Space Investing Section 2 - The Frontier of Space
Business
Moving a Mountain of Platinum
Here we see a small asteroid containing platinum
group elements (PGEs) harvested in preparation
for ore extraction on the Moon. A ring of thrusters
guides the asteroid for release at a specific
point in the free return orbit from the Main Asteroid
Belt. Courtesy Phil
Smith.
We continue with our overview of space business
and investing with a look at space businesses
outside of the conventional telecommunications
and launch industries.
The following two industries are now "off
the ground":
Remote
sensing is a promising area with many possible
commercial applications but is still struggling
to grow into a industry that relies on commercial
markets (e.g. agricultural services, real estate
development planning, etc.) instead of government
and military markets.
Global
Positioning (GPS) is a space-related business
whose activity is on the ground but uses signals
from government satellites. Commercial growth
has not been as fast as initially hoped but
in the past few years has accelerated with applications
such as cell phone location systems.
Human Spaceflight
has not yet seen a successful business model.
The dream of most space activists is that some
sort of commercial space business will emerge
that will pay for human spaceflight and make irrelevant
the humans
vs. robots argument.
Space tourism
could become the killer app that finally makes
human spaceflight self-sustaining. Until Dennis
Tito's flight in 2001, even most space advocates
considered tourist excursions to orbit to be many
decades in the future. But there has been a big
change of attitude. Paying customers have continued
to go to the ISS (after a break due to the Columbia
accident) and most observers believe that several
companies will start to offer suborbital
space rides for paying customers in the 2008-2009
timeframe.
We discuss below
further aspects of commercial human spaceflight
projects.
Almost every concept about commercial space would
be greatly enhanced if access to space became
significantly cheaper. In fact, many of the most
interesting space businesses will not be feasible
until launch costs fall a whole lot. There are
many companies working on lower cost space transport.
We discuss those in these sections:
Alt.Space
News & Commentary - Links to blogs
and news sites that focus on entrepreneurial
space companies and projects.
The
Space Show - Dr. David Livingston interviews
leading figures in the development of outer-space
commerce and space tourism. Archives from weekly
show since June 2001. Previously known as Business
Without Boundaries. Recent
and Upcoming shows.
The cumulative bets of many stock holders
predict the outcome of various advanced
technology projects. (In this case the investment
is with virtual PopSci Dollars.)
The list of Securities
includes quite a few NewSpace related projects.
For example, you can invest in (or short)
the propositions:
For exploration purposes, the humans
versus robots debate has been going on since the
start of the space age. Most space advocates, however,
don't see space as just for science but as a place for
humans to live and settle. To initiate and support humans
in space, there need to be commercial services and products
created there. Here we look at some possible businesses
for people in space.
Microgravity
factories
In the 1980s there were many who predicted that the
manufacturing in space of speciality products like protein
crystals, pharmaceuticals, and microelectronics would
grow into a huge industry by the turn of the Century.
Microgravity provides for a number of interesting effects,
such as allowing some types of fragile but scientifically
and industrially important crystals to grow to much
larger sizes than on the surface of the earth.
Unfortunately, the lack of cheap and frequent access
to space greatly slowed research in this area. Even
in the best of circumstances on earth, it can take years
of R&D to turn a promising research into goods to
sell. Furthermore, any space based manufacturing operatioin
in space would need for much lower cost transport to
and from orbit to have a chance at becoming a profitable
enterprise.
Despite all that, there are in fact some promising
developments with microgravity R&D, especially in
the bioscience area. For example, it turns out that
microbes grow extremely well in micro-g and this is
being used to investigate vaccine developent in space.
The company Astrogenetix,
a business unit of Astrotech
(formerly Spacehab), has been formed to pursue the commercialization
of this. For more information, see these reports
When Dennis Tito flew to the ISS in 2001, it produced
an enormous boost for the promoters of commercial space
tourism. Previously, the concept was considered a wild
fantasy. However, even with the subsequent flight by
Mark Shuttleworth, the high cost of such flights still
made it seem an extremely limited market.
However, in 2004 Burt Rutan's team won the the X PRIZE
and set off a new race to become the first company to
offer suborbital spaceflight rides, which while still
not cheap ($100k-$250k), will involve a much bigger
market. As of the fall of 2005, there were around 300
people who had already place deposits or paid the full
amount to companies like Virgin Galactic and Space Adventures
for rides as soon as they became available. Virgin Galactic
said they had already collect over $10M and the flights
for the first 2 years are already booked.
It is hoped that the suborbital business will incrementally
improve spaceflight transportation and eventuually offer
low cost access to orbit, as well. The RLV
& Space Transport News weblog follows developments
in the area of commercial space access.
Space Tourism - See this dedicated section for
lots more information on tourism and the companies
involved in it.
The people who run and fly space tourism vehicles will
need training. Also, passengers may also some level
of preparation as well. These firms hope to provide
such a service:
Black
Sky Training
Various training courses related to suborbital
spaceflight.
National
Aerospace Training & Research (NASTAR) Center
This facility in Bucks County, Pennsylvania offers
"state-of-the-art equipment and professional
instructors to train space travelers how to cope with
the effects of sustained elevated G exposure, altitude
exposure, and spatial disorientation."
Space Suits & Life
Support Systems
Standard NASA space suits can cost millions of dollars
and they usually must be customized to some extent for
each astronaut. Low cost alternatives are needed for
space tourism.
Flagsuit
LLC - The firm owned by Peter K. Homer who developed
the glove that won the 2007 NASA Centennial Challenge
Astronaut Glove competition.
Commercial
Orbiting Facilities
(Image: Bigelow
Aerospace)
Relative sizes of the Bigelow Aerospace habitat modules.
Operations schedule (ref.):
Genesis I - launched July
2006
Geneis II - launched June
2007
Galaxy - this will be built
for ground studies but not launched
Sundancer - planned launch
in 2010, docking & propulsion module added in
2011,
BA-330 - launch in 2012
and docked with the Sundancer module
There has only been very limited success in getting
companies to subsidize microgravity experiments on the
ISS. The high costs of access and of operations on the
station have prevented the projects from getting very
far. See the ISS
Commercialization section.
NASA signed agreements with a company called Dreamtime
to exploit the multimedia possiblies on the ISS but
the firm went bankrupt. SpaceHab
signed an agreement with the Russian Energia company
to develop the "Enterprise" module, which
would be dedicated to multimedia and other commericial
activities but that project also seemed to go into limbo.
Boeing once announced plans to convert a spare Russian
module to a commercial module but that also never got
off the ground.
However, independent projects to develop space habitats
has made considerable progress, especially that of Bigelow.
Below we list some of these projects.
Bigelow
Aerospace This company is developing plans for a space
tourism infrastructure that includes orbital hotels.
Owner of Budget Suites of America, a $600 million (est.)
privately held company, Robert Bigelow is planning a
long term project to develop space tourism with a committement
of several hundred million dollars.
Their first prototype module - Genesis
I - was successfully launched on July 12, 2006.
Genesis
II was launched on June 28, 2007.
In August of 2007, they announced that instead of launching
the intermediate prototype Galaxy module in 2008, they
would do only ground studies with it and instead accelerate
development and flight of the Sundancer crew capable
module. They did not announce when Sundancer will fly
but could be as early as 2010.
Price plan as given by Robert Bigelow in April 2007:
A full-scale module, with 300 cubic meters of volume,
would cost
The Ask
a Rocket Scientist service answers "questions
on Bigelow Aerospace, Genesis I and II, Mission Control
and anything else related to our company and spaceflight".
The company sponsored the America's Space Prize, which
would have awarded $50M to a US team that successfully
flew a reusable orbital manned vehicle by 2010. However,
the program was dropped when no firms entered the competition.
Instead, the company now offers a large contract to
the first company that can provide crew transport to
the Bigelow habitats: Bigelow
Aerospace to offer $760 million for spaceship - New
Scientist - Oct.25.07
Previously, Bigelow sponsored the Bigelow Prize competition
to reward those who helped " the promotion and/or
use of space for private enterprise purposes without
government ownership."
Astrotech
(formerly SpaceHab),
SpaceHab was the first, and so far only, hardware company
to make a profitable business from manned spaceflight
activities. (Space Adventures sponsorship of ISS tourist
trips is apparently profitable but they didn't build
hardware.) It was formed completely with private investment
and risked its own funds to
"develop, own and operate pressurized habitable
modules that provide space-based laboratory research
facilities and cargo services aboard the U.S. Space
Shuttle fleet."
In the first round of the COTS competition in 2006,he
company proposed its Apex module system, but they did
not win a contract. In late 2007, the company led a
team that submitted a proposal to NASA for the second
round of the COTS program to provide commercial cargo
resupply for the ISS. They became one of four finalists
but lost to Orbital Sciences. Their system wa based
around the ARCTUS spacecraft modules that could be launched
on any of several rockets. Previously, the company had
proposed its own commerical module - Enterprise
- for the International Space Station but that project
never proceeded past the conceptual design stage.
With the end of the Shuttle program approaching and
with the loss some important contract work, the firm
faced severe problems and saw its stock price plumment.
Thomas B. Pickens (son of famous oil man T. Boone Pickens)
took charge of the company in 2007 and set about to
reorganize it.
In 2009 the company changed its name to Astrotech
and formed it around "five
business units - Astrotech
Space Operations, Astrogenetix,
1st
Detect, AirWard
and SPACEHAB
Transportation". The tAstrogenetix
unit is of particular interest with respect to space
development. That unit is in charge of space biosciences
projects such as the promising research into "developing
vaccine candidates in microgravity, with a focus on
Salmonella and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus (MRSA)". Find out more about this work in
MirCorp
MirCorp was a collaboration of several western investors
and the Russian RSC Energia company. The company intended
to commercialize the Mir space station. It backed the
first privately funded manned spaceflight when it funded
a Soyuz mission to Mir.
The company believed that an orbital facility could
provide several revenue sources:
Advertising - e.g. company logos on the outside
of the modules, commercializes filmed in the station,
etc.
Microgravity R& D sponsored by governments
and businesses.
Space media and internet portal like SpaceHab
and Dreamtime. They had promising discussions with
the producer of the Survivor reality TV show about
a similar show aboard Mir.
Satellite launching & service - small
satellites could be assembled, tested and launched
from Mir (assuming their desired orbits were accessible.)
This would avoid the expense and complications of
the hardening necessary for ground launches. Also,
many satellite failure occur early in the mission
so the on orbit testing could avoid this.
Tourism - see the Space
Tourism section for the latest news on
MirCorps tourism efforts. One passenger has already
signed up.
However, the dot.com and telecom downturn in 2001 depleted
the resources of the company and of potential investors
and it could not prevent the de-orbiting of Mir. The
company turned to using the International Space Station
and to developing its own module but these projects
did not go anywhere.
Founder Walt
Anderson subsequently focused on the company Orbital
Recovery, which is developing a space tug
for comsat rescue.
See the discussion
at Transterrestrial Musings of my retrospective
(Feb.8.04) on Dwayne Day's article Chasing
profits in the void: MirCorp's economic success highly
unlikely by Dwayne A. Day - Florida Today - June.16.00.
Mir-Corp supported the Xero service that would
have provided parabolic flights out of a base in Kiruna
in northern Sweden but that project has apparently folded.
Walt
Anderson was arrested in the US for tax evasion
in 2005. He was accused of hiding several hundred million
dollars in off-shore accounts. Anderson has been interviewed
on The
Space Show on April
25, 2004 and May
6, 2007.
Jeffrey
Manber, who was deeply involved in the attempt to
privatise Mir, posted on his Aviation Week plog a note
about the " anniversary of the world’s first-and still
only—privately funded manned space mission": Anniversary
of MirCorp Mission - OnSpace/AvWeek - Apr.6.09.
In a Space
Show interview on Dec. 16, 2008, Manber gave lots
of interesting background info on the MirCorp
saga, as well as on Russian-US space relations in the
1990s.
More Commercial Space Habitat
Projects and Resources:
A venture by Art Dula to develop a commercial
space station based on the Soviet
Almaz (Wikipedia)
design. Access would be via 2 person TKS
space capsules.
Spacedev
- OTCBB:SPDV
Founded by the late James Benson in 1997, SpaceDev began
with a serious effort to build a business based on exploring
and mining asteroids. However, it could never convince
NASA to follow a data purchase type of exploration model.
So the company switched to a focus on low cost satellites
and components.
The company gradually built up a substantial business
via contracts with companies such as Orbital Sciences,
Australian government/university organization to build
a micro-satellite, NASA for a university research satellite,
etc.
In 1998 the firm bought the rights to the hybrid propulsion
technology developed by AMROC. They later won the rights
to provide the hybrid motor for the SpaceShip Two vehicle
that won the X PRIZE in 2004. The company is now developing
the design of a fully reusable space vehicle called
the Dream
Chaser.
In 2006 SpaceDev merged with Starsys Research Corporation
and now offers a wide range of spacecraft
technologies.
See SpaceDev
History for more about the background of the company.
Surrey
Satellite Technology Ltd.
This British firm is a spinoff from the highly productive
student satellite program at Surry University. SSTL
has launched several commercial microsats and is doing
quite well.
In 2008 the shares owned by Surry Univ. were purchased
by the giant European EADS Astrium aerospace conglomerate.
However, Astrium has promised to let SSTL continue to
operate in the same manner that it has been.
See more about amateur and student satellites in the
Satellite
Building section.
To develop and support an in-space
infrastructure, a space tug vehicle of one kind or another
will eventually be required for economic operations.
Such vehicles remain permanently in space. Their jobs
include boosting spacecraft to their desired orbit,
bring cargo and crew modules in to dock with a space
station, bring a satellite to a station for repair,
moving fuel tanks at an orbiting fuel depot, etc. The
first such vehicles are now under development.
Orbital
Satellite Services
As discussed in the Geostationary
section, the big money makers in the space business
are the communications satellites in the GEO orbit around
the equator. Many of these huge birds are still functioning
well when they run out the fuel needed to do the station
keeping propulsion to maintain their location.
The company Orbital Recovery was formed in 2002 to
develop a spacecraft that would rendevous and attach
itself to such derelict spacecraft and provide station
keeping functions. The company's founders included Walt
Anderson, the well known telecommunications mogul
and space investor (see Space
Angels), and also Dennis
Wingo, who also runs SkyCorp
(see below.)
This could extend the lives of the comsats for several
more years and save the companies that own them hundreds
of millions of dollars otherwise needed to buy new satellites.
The company has been reorganized and has new backers.
Orbital Recovery Corporation was the original name.
Constellation
Services International
This small company has been developing a standard set
of container spacecraft that could launch on many different
rockets and would be used to deliver cargo to the ISS
or a Bigelow habitat. The company includes several space
activists including Charles E. Miller, founder of ProSpace
and David W. Anderman, a director of Space
Frontier Foundation. Walt
Anderson was also an early advisor.
For the second round COTS competition that took
place in late 2007, CSI teamed with Space Systems
Loral and their plan included the use of Loral's large
1300 satellite bus as a space tug. The tug would dock
with containers placed into orbit and take them to
the ISS. The tug could be repeatedly refueled and
has an operational lifetime of 10 years.
GEO-Ring
(or GEORING) - a collaboration of European companies
developing a system called HERMES,
which would provide "On-Orbit Servicing for Satellites".
The system includes several different spacecraft that
provide capabilities ranging from orbital refueling
to station-keeping tasks.
The companies have agreed to cooperate on the development
of innovative solutions for extending the lifetime
of ARABSAT satellites and for providing the capability
to receive fuel replenishment in orbit. ARABSAT
will provide material and knowledge assets to fine-tune
the services of GEORING to its own particular satellites
and needs. GEORING will focus in priority on the
needs of ARABSAT for on-orbit servicing.
In-Space Assembly
SkyCorp Skycorp was founded by Dennis
Wingo to develop the capabilities to assemble
and launch satellites from the International Space Station
and other orbiting platforms.
On orbit assembly could allow for much cheaper satellites
since they would not have to be hardened for the rigors
of ground launch. Furthermore, the sats could be turned
on and checked out before release into orbit.
Most satellites that fail usually do it in this first
phase after launch when they open their solar arrays,
antennas, etc. and something gets stuck. By doing this
at the station under supervision, it would be possible
to bring them back in for repair if there was a problem.
SkyCorp believes such an approach could reduce the
price for a Teledesic scale LEO constellation by a factor
of 10.
We put a total of twelve people on the
Moon more than three decades ago and NASA now proposes
to go back to the Moon by 2020.
However, it's possible commercial companies
might get there first or at least play a substantial
role in NASA's program. A number of ventures are in
the works to send first unmanned spacecraft and then
people to the Moon.
Recently, Transorbital got enormous publicity
when it received licenses for its spacecraft to go to
the Moon to send back HDTV of the surface and deliver
a time capsule with digital messages and tokens from
the public.
TransOrbital
This startup aims for the moon with a low-cost lunar
orbiter - TrailBlazer - that will provide high-resolution
video on order. A later mission will place a lander
- Electra - on the moon.
August 19, 2008: The company has been in limbo for
several years, apparently unable to raise funds to build
and launch its spacecraft.
LunarCorp Unfortunately, LunarCorp has been dissolved.
Former president, David Gump, is now CEO of Transformational
Space Corp. Nevertherless, it is of historical interest
and a similar project will probably arise again.
LunarCorp's central aim was to develop Lunar rovers
that could be used for research but also for entertainment
& education via remote control at amusement parks,
museums, planetariums, etc.
Company advisors included Buzz Aldrin and Alan Binder,
who directed the Lunar Prospector mission, and it worked
closely with famous robotist Red Whittaker of the Robotics
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh.
They are also worked on developing a project to send
rovers to the Lunar poles to examine the ice deposits
there.
Tthey tried to develop a Lunar Defense arcade
game in collaboration with Entropy
Engineering. and a lunar landing simulator for museums
and planetariums based on the arcade game platform.
One success for the firm was a sponsorship deal with
Radio Shack. But it was not enough to pay for the entire
mission.
Applied Space Resources (ASR) - This company folded
several years ago. ASR planned to send aspacecraft
to the moon and to return a sample of the surface
regolith. The goal was to sell lunar samples both
to researchers and to the general public.
Flying
Memorabilia in Space
Sending coins, medallions, stamps and other items into
space and bringing them back as souveniers has been
going on since the earliest days of manned spaceflight.
Flown
artifacts are a popular segment of the space
collectibles hobby.
Now some are trying to make flying items in space as
a business all on its own. Space and sci-fi related
items will get an added cachet if they are certified
to have been in space.
List
of companies specializing in taking small payloads
to nearspace.
TOSPACE - A now defunct company that specialized
in sending packages of items into high altitude suborbital
and also orbital space. Unfortunately, the availablity
of rocket rides was too sparse and the compay was
shut down.
