
Transportation Enabling a Robust Cislunar Space Economy [pdf] - Gravityloss
http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Commercial_Space/TransportationEnablingRobustCislunarEconomy_June16.pdf
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azdesertbuddha
The foundation of this entire analysis seems to have a massive miscalculation.
On the 9th page, ULA puts the price of putting 1kg in LEO at ~$4000 ( or about
$1820 per pound ). This estimated cost for ULA launches may be correct, but
what happens to the calculations when the launch price from Earth drops,
perhaps dramatically so.

SpaceX can already beat ULA's launches with their published price for
throwaway Falcon 9 launches at $62M each ( $2720/kg, $1230/lb ). The Falcon
Heavy drops that price even more ( $1655/kg, $750/lb ). And once we see
reusable first stages in the next few years, that price could drop to as low
as $1100/kg or $500/lb. Thirty years from now, the price should be well under
$100/lb with new technologies and better engineering.

With these new numbers, will Lunar fuel be more cost effective than bringing
it up from Earth's deep gravity well? Or will the lower launch costs the
estimated Lunar fuel costs even more? No matter which way this goes, this
analysis is greatly overestimated in both prices and timescales.

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holmak
Their market analysis, just like every other discussion of commercial space
exploration I've ever seen, is circular. Space solar power, space
manufacturing, space mining, space refueling... the only reason to do any of
those things is if you have some other reason to be in space in the first
place. (And in this case, near the moon!)

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BrandonMarc
It could be environmental regulations are what finally push economic activity
out into space. At the Recode conference a few weeks back, Jeff Bezos (Amazon,
Blue Origin) stated his wish to see heavy industries and manufacturing moved
into the celestial realm, beyond our precious atmosphere and land, leaving the
earth pristine and less-polluted.

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Mvandenbergh
The problem is that moving heavy industry into space has to compete on a cost
benefit basis not with doing those things in a dirty way on earth but with
doing them cleanly on earth.

It may be more expensive to do manufacturing cleanly, but it's not _that_ much
more expensive.

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jsprogrammer
Only $3.5 billion to produce 1,000 metric tons of propellant on the moon?
Seems like it probably would have already been done by now if it were that
cheap.

Would it not make more sense to build safer and more reusable systems, like,
electromagnetic launchers?

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terravion
Weird that there is no competitive analysis or discussion of how the cost
curve changes. This is, after all, pretty much an industrial administration
play.

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awinter-py
'for the benefit of consumers' in boldface on page 2 is eerie

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boznz
All NASA Funded I'm guessing..

