From: vince@offshore.ai (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.space.policy Subject: Re: When will we be able to afford space settlement? References: <9186edb5.0404180452.1f5fca64@posting.google.com> <9186edb5.0404190302.23cfb169@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.88.68.230 Message-ID: <9186edb5.0404200555.fb3cc8f@posting.google.com> Ordover@aol.com (John Ordover) wrote in message news:... > vince@offshore.ai (Vincent Cate) wrote in message news:<9186edb5.0404190302.23cfb169@posting.google.com>... > > The initial investment should be less than 1 billion. This gets you > > a suborbital RLV and a tether with a 4,000 Kg capacity. With this > > you can start making money and building the hotel. As you get more > > rooms in the hotel people, you can let people stay in space longer. > > That's wildly optimistic. Even the testing and deploying of the > equipment will cost multiple billions. Our suborbital RLV is about like the first stage of the Falcon-I. I think the SpaceX budget is closer to $100 mil than multiple billions, and that is for 2 stages on the Falcon-I and also the new Falcon-V. The suborbital 4,000 Kg payload we are talking about is much easier than something like 65,000 lbs to orbit the shuttle does. We are talking lots of suborbital launches of 4,000 Kg at a time that go to tether. > And what about the constant need for repair and replacement? In http://spacetethers.com/calculations/DesignBuild.xls We used for our RLV (we say SSTT for Single Stage To Tether): SSTT Development $100,000,000 Build fleet of 10 SSTTs $100,000,000 SSTT investment $200,000,000 Cost of Capital per day at 20%/year $109,589 Fuel cost per flight of $19,096 Flight overhead, (1% of build) $100,000 Incremental costs/flight of about $120,000 So depending on how many flights per day the capital costs are spread over, you can get different costs per flight. This and how loaded the flights are gives you the 3rd graph in: http://spacetethers.com/cc1.bootstrapping.html A Falcon-I sells for $6 million. We only need something the size of the first stage. So our $10 mil cost each after $100 mil development seems reasonable. The tether should last very well. It will be a design like the HoytTether that can get local damage without failing (more like a net than a simple rope). So this is a development and launch cost, but at a high flight rate will not hurt the per flight cost all that much. So at 14 flights per day the cost/flight (including capital) is about $130,000. With ten people each paying $50,000 we are looking at a total revenue of $500,000/flight. Out of this you also have overheads like employees selling tickets etc. But it should be profitable. While our numbers are just estimates, and may not be right, I don't think they are "wildly optimistic". However, we won't know for sure until someone builds it. But what parts of our numbers would you argue with most? Like the $10 mil each to product the RLV? Or the 1% of initial cost as maintenance each flight? Or the interest rate of 20%? Or the flight rate of 14 per day with 10 ships? Things are in a spreadsheet, so it is easy to tweak the numbers. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vincent Cate Space Tether Enthusiast vince@offshore.ai http://spacetethers.com/ Anguilla, East Caribbean http://offshore.ai/vince ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it. - German Proverb