The last video of Robert Bigelow I watched he made a comment about production and demand, it sounds like he has been talking to a lot more potential customers then what the 7 MOU’s represent. BA plans on building and launching several BA 330’s per year and said there will be no problem filling them. He didn’t mention though any top end type of numbers for the amount of stations he is talking about, but hinted at specialty stations.

Just out of curiosity, why would it be simpler at all, let alone much simpler? And why would it be cheaper?

Williams, you are completely clueless and just don’t get it.
SLS is a gov’t developed and operated vehicle. It is not an airliner that can be operated by other companies, especially ULA. ULA exists for one thing and one thing only, to operate EELV’s and EELV’s derivatives.

NASA is not designing a core only SLS vehicle because it can’t develop vehicles that compete with commercial vehicles nor does NASA have a requirement for it.

The DOD does not want to have any involvement with NASA managed vehicles.

Please stop, no matter how many times you post it, your fantasy vehicle will not be built.

So according to what you’re saying, the major customers for the SLS, and it’s expanded family of variations, is:

– Funding from Congress for a growing lunar city
– Thousands of tourists paying $25M for a ride somewhere

Some thoughts.

“As I have said before, the SLS should be looked at as a large family of super heavy lift and sub-heavy lift configurations.”

Congress is only paying for a 70mt version that evolves into a 130mt version. Who is going to pay for this “family” you speak of, and why?

“ I think that there will be very high demand for the shuttle derived LOX/LH2 core and upper stage by NASA, the DOD, and private industry once the SLS is built and is fully operational.”

– When is NASA getting funding for the programs that will build the payloads that require the SLS? Is their budget being increased so they can build bigger rockets and bigger mission payloads at the same time?

– When is the DoD getting funding for the programs that will build the payloads that require the SLS, and why would they dump Delta IV Heavy, which is still relatively new?

– When is Congress going to change the laws so NASA can start competing in the commercial launch market? As of now NASA can’t “sell” their rockets.

You talk about what’s possible from a technical standpoint, but not from a realistic one, especially since there are no customers for the capabilities you describe.

Regarding space tourism:

“Polls show that at least 7% of the wealthy would be willing to spend their own funds for a trip to a space hotel. There are about 100,000 people on the planet that could afford a $25 million trip to a space hotel which suggest that there are about 7000 people willing to pay the hefty price.”

If your market assumptions were true, then Virgin Galactic should have ten’s of thousands of customers plunking down money for a ride. But alas, there is only around 500. Why? People are motivated by specific experiences, so it depends on what is being offered, and what the marketing buzz is around it. It’s not a matter of “if you build it, they will come”, it’s more a matter of who’s selling it and how they position the experience.

The best person to watch on this will be Robert Bigelow, since outside of Space Adventures (who sells the Soyuz tourist flights) he will have the best idea what the natural market demand is for this. So far he is focused on marketing to countries, not individuals, so that should tell you something.

Marcel, you have lots of big ideas, but no one opening their wallet to pay for them. In business you can’t imagine that there are paying customers out there, you have to find the specific ones that will pay, and focus on them.

So far you haven’t been able to show that anyone specifically needs an HLV, nor has the money to pay for one. Congress isn’t funding massive lunar cities, no one is building hotels in space, and the DoD is happy with their new Delta IV Heavy. Where is the need to change any of this?

As always, it’s not that we can’t do anything we want in space, it’s that we can’t afford it. Focus on making things affordable, and more will happen in space. Until then all you have is a bunch of ideas, just like everyone else.

There was no SDLV crowd to speak of at the time. NASA was desperately trying to avoid having to build a heavy lifter, because they knew they couldn’t afford it (this was prior to Griffin), and no single program could be allowed to justify it, which is one of the reasons that JIMO died, though not the only one.

You mean Delta-IV Heavy (as stated on Wikipedia) or something like Ares? I’d be amazed if the latter were true. The SDLV crowd would have wasted no time pointing at JIMO as a legitimate SDLV payload in that case.

Some NERVA history…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA

http://atomicinsights.com/1995/09/nuclear-rocket-programs.html

“How is a government-run, government-funded (our tax dollars) transportation system that launches payloads larger than any company has yet produced, going to give the US “complete economic domination of cis=lunar space”?

Please provide an explanation of how that is supposed to work, such as where the demand is coming from, and who has the money to spend for the payloads and launches that will support this economic engine you’re describing?

I’ve provided the same for my economic theories, whether anyone agrees with them or not, so it would be interesting to hear the same from you.”

As I have said before, the SLS should be looked at as a large family of super heavy lift and sub-heavy lift configurations. I think that there will be very high demand for the shuttle derived LOX/LH2 core and upper stage by NASA, the DOD, and private industry once the SLS is built and is fully operational.

Because of the substantial mass shielding requirements (at least several hundred tonnes), crewed trips to the asteroids and to the moons of Mars using the SLS are simply not realistic. So NASA will probably use the SLS for a lunar base program. A lunar base program will probably require at least five or six SLS launches per year of various manned and unmanned configurations both with and without SRBs in order to minimize cost and to enhance safety.

An SLS configuration with a core stage and upper stage but without the SRBs could probably replace the Delta IV heavy as a much simpler and cheaper vehicle with much more capability. So the SLS will probably have a role for ULA and the DOD as a cheaper replacement for the Delta IV heavy.

Polls show that at least 7% of the wealthy would be willing to spend their own funds for a trip to a space hotel. There are about 100,000 people on the planet that could afford a $25 million trip to a space hotel which suggest that there are about 7000 people willing to pay the hefty price. Additionally, there are probably billions of people around the world who would probably be willing to risk a dollar or two per year for a chance to fly into space through a lotto system. So space tourism will probably have the highest demand for launch vehicles of any enterprise. However, such a high launch demand will probably reduce the cost of all launch vehicles participating in this enterprise.

The SLS is the only launch system capable of launching Bigelow’s largest commercial space station, the BA-2100. And Boeing is Bigelow’s principal partner.

Boeing has already come up with an extremely simple SLS derived crew launch vehicle concept using only the SLS core stage and the MPCV with a stretched SM. But Boeing could also use a man-rated Delta IV upper stage or an ACES 41 upper stage.

If space tourism is extended all the way to the lunar surface then a simple two stage SLS without SRBs could transport tourist all the way to L1 or to lunar orbit where they would be met by a simple single stage reusable LOX/LH2 lunar shuttle.

The SLS derived upper stage or the reusable lunar shuttle could be used as lunar space tankers, delivering fuel, air, and water from the Moon to LEO based commercial space stations and space depots. The delta v requirements for a lunar launch to LEO are only 2.74 km/s utilizing aerobraking vs. at least 9.3 km/s of delta-v requirement to launch air, fuel, and water to LEO from Earth.

But even amongst launch systems designed to transport fuel to orbit for space depots, the SLS would come out the winner. NASA studies suggest that requent SLS launches (6 per year) would reduce the cost per SLS launch to less than $500 million per flight. Being able to launch at least 110 tonnes of fuel per $500 per launch would cost about $4.5 million per tonne. Space X is charging over $130 million to transport 10 tonnes to the ISS, that’s more than $13 million per tonne (three times more).

Boeing would clearly be the biggest winner out of all of this because they’d probably be chosen to build the SLS and because of their business relationship with Bigelow as far as the space tourism business is concerned.

Deriving Economically Sustainable Crew Launch Vehicles from the SLS:

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2007/07/deriving-and-economically-sustainable.html