Commercial Launch Demand to Private Microgravity Habitats at Low Earth Orbit

Notional 7 meter in diameter Blue Origin space habitat (Credit: NASA & Blue Origin)

By Marcel F. Williams 

A 2018 Pew Research poll suggest that 42% of Americans would be interested in traveling into space. But, so far, only seven super wealthy individuals have been able to do so with their own private funds. Multimillionaire Dennis Tito was the first tourist to travel into space to the ISS. Billionaire Charles Simonyi was the first space tourist to pay for  two trips to the ISS.

The Russian space agency has charged these super wealthy individuals between $20 million to $40 million to travel to the ISS. And because of the extraordinarily high cost of space travel,  space tourism has been exclusively for the super wealthy.

Multimillionaire Dennis Tito (far left) became the first space tourist in April of 2001

Bigelow Aerospace is currently offering tickets to the ISS for $52 million each for a one to two month stay at the International Space Station. 

There are over 2100 billionaires on Earth. 52,000 people in the world who are worth over $100 million with 15,000 of those individuals living in the US alone. So there are at least 52,000 people on Earth who could afford to travel to a space and to a space station at current prices.

Companies like Bigelow Aerospace have also been developing their own private space habitats that they hope to deploy some time during the next decade. And  NASA has recently presented space habitat concepts from several private space companies including Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin. 

$50 million seems close to the current rate for training, transporting, housing, and feeding a space tourist.  Optimally, you want to protect your customers health, so ten days in space should prevent any noticeable anatomical or physiological health effects. The ten days would include the launch days to the private space station and the return to the Earth's surface. That should give a tourist 8 full days inside of a private space station.  The pre-launch experience should also include astronaut training with maybe a few hyperbolic flights aboard a jumbo jet to test the individuals reaction to brief periods of microgravity and dynamic flight situations.

Notional 8.4 meter in diameter SLS derived microgravity habitat (Credit NASA)

Once inside of the orbiting space habitat, a paying tourist should be given spacious-- private quarters-- for sleeping, bathing, communicating with friends and family back on Earth and watching network and cable television programs or videos and movies on a private wide screen monitor. 

A large microgravity recreational area should also be available for guest. And the recreational area should be at least as spacious as the accommodations  experienced by astronauts aboard the old 6.6 meter in diameter Skylab facility. Notional habitats derived from the New Glenn upper stage (7 meters in diameter), Bigelow's Olympus: BA-2100 (12.6 meters in diameter), and SLS propellant tank technology derived habitats (8.4 meters in diameter) should provide spacious environments for microgravity recreational activities. 

A Cupola window viewing area of the Earth should be continuously available for guest.

Samantha Cristoforetti taking photos within the ISS Cupola (Credit: NASA)

At least three FlexCraft EVA tours should be available so that guest can experience moving about in space while experiencing spectacular view of the Earth and external views of the  space habitat where they have been residing. FlexCraft would give tourist the advantage of quick and convenient access to space without the need for several hours of pre-breathing oxygen in order to prevent decompression sickness (the bends).  Flexcraft can be flown in space by the tourist or tele-operated by personal on the ground or authorized personal inside of the space habitat. Manipulation arms could also be removed from FlexCraft vehicles that are utilized for tourist.

Notional FlexCraft single person vehicle (Credit: NASA)

The commercial spacecraft pilots could serve as the onsite guest service agents for the tourist they've taken up to the space habitat. Robots operated by personal on Earth could be used by the space habitat owners to assist the pilots and their guest-- even on FlexCraft EVAs. 

If the polls are correct then their should be at least  6300 super wealthy Americans who desire to travel to a space station-- and can afford to do so. And if there is a similar statistical desire  world wide, then there should be  at least  22,000 super wealthy people who want to travel into space-- and can afford to do so.

Annually, if just 10% of the super wealthy who desired to travel into space (2200 people)-- did so-- that would require 440 to 550 private commercial launches every year. In 2018, there were only 111 successful space launches with only four them being crew launches. So space tourism should create dramatic increase in the launch rate accompanied by substantial reductions in launch cost. But even if it were only 1%, that would require 44 to 55 private commercial launches every year.

But what if there was a national or even an international lotto system that could allow private individuals to risk an American dollar for a chance to travel into space? What if  42% of adult Americans risked $5 a year, on average, for a chance to travel into space through a Space Lotto system?  That would generate approximately $1.2 billion a year for crew launches. And that would be enough money to send 24 average Jane's and Joe's into space every year (5 to 6 additional crew launches).

But you could add even more incentive for Americans to purchase Space Lotto tickets if winners were given a monetary prize of $250,000 (less than 1% of the cost for the round trip ticket to space). Winners could be given $125,000 initially for their time off from work for astronaut training and traveling into space. An additional $125,000 would be given to them once they returned from space.

 If 42% of the world's adult population were willing to participate in Space Lotto system with a similar financial reward but only risked $2 per year, that would still generate $5 billion a year. That could purchase enough tickets for 100 winners per year (20 to 25 additional crew launches).

Optimally, a single private space habitat might be able to accommodate 36 tourist flights per year for a 10 day stay. Ten habitats would be required to accommodate 360 flights per year. So, obviously, there would also be a significant launch demand just to deploy the private habitats needed to accommodate potential tourist. 



Recreational activity within the interior of the 6.6 meter in diameter Skylab space station. 


References and Links

Space tourism? Majority of Americans say they wouldn’t be interested

NASA LEO Commercialization Study Results 

Space Tourism

Space Adventures 

 FlexCraft

Bigelow aims to sell rides to space station on SpaceX Dragon ships for $52M a seat

The World's Billionaires

You're not rich until you have $100 million, says rich people

Ultra high-net-worth individual

Here's where the world's richest 0.00168% live

Utilizing Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) for Early SLS Cargo Launches and Commercial Crew Destinations

Some of the SSME (RS-25D) in storage at the Kennedy Space Center (Credit NASA).

by Marcel F. Williams

NASA's future Space Launch System (SLS) won't be fully operational until it can utilize the new expendable RS-25E engines which probably won't be ready until the year 2021. However, NASA has 16 Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME: RS-25D), previously used by the Space Shuttle stored away for use by the SLS. Since the SLS will utilize four engines per flight, the SSME could launch up to four SLS missions before the arrival of the expendable RS-25E engines. But the safety of astronauts launched on the SLS may depend on utilizing these engines on unmanned test missions.

 

2014

Simulated Video of Delta IV Heavy Launch of the CM of the MPCV

In 2014, NASA will use the ULA's Delta-IV heavy to test launch the Command Module (CM) of the future Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV),  placing it in low Earth orbit for reentry back on Earth. The  Service Module (SM) of the MPCV, however, will still be under development by the European Space Agency and won't be available to launch with the CM until   2017

2017

MPCV (Credit: NASA)

SLS/MPCV (Credit: NASA)

The SLS heavy lift vehicle will make its maiden launch in 2017 along with the complete version of the MPCV . This unmanned flight could be as simple as sending the MPCV to TLI (TransLunar Injection) or on more complex journeys to the Earth-Moon Lagrange points or to some other points of interest within cis-lunar space. 

After 2017, NASA has no SLS missions scheduled until 2021 when the first crewed missions of the SLS/MPCV are scheduled to begin and the new RS-25E engines are scheduled to be utilized. It would also mean that astronauts would be launched on top of the SLS after just one unmanned test flight! But  NASA would still have 12 SSME that could be utilized for cargo missions before 2021 that could further insure the safety of the SLS for manned spaceflight.

 During the Apollo era, there were two unmanned test flights of the Saturn V heavy lift vehicle before NASA finally took a chance and launched three American  astronauts into orbit around the Moon in December of  1968. The first unmanned test flight of the Saturn V in November of 1967-- was a complete success. However, there were some  problems with the second and third stages of the Saturn V during  the second unmanned test  in April of 1968. 

Of course, serious problems with the Apollo Command Module occurred  during a launch rehearsal test on  January 27th, 1967 which cost the lives of three American astronauts:  Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom (a former Mercury astronaut),  Edward H. White (the first American to walk in space), and  Roger B. Chaffee-- an astronaut who never got a chance to fly into space.

So as far as safety is concerned, I believe it would be prudent for NASA to launch the SLS more than just one time-- unmanned-- before actually placing living human beings on top of the new heavy lift vehicle. 

But that doesn't mean that such early SLS flights can't also be put to good use. Below is a proposal for two additional SLS flights before the first manned flight of the SLS/MPCV in 2021:

2019

CST-100 Commercial Crew Vehicle docked with the Olympus BA-2100 space station (Credit: Boeing)

Interior of the Olympus BA-2100 space station (Credit Bigelow Aerospace)

I propose that in 2019,  NASA should launch the Bigelow Aerospace company's Olympus BA-2100 space station to LEO for-- private commercial utilization. While Bigelow Aerospace would pay for the development of the BA-2100, under this scenario,  NASA would pay for the launch of the habitat in exchange for up to 60 days of annual exclusive use of the facility-- with the exception of Bigelow Aerospace maintenance personal aboard the space station. 

This would give Bigelow Aerospace the advantage of having a huge space station in orbit for exclusive  fee based Commercial Crew and foreign spacecraft  visitations at least 10 months out of the year.   Bigelow could still pay  private launch companys to deploy its smaller microgravity facilities (BA-300) nearby. This would allow small specialized microgravity labs to function without human interference while the human engineers and scientist took shelter at the larger Olympus space station until the experiments are completed and the results can be retrieved from the smaller facilities. Human access to the Olympus space station will, of course, depend on the availability of operational Commercial Crew spacecraft which should be available to NASA well before 2019.

2020

Skylab 2 (Credit: Brand Griffin)

Hypergravity Centrifuge (Credit: NASA)

 I also propose that in 2020, an orbital habitat derived from the SLS hydrogen  fuel tank, similar to the Skylab 2 proposal,  also  be deployed by the SLS to  LEO. Such a habitat could be equipped with a six meter in diameter internal hyper gravity centrifuge-- easily accommodated within the 8.4 meter interior diameter of the space station. This will enable NASA to see if one to two hours of hypergravity per day  can  significantly mitigate some of the deleterious effects of microgravity on the human body. The new NASA space station will also be supplied with enough water shielding to protect astronauts from major solar events while also  reducing their long term exposure to cosmic radiation. Again, NASA will need to utilize Commercial Crew services in order to access the SLS deployed NASA space station at LEO. In the 2020's, a similar SLS derived habitat will be placed at one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points and could someday be used to house astronauts on interplanetary journeys.

So before the Space Launch System is fully operational in the early 2020s, the old Space Shuttle Main Engines could allow the SLS to deploy two enormous space stations: one privately owned  and one owned by NASA. Both stations could serve as places of refuge if one of the stations had to be abandoned in an emergency. And they could both serve  as  way stations for future reusable Orbital Transfer Vehicles headed towards the Earth-Moon Lagrange points or to Lunar orbit. A new generation of space stations would allow NASA to finally move beyond the ISS while focusing its efforts and finances on beyond LEO missions to the Moon and beyond.

Adding two additional unmanned SLS launches should help to enhance the launch vehicles safety and reliability before manned missions begin in 2021.  And, under this scenario, four SSME would still be available in case the  RS-25E engines are still not ready for manned SLS missions by 2021. 

Marcel F. Williams

 

Links and References:

Space Launch System Capabilities with a New Large Upper Stage

Space Launch System

NASA Fleshes Out SLS Development Schedule

Skylab II
 

NASA Gives Artificial Gravity a Spin

 Short Radius Centrifuge (SRC)

An SLS Launched Cargo and Crew Lunar Transportation System Utilizing an ETLV Architecture