Exploiting space

"You're right Marge. Just like the time I could have met Mr. T at the mall. The entire day, I kept saying, 'I'll go a little later, I'll go a little later...' And when I got there, they told me he just left. And when I asked the mall guy if he'll ever come back again, he said he didn't know. Well I'm never going to let something like that happen again! I'm going into space right now!"
Homer Simpson from Deep Space Homer

Everyone will have their own reasons for going into space, whether it's a long-held childhood dream or a way of making up for the disappointment of not meeting Mr. T. However, we live in the real world and if space is ever going to be the domain of anyone other than the various international space agencies, then someone's going to have to find a way of making money out of it. We've already mentioned the telecommunications industry, but are there any commercial applications that could act as a driver for getting more humans into space? Let's look at some of the contenders:

Sub-Orbital Flights

The world's fastest passenger plane, Concorde, can travel at twice the speed of sound or Mach 2. Mach 8 or so will get you into space (a sub-orbital flight), but to stay there (i.e. achieve orbit) you need to reach Mach 26. Given that many of the next wave of launch vehicles (see next page) will be incapable of achieving Mach 26, it begs the question: what good is a launch vehicle that can reach space but can't stay in orbit?

The answer is that for some companies, getting into space might provide a short-cut to the rest of the world. For example, a satellite or other vessel in LEO typically takes 90 minutes to go around the Earth. This means that a vehicle launched into space at the right speed can fly to the opposite side of the world in under an hour. The last decade has seen a revolution in communications technology, largely due to the expansion of the Internet and the use of e-mail and mobile phones. Imagine the commercial and social consequences that would result from a similar revolution in world travel and transportation.

Companies like FedEx (who pride themselves on rapid delivery) expressed an interest in sub-orbital flights as long ago as 1986. Existing launch vehicles are too expensive and take too long to get ready to make such a venture practical now (not to mention the difficulties associated with landing them intact). However, once launch vehicles become reliable and reusable, then things will start to change. As far as passenger flights go, these sub-orbital launch vehicles would be limited in the number of people they could carry, so we won't be saying goodbye to the existing air industry for a good while yet.

Perhaps it is not too unreasonable to envisage a future where short-haul flights remain the province of jumbo jets and smaller planes, the busiest transatlantic routes such as London - New York are dominated by the new breed of superjumbos (namely the Airbus 3XX and the Boeing 747X which can each hold 500+ passengers), and what used to be "long-haul" flights around the world become the domain for high speed sub-orbital spaceplanes. In a few decades time it might be quicker flying from London to Sydney than it is travelling to Manchester (although given the current state of this country's road and rail system some cynics might argue that it already is...)

Update: Boeing have now announced that they are cancelling development of the 747X in favour of a high-speed (but still subsonic) smaller-capacity jetliner, leaving the superjumbo market wide-open for the Airbus 3XX. Will speed prove more desirable than capacity? The battle-lines have been drawn...

Energy from Space

It sounds simple enough: you put a solar power array in orbit, convert the harnessed energy into microwaves and beam it down to the Earth's surface where it can be converted into electrical energy. No need to worry about cloud, rain or any of the other atmospheric effects which traditionally hamper ground-based solar-powered schemes.

However, to be truly effective, the solar array would have to be positioned in a high geostationary orbit, otherwise it would only be soaking up sunlight for 45 or so minutes out of every ninety minute orbit. (Also, the microwave beam would be sweeping across the Earth's surface too fast for it to be useful.)

This is a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Indeed, none of this is beyond the realms of technical feasibility, but when we consider economic feasibility it becomes apparent that the whole scheme is dead in the water. As Robert Zubrin conclusively showed in his book Entering Space, even assuming reduced launch costs and super-efficient arrays, energy derived from a Solar Power Satellite system would still cost many times more than existing ground-based forms of power generation.

Fossil fuels and nuclear fission fuels may be "ugly" sources of energy but we'll be stuck with them for some years yet...

Space Stations

With Mir finally "deorbited" (fortunately in the middle of the South Pacific and not on Australia like Skylab was), the only permanent human facility left in space is the International Space Station (ISS). The commercial benefits of a station like the ISS would be in areas such as the analysis and production of crystals and complex chemical structures, to which a microgravity environment is more conducive. This would be of particular benefit to biotechnology and the development of targeted drugs, a market worth billions to the pharmaceutical industry.

So a space station used as an orbital lab can generate money from its research, but how much does it actually cost to build one? In 1993, the cost of the ISS was estimated to be $17.4 billion, but by 2001 that figure had risen to $28.2 billion (not to mention the $4 billion overrun that NASA announced recently). If you factor in operational and shuttle delivery costs, this value rises to $60 billion. (Some analysts even put it as high as $95 billion.) NASA is now looking to rein in some of this spending by scaling down the project, reducing the number of modules that were due to be added to the station.

Even at a cost half that of the ISS, surely there isn't a company in the world that would build an orbital lab and expect to break even, let alone make a profit? But then again, who says that a space station has to cost anything like as much as the ISS? The ISS project has been compromised somewhat by having to accommodate the existing shuttle fleet and international partners, not to mention the numerous changes of design and the years of indecision. The design of a space station is restricted by the size and shape of its launch vehicle(s); hence the modular "beer-can" structure of the ISS. A company free from such constraints could build (for example) a 100 tonne space station and send it to orbit in one piece, using a heavy lift launch vehicle (as was the case with Skylab).

An alternative to building an outpost for a specific use would be to construct a basic space station containing just the essential requirements for human habitation; life support, solar power array, recycling facilities, communications etc. This would then be sold or rented to customers who could fit the station out to suit their own requirements (in a sense, an "orbital business park"). Costs could be further reduced by using "off-the-shelf" technology such as the lab module developed by SpaceHab, or unused ISS modules. (In business, the companies that usually succeed are often the ones who do something that's already been done once before, but do it better.) Stations like this might also double as the first space hotels.

If necessary, artificial gravity could be generated by having the station rotate (although this would make docking a more complex and delicate operation). For example, one idea proposes using several Space Shuttle External fuel tanks, attached end-to-end to form a giant rotating station - the next best thing to the graceful "twin wheel" of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Space Tourism

Polls into space tourism (typically asking "Would you pay to go into space?" and "How much would you pay?" etc.) frequently draw very favorable responses. Of course, the kind of people who take part in such a survey are probably the kind of people who would answer "yes" anyway (a criticism you could level at most surveys), but there's definitely a market out there. The opportunity to float in zero-gravity and see spectacular views of the Earth (or alternatively, gaze out into deep space) would be an experience unmatched by terrestrial holidays.

The first "space holidays" will be limited to millionaires (like Dennis Tito), but as launch costs come down and demand increases, prices will fall within the range of the "wealthy" as opposed to the "super wealthy".

Too dangerous and too expensive? Well, every year, dozens of people pay somewhere in the order of $65,000 to join guided expeditions to climb Mount Everest. Of course, to be even considered for such an adventure you need to be physically fit, have prior mountaineering experience and be willing to face the risk of altitude sickness, severe frostbite, hypothermia, hypoxia, pulmonary oedema, cerebral oedema, avalanches and falling from great heights. Compared to that, going into space is less dangerous, and considerably less arduous. But, as in any of these ventures, it needs someone to break the mould and do it first. Also, a commercial launch vehicle carrying passengers would no doubt face a barrage of safety regulations from authorities such as the FAA.

Of course, all this would have happened years ago if it didn't take so much effort and expense to get into space. The following page looks at some of the ways these barriers might be overcome.

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