The second flight, or “hop,”
across the Lunar surface is a requirement of the X-Prize competition that this
mission hopes to win, but if the probe functions correctly it will open the way
for more advanced deep space surveys using remote technology at a relatively
low price. So far the Israelis have spent around $88.5 million, according to
the BBC, and the addition of a Falcon 9 launch vehicle will add another $60
million or so, depending on the exact launch specifications. For reference, a
single Space Shuttle launch would cost between $500 million and $1.5 billion,
depending on the payload and duration, and most of the equivalent unmanned
missions launched by NASA ran in the $700 million to $900 million range. But
then, that’s kind of the point…
I’ve written before in this
space about the need to privatize spaceflight, beyond basic programs like the X-prizes
and the Virgin Galactic sight-seeing flights. Well, according to a recent
article in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space
magazine, that is exactly what has happened now that Space-X and United Launch
Alliance (ULA) are competing to offer the best value for the price. Of the two,
Space-X is considerably cheaper, offering launch vehicles for one-half to
one-third as much as their rival, while ULA (a joint venture of Boeing and
Lockheed-Martin) has a longer track record and over 130 consecutive successful
launches. Both are a far cry from the days when only a national government –
and only two of them, really – could send anything other than weapons into
space…
Now, I would be the first to
admit that this appears to be pushing the concept of a business blog just a bit,
but it really isn’t. The commercial possibilities for space flight and
space-based manufacturing have been discussed for decades now, and new ones
appear every time the cost-per-pound of lifting things to orbit goes down. We’re
still probably a few decades away from having large-scale habitats in space,
let alone passenger service to get to them, but when even conservative
companies like ULA start talking about building cities in Trans-Lunar space, it’s
time to start taking them seriously…
So far, things seem to be
limited to Space-X’s low-cost strategy versus ULA’s differentiated strategy –
cost versus quality, or a brash start-up company that has suffered a number of
setbacks in recent years versus the more established firm that hasn’t had a
rocket blow up on them in over a decade, depending on your point of view. But
there is reason to believe that the Russian space agency, which has been the
prime contractor for human-rated space launches since the end of the Shuttle
program, and the European Space Agency, which never liked having to beg NASA
for seats on the Shuttle in the first place, may start offering their own
commercial services. And while they haven’t done it yet, I can’t see anything
that would prevent the Chinese, the Japanese, or the Koreans from developing
their own commercial-grade launch systems…
Let me again call the reader’s
attention (assuming I have readers) to the early days of aviation, only 115
years ago. As long as airplanes were limited to Wilbur and Orville in the bike
shop, or even a bunch of wood-and-canvas military biplanes, there wasn’t really
a lot of commercial potential in the technology. It was only after the First
World War, when companies like Boeing and Douglas started building the first
airliners, when things really started to take off. I’m not sure we can compare
the Falcon-9, or the new ULA launch vehicles due out in 2022, to the DC-1 or
the Ford Trimotor. But unless my understanding of business, history, and
aerospace are all completely out to lunch, we all just got one small step
closer…
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