of the technology. They always had a monopoly on commercial flight to orbit. The only change that's happened recently is that demand has increased. If a supplier finds demand increasing in any market, that supplier will normally increase prices because that is the only way to increase profits without capital investment. Only the astute businessman (i.e. Elon Musk) will recognize the high cost elasticity of demand and plan for the longer term by reducing cost to increase market share.

Your generally correct about market increasing in size in response to lower cost, however it is not always guaranteed.
Hopefully the space tourist market will provide a large number of launches if prices are brought down to more reasonable levels.

Just look at the number of tickets Rutan has sold (for suborbital flight, an inferior product) at the still substantial price of $200,000 per ride! Both science and tourism are very cost-sensitive. Ask any scientist- or any tourist.

To get back to the main topic, is it possible the main reason NASA fails to reduce cost is that it does not recognize the value of doing so? Compare the launch GSE of Ares with that of Falcon. Ares has at least FIVE TIMES the processing cost for the same performance.

Consider the Crawlers, the eighth wonder of the world. Ask any engineer what the most efficient way is to carry a load of hundreds of tons back and forth many times over a distance of a few miles. I challange you to find a single one who will say it would be anything but steel wheels and steel rails. Virtually every other launch pad in the world does it that way. loads can be moved by standard locomotives or just electric motors mounted on the service towers. No separate positioning system is needed. Then ask a NASA engineer why KSC still uses the crawlers after all these years, when their operational cost is much higher and the entire crawlerway, sort of an artificial natural surface, has to be replaced every few years. The answer you get is, "We've always done it that way. They're the eighth wonder of the world." They have considered replacing the crawlers with equally gargantuan rubber tired vehicles. The real question they should be asking is whether the whole concept of vertical assembly or mobile launch platforms makes any sense. What is the total cost of maintaining and operating the VAB, crawlers, and MLPs? What is the cost of assembling a booster vertically with hoisting operations versus doing horizontal integration and an erector arm? What is the cost of processing a launch vehicle with liquid propellant only versus one with stacked solids?

Now NASA is about to spend $2 billion to "refurbish" LC-39. As long as the Shuttle was flying it made sense to keep things operating. Now, with Shuttle killed, for no reason anyone can explain, it is difficult for me to see any case for continuing to use any part of LC-39. NASA cannot succeed unless it provides a forum for honest and meaningful debate regarding its strategic objectives.

 

[ZiraldoAerospace]

What I don't understand is, what exactly are they refurbishing? Surely whatever new rocket that they are going to use will not use the same tower and crawler? So where is that 2 billion dollars going? Oh and also, the Ares I is THIRTY TIMES the price of the Falcon 9 ($50 Million vs $1.5 Billion per launch) and the Ares I is a far inferior product! It is using a solid rocket motor to launch living cargo!!! Why would you take the worst piece off of the shuttle and then use it as the main part of the shuttle replacement? And how is the Ares I a better vehicle than the shuttle??? It is far inferior! And I personally think that the shuttle sucks to begin with, so that may give you a better idea as to what I think of the Ares I. NASA, STOP RUINING OUR COUNTRY!

 

[kk434]

Falcon 9 $50 Million? I dont think it is possible in the long run, it's just a promotional price to get things going. The comercial satelite launch leader Ariane 5 costs 250 mil/launch and no other ELV is much cheaper. I once saw a real Ariane 5 engine nozzle and when the guy explained to me how much work gets to make one and it takes a YEAR from order to delivery you start to understand that it is IMPOSSIBLE to bring launch cost down using current tech. If Musk can launch for 50 mil he is the greatest rocket engineer since Von Braun,

 

[orionrider]

There is another way to increase the market and get lower costs: international cooperation.
Nasa needs 30 seats/year, not enough to justify the production of a vehicle. But add Europe, Russia, Asia and others and it could even become profitable, if the launch vehicle is produced jointly.

A second point is: why waste billions to duplicate something that already exists? Build the rockets together with the Russians. That would drive the costs down big time. Lockheed-Martin and Boeing are already using their engines anyway :idea: