On the Development of Affordable Space Travel
William Earley
26th March 2013
Abstract
Space travel is a dream to many, but there has been little change to the prohibitive expenses involved. By examining the history and current state of space travel it is possible to identify the reasons why we strive for space and why progress has slowed. Looking at research into cheaper, more affordable launch vehicles, as well as using mathematical analysis and computer simulations to evaluate the costs involved, the transition from a mainly governmental to private space industry can be considered, and the prospects of new space startups is evaluated. Whilst it is too soon to tell for sure, private space companies are having a lot of preliminary successes, and it would appear that the already impressive cost reductions will continue as supply and demand catch up. It is important to recognise the limits of rocket-based launches though, and that even cheaper space travel needs more radical solutions, however there is currently little interest in these techniques. Nevertheless, the future looks hopeful for affordable space travel and it may not be long before extraterrestrial colonies and space tourism become commonplace.
1 Contents
1 The Current State of Spaceflight3 1.1 History...... 3
2 Motivations 5 2.1 Opinions...... 8
3 Preliminary Analysis 10
4 Technology 13 4.1 Current...... 15 4.2 In Development...... 18 4.3 Unmanned Spaceflight...... 22 4.4 Theoretical...... 24
5 Conclusion 27
A Interstellar Travel 29
B Derivations 32 B.1 Rocket Equation...... 32 B.2 Adjustments...... 33 B.3 Solid-State Travel Equation...... 34 B.4 Rocket fuel efficiencies...... 35
C Evaluation 36 C.1 Sources...... 36 C.1.1 Academic Journals...... 36 C.1.2 Other Publications...... 37 C.1.3 Books...... 37 C.1.4 Online Technical References...... 37 C.1.5 Interviews...... 38 C.1.6 Internet...... 38
List of Figures 38
List of Tables 39
References 39
2 1 The Current State of Spaceflight
During a recent trip to the airport, I came across an advert from Virgin promising the opportunity to ‘travel in space from just £30’. Unfortunately, the advert was referring to upgrading to more leg room, however with the rise in new space industry startups such as Virgin Galactic and SpaceX, and the ubiquity of space tourism and exploration in popular culture, I was inspired to consider the cost of getting into space, and how far away many people’s visions of space seem to be. It’s been over forty years since the last mission to the moon, and the space shuttle has just recently been retired. Can these new startups take over from where NASA left off, and can they make any substantial reductions to costs? Even though space exploration is in its infancy, prices are still exorbitantly high and have shown little improvement, with space tourists paying upwards of $20 million, and space shuttle launches costing $1.5 billion on average. This raises questions about its viability as a commercial industry, and whether or not abundant and affordable space travel will ever be a reality. While for many, the reasons for going into space are obvious, it is important to identify the motivations for our potential future exploration of space if we are ever going to achieve a significant subsidy and reduction in costs, and it is also necessary to seriously consider alternatives to primarily rocket based launches, such as space elevators. Few would doubt that space travel could be cheaper, but by just how much? There is a substantial energy cost in moving even small masses from the surface of the Earth into orbit, and then even more so for attaining a suitably fast trajectory for interplanetary missions. There are also expensive technology and materials considerations for protecting astronauts and equipment on the journey from radiation and debris; However, by looking at aerodynamics, thinking laterally, and investigating alternative fuels, it may be possible to theorise about a space-based economy in the future, where going into space is as easy and as common as boarding an aeroplane.
1.1 History
The history of spaceflight should be seen as a culmination of thousands of years of dreams, myths, experimentation and scientific discovery. It begins with the ancient Babylonian legend of Etana and the ancient Greek myth of Icarus. Whilst these stories don’t directly address the topic of spaceflight, and have more important over-arching interpretations about origins and ambition, the fact that flight into the heavens is featured at all shows a distinct example of the human spirit and our desire to explore. Nevertheless, the first important breakthrough didn’t occur until
3 the first century, when the Chinese developed a crude form of gunpowder, and real advancements were not seen until the last millenium. The first documented use of rockets occurred in 1232, when the Chinese repelled a group of Mongolian invaders with ‘arrows of flying fire’. This battle inspired the Mongolians to develop rockets of their own, and later spread the technology to the West, where the gunpowder recipe was improved to increase the range, and new methods of rocket launching were developed to improve accuracy (Benson 2010). The next major breakthrough came in the sixteenth century, with the invention of multistage rockets by a German fireworks maker, an idea common to most modern rockets. Finally, after centuries of use in warfare and fireworks displays, a Chinese official by the name of Wan-Hu linked the use of rockets and flight, and attempted to realise the dream by strapping forty-seven rockets to his chair. Whilst his attempt was unsuccessful, it marked the first recorded use of rocketry in transportation, and was a significant milestone. With the establishment of Newton’s Laws of Motion in the seventeenth century (Newton 1687), the basic underlying science of rocketry was discovered. Meanwhile, rockets were becoming more advanced, as Germans and Russians began experimenting with rockets exceeding forty-five kilograms of mass, and the British Rocket Corps exhibiting a range of almost two kilometres. This was accompanied by a rise in the popular culture surrounding rocketry and an acknowledgement of its potential for space travel, with Jules Verne’s book ‘From the Earth to the Moon’, and H. G. Well’s ‘The War of the Worlds’. It wasn’t until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, with Konstantin Tsiolkovky’s publication of his theories on rocket propulsion (Tsiolkovsky 1903), that the ability to escape the confines of Earth was proved, and the dream of spaceflight finally validated (Tsiolkovsky 1911). Tsiolkovsky’s influence went much further still though, as he also proposed designs for numerous critical aspects of modern spaceflight, including airlocks, multistage boosters, and even space stations. For his pioneering works, Tsiolkovsky is often considered the father of astronautics and he laid the foundations for the groundbreaking technology developed over the twentieth century. He enabled the space race, including the launch of the first men into space. The final prerequisite innovation came with the first successful launch of a liquid-fuel rocket in 1926 by Robert Goddard. Following this, the German’s produced the V-2 liquid-fuel rocket, and then, in a 1944 test flight, the first rocket reached the 100 km altitude mark, and then surpassed it by another 89 km (Reuter 2000), signifying the success of thousands of years of dreams, experimentation and scientific discovery. What followed was an eighteen year space race in which the USA and Russia competed extensively to beat each other to successive space-based
4 milestones.
1957 - Sputnik-1 becomes the first artificial satellite, heralding the start of a world-changing communications and monitoring revolution.
1957 - Sputnik-2 takes the first animal into space, proving the dream is possible.
1961 - Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man into space, inspiring hundreds more to follow.
1969 - Apollo 11 takes man to the moon, and humanity walks on another world.
1976 - Viking 1 becomes the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars, another planet.
Over the next few years, the first spacewalks, spacecraft rendezvous, and dockings were achieved. Both sides also succeeded in launching space laboratories. Then in 1998, the first permanently inhabited structure, the International Space Station, started construction, and become a symbol for international cooperation. Unfortunately, despite all these achievements, most have simply been in the name of competi- tion and national pride, with little attention to cost effectiveness or prolonging and advancing our exploration of space. With the end of the space race, it has been over forty years since a man landed on the moon, and repeated budget cuts and program cancellations have delayed numerous NASA missions and even led to the retiring of the Space Shuttle (Day 2011), leaving the USA without a means to transport astronauts between the ISS and the Earth, with Russia left responsible for their welfare. Although NASA plans to send men back to the moon by 2020, and newcomers China, India and Japan are also heavily invested in advancing their space programs and too reaching the moon, it is clear that our space ambitions have stagnated. Without a strong motivation, a reduction in costs, and an influx of new players to the field of spaceflight, we risk becoming despondent and withdrawing from space. How much more could we insult the legacy of Neil Armstrong, if we end up taking back that big leap forward.
2 Motivations
With the slow progress that has been seen recently in space travel, it is difficult to see the potential benefits that can be obtained with a more powerful space industry. For this reason, it is important to keep the motivations for space travel fresh in mind, as by developing the space industry, major advancements to the economy and technology are possible. In addition, there are many persuasive arguments for the pursuit of space travel in regards to the human spirit, fostering new businesses
5 and industries, and for future-proofing our civilisation and species against unseen threats, such as asteroid strikes. Human nature has driven us as a species to pursue numerous options which are not immediately beneficial, involving considerable cost and risk, with uncertain or even completely unknown outcomes. Nevertheless, our perseverance has enabled us to rise up from our hunter-gatherer roots to become masters of agriculture, metalwork, philosophy, art, language, and more. Not only that, but we have also developed science and mathematics as a means to explain the world around us, and through it we have invented the modern world, so that we can now communicate at the speed of light and travel around the world in mere hours. Whilst not everyone has the ambition and drive to bring about revolutionary new changes to humanity, it is a defining characteristic of our species that we are able to cooperate and push forwards into uncharted territory just because we can, and we have reaped innumerable rewards because of it. When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory replied, “because it’s there” (Mallory 1923), and if nothing else, this should be just as powerful and desperate a need as any to motivate us to explore space. Similarly, this attitude took air travel from a madman’s pursuit to the vibrant global industry it is today due to the perseverance of early investors and pioneers with flying machines. When we chronicle the history of human civilisation, we divide it into periods based on their defining characteristic. As we mastered stone and metals, we made huge advancements, and clearly we wouldn’t be in the economic position we are today without these foundations. Currently, we are living in the information age, however it is clear that, just as the renaissance and industrial revolutions came before us, space travel is to be the next defining transitionary period for humanity. While space travel may currently be prohibitively expensive and risky to consider human missions to Mars in the near future, it is vital to work on making it cheaper and safer, so that in ten or fifteen years, we will have the capability to attempt these exciting missions. Few can claim to know the meaning of life, but we have the gift of intelligence, and unless we take chances like this, we will forever be stuck on Earth, it would be a shame if we don’t push ourselves to our limits. Nevertheless, there are other genuine concerns, such as social problems and the recession, that cause some to question the validity in spending money on a space program which is certainly not essential. The problem with this view, however, is that, at least in the USA, it is practically impossible to argue that NASA is wasting valuable fiscal resources which could be better put to use on social reform. In 1966, NASA was allocated almost five percent of the federal budget, which, despite the space race, could be considered overzealous, but in 2007, NASA received just
6 0.6% of the federal budget, whilst social spending totalled at least 57%, and defence cost the USA 23% (Brooks 2007). In fact, in 2007 over 14% of the budget was spent on paying off the interest on their national debt. Clearly the idea of NASA siphoning off funds from other more worthwhile programs is misguided at best, and at worst, it is holding back what could be an incredibly powerful transition in human history. Evidence of the economic benefits derived from the aerospace industry is already available. There are thousands of artificial satellites in orbit around the Earth, and these have become a critical part of modern day infrastructure. The satellite industry has enabled continuous and accurate weather monitoring, GPS, high-speed worldwide communications, and even orbital laboratories and telescopes. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the 2005 value of artificial satellites totalled between $170 and $230 billion, whilst net profit is an estimated $65 to $75 billion, with trends indicating growth in the space economy (Jolly and Razi 2007). This is accompanied by the numerous technology breakthroughs and inventions which have been developed as byproducts of the industry, ranging from water filtration systems which have been applied in aid programs in third world countries, to the highly-efficient and relatively cheap solar panels which are installed all over the world (Jones 2011). It is undeniable that the aerospace industry has already had a significant positive impact on the world economy and also on technology, and while some may argue that the benefits could be achieved in other ways without resorting to space travel, the fact is that they weren’t until we launched these satellites. It is also important to note that we have now become reliant on satellites for numerous day-to-day activities, and even temporary outages attributed to solar flares cause appreciable damages. We need to reduce the costs attributed to the space industry and increase our launch capabilities so that we can build on this infrastructure and enact quick repairs when necessary. Reasons for exploring space can also be found by looking into the future. In the short-term, there are numerous economic benefits that can be conceived. For one, there is a fledgling space tourism industry which has massive potential, just as the air travel industry has exploded over the last century. There are also more useful opportunities as well, asteroid mining offers the opportunity to extract large amounts of rare metals and resources, that though scarce on Earth, can be found in more abundant quantities in the asteroid belt. For example, Planetary Resources estimates that an asteroid just thirty metres in length can potentially provide up to $50 billion in platinum (Klotz 2012), and numerous other resources are also speculated to be present. By taking advantage of these opportunities, space travel can be reduced in costs through mining subsidies, and also by extracting rocket fuel such as hydrogen and oxygen in vast quantities.
7 Just as the gold rush attracted hordes of prospectors in the nineteenth century, so too does asteroid mining offer a massive potential to investors in space exploration, and there are already several companies working on mining projects, including Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries. Unfortunately, however, space travel is currently prohibitively expensive for this kind of venture to be profitable, with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission scheduled to return just 60g of asteroid material for a mission cost of over $1 billion (“Plans for asteroid mining emerge” 2012). With increased investment and interest, however, it should be possible to consider such economic activities. This would also allow for experiments with other industries, such as space-based solar power, which could help contribute to the solution of the energy crisis by providing a powerful and renewable energy source. By establishing new settlements, we can also nurture an environment for a space-based transportation industry as well. Looking long term, more morbid scenarios become relevant. It is well known that space is a dangerous place, and events such as the asteroid impact responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs are not uncommon. In addition, we have solar flares, supervolcanoes and resource crises to contend with, whilst our population seems to be unsustainable and numerous social problems abound. By accepting our urge to explore and encouraging the space tourism industry, we have the potential to indirectly address most of these concerns via permanent settlements on another celestial body. This would provide a destination for excess populations to go to, an increase in the availability of resources, mass new economic opportunities, and a refuge for our species from potential disaster. Furthermore, by augmenting our space presence, we will also gain experience and technology crucial to diverting and preventing these potential cataclysmic events, by for example developing satellites capable of changing the course of an asteroid. These situations may seem extreme, however they are very real possibilities, and if other reasons are insufficient, perhaps impending doom will motivate us to pursue space travel.
2.1 Opinions
The recent rise in space startups over the last decade has led to increased innovation in propulsive technologies, and promises of cheap, abundant and affordable space travel in the near future. In fact, during a recent live Google+ Hangout Interview with Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX), Charles Bolden (NASA Administrator), and hosted by John Yembrick (Director of Strategic Communications at NASA), regarding the first cargo resupply mission of the Dragon spacecraft, I was fortunate enough to participate by sending in a question to John regarding Elon’s opinion on the affordability of space travel.
8 John: And the next one is from, on Twitter [sic YouTube], @1tswill1: “How cheap can space travel become? Will it ever be as affordable and ubiquitous as air travel?”
Elon: I sure hope so, it’s fundamentally more expensive to go to space, I mean energy requirements are much greater and everything, so there is certainly a difference. The base difference is, well, I mean it’s like a thousand times more expensive, if not more to go to space than to take an air trip, and a thousand is a huge difference, I mean perhaps it can be brought down to being only ten times more expensive, I think that should be achievable, but that of course would require a two order of magnitude improvement in space transport, but that’s what I think, that needs to happen, and I think it can happen if we can make rapidly and fully reusable spacecraft and rockets. (Musk 2012)
Elon later went on to say that for this to happen, a pivotal breakthrough in rocket reusability was needed. Others are not as optimistic. In an article for Forbes, Michio Kaku expressed his despondency on the current state and cost of space exploration (Kaku 2009). He notes that at the beginning of the space race, president Eisenhower laid out a roadmap for the exploration of space, with the intention of developing a rapidly reusable and efficient spaceplane for agile access to space. Unfortunately, NASA has not made much progress in driving down the cost of space travel, and its infrastructure has been largely dismantled in the wake of the end of the Apollo missions, with space travel left prohibitively expensive. Kaku seemed pessimistic on the capacity of the commercial sector to take on the entrepreneurial spirit. Nevertheless, Kaku’s pessimism may be misguided. Virgin Galactic’s plans for renewing the space tourism industry is well underway, with the possibility of flights beginning as early as 2013, and many passengers have already purchased tickets. According to Business Insider, a trip on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is just $200 thousand, compared to between $20 and $35 million a decade ago (Lubin 2012); however, whether this price can be delivered, and how much further prices can be reduced, is uncertain. Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic, believes that prices can be further cut from $200 to $100 thousand in a period of just 3-5 years, but that anything further is unlikely, especially to $10, 000 (Whitehorn and Lam 2009), the level Elon Musk thought to be achievable. More recently, though, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic proposed that, in the near future, “space travel could be nearly as commonplace as, say, travelling to another continent is” (Lubin 2012), implying that the $10, 000 mark was a possibility. In an interview with CBS, he also considered the possibility of exploiting advances in space propulsion to achieve hypersonic air travel, for the possibility of flights from the US to
9 Australia in less than two hours (“Richard Branson on space travel” 2012). The problem is that the majority of space startups are still primarily focused on suborbital flights. Even though they are breaching the edge of space for significantly cheaper prices, costs to reach orbit remain exceedingly high, and trips to the ISS still come in around $50 million (Lubin 2012). This, however, is most likely attributed to the lack of commercial competition in this area. If innovation and competition can be stimulated, then we can also hopefully look forward to similar improvements in orbital flight costs and efficiencies.
3 Preliminary Analysis
To compare and analyse the effectiveness and costs of different space launch technologies, it is useful to establish a standard basis case around which analysis of different technologies can be conducted and compared. Please note, I have derived a set of equations and commented on their applications and limitations in the appendix, sectionB, which may be worth reading before this section and beyond to better understand the mathematics involved. Low Earth Orbit is an ideal standard to use for this as it is a highly advantageous position for a spaceport to be placed. The reasons for this are numerous:
It is fairly close to the Earth, so it is quick to get to, and if destinations further away are needed then it is an ideal place to put a refuelling station.
Most satellites orbit in LEO, so any calculations will have real-world applications to a common scenario.
LEO is the closest stable equilibrium point in space to the Earth, and once in a stable equilibrium, other gravitational fields can be largely ignored, greatly simplifying missions to elsewhere in the solar system.
There are other positions near the Earth that are also being considered for positioning spaceports, most interestingly perhaps, the first Lagrangian (L1) point of the Earth and the Moon, a gravitationally neutral point in which there is no attraction of an object to either the Earth or the Moon. This point is not as stable as LEO orbit however. LEO is also useful for this analysis as it represents the most costly part of any space mission: Overcoming Earth’s gravitational field and thick atmosphere. The energy expenditures against gravity and in entering orbit are quite easily calculated as the Earth is approximately spherical and thus the specific energy is given by:
10 GM r V = 2 − 2r r + h Energy lost due to drag is not so easily accounted for, however, as it varies depending on the surface area and aerodynamic qualities of the vehicle, air temperatures and densities, angle, speed, weather and numerous other difficult to predict variables. To simplify things, I have used data from a simulated Saturn V launch (Braeunig 2010), and one of a set of equations I have derived to analyse spaceflight, equation6 in the appendix, to generate a drag force profile for a typical rocket. Further, this profile can be used to calculate the energy expended against drag,
ED, which can then be used in equation7. The original data only included the drag force due to atmospheric friction and did not include the drag force due to pressure differences at the engine nozzles. To account for this, I developed my own generalised spacecraft launch simulator in the Python programming language (Earley 2013), using the Akima (1970) method for interpolating the reference data, and entered in the launch events as calculated by Braeunig (2010). The data I produced was then integrated using a R trapezium rule interpolation in order to compute the total energy lost due to drag, ED = D ds. This launch profile is shown in figure2, and the launch trajectory for the first 712 s in figure3. Now it is possible to generate a number of characteristic values for this basis case, as shown in figure1. The final detail is the altitude, which for LEO can vary from 200 km to 2000 km, translating to a specific energy from 32.2 MJ kg−1 to 38.7 MJ kg−1. Taking the altitude as 1160 km:
Quantity Value Altitude h 1160 km −1 Specific Mission Energy sj 36.0 MJ kg
Drag Energy ED 97.0 GJ
Figure 1: LEO Profile
From this data, it is then possible to analyse different spacecraft by their fuels and efficiencies, using equations5 and7 depending on the desired accuracy of the comparison, and8 for technologies like ion drive where the energy generation is internal and the exhaust mass is negligible. The given ED value should be a good estimate for any large rocket, and the impact is small enough that any deviations shouldn’t be too significant; however, for other types of launch vehicle, such as space planes, new simulations must be carried out in order to maintain accuracy. With these suitable values calculated, the mf equations can then be adapted to compare costs - taking sp as
11 1 2 Figure 2: Saturn V Typical Drag Profile, D = 2 CDAρv + RsAeρT 5
4
3
2 Drag Force/MN
1
0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 Distance Travelled/km
t=700 t=600 t=500 t=400 t=300
t=200
t=100
0 50 100 150 200 250 Altitude/km
Figure 3: Saturn V Launch Trajectory between t = 0 and t = 712 s. The small central circle represents the Earth, with the polar gridlines equidistant from the Earth. The trajectory is annotated with the time at which each point was attained, in seconds.
12 the specific price of fuel per kilogram: