Neil Tyson's Confusing Take on Space Commerce
Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Private Companies Won’t Take The Lead In Space Exploration, TechCrunch
“Tyson described space travel as “a long-term investment”: “It’s an investment that private enterprise cannot lead.” He recalled the excitement around SpaceX’s delivery of cargo the International Space Station, which sparked discussion about whether private companies would replace government as the main engine behind space travel. Tyson’s response? “They brought cargo to the space station! NASA’s been doing that for 30 years!” The problem, he said, is that it’s hard to predict the risk and return on investment on “doing anything big and expensive first.” He noted that the first Europeans to come to America were not the Dutch East India Company, but Christopher Columbus and his crew, whose expedition was paid for by Spain. After the initial exploration, there will be opportunities for private companies. “The first trillionaire in the world is going to be the person who first mines the asteroid belt,” Tyson said.”
Keith’s note: Its rather odd that Tyson dumps on what SpaceX has accomplished i.e. that NASA did it 30 years ago (he doesn’t explain that i.e the hugely expensive shuttle) but then he says that the person who first mines the asteroid will become a trillionaire. Assuming that the person gains these monetary riches by mining, you’d have to assume that they are a capitalist and that they did this commercially. So, Tyson dumps on commercial operations on space station as being ho hum and then says that the same mindset/world view i.e. commerce will be behind asteroid mining which he seems to equate with exploration.
It certainly sounds like this future trillionaire has taken the lead, demonstrated vision, and clearly thought about things in the long term – all the things that he thinks that only governments can do. If Tyson is expecting our government to create cogent, clearly thought out plans for a long term investment in space – plans that will stimulate commercial ventures such as asteroid mining, well, it would be unwise to look to NASA. NASA changes whatever plans it has every 3 or 4 years. You can get whiplash if you try to plan your business ventures on the basis of NASA plans.
If you want to see the future, look at the subtle messages that can be teased out of the business ventures of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bob Bigelow, and Richard Branson. Do they look to take advantage of government business opportunities? Of course they do. Are they limited to seeking government business? No. Do their big pictures/end points require government funding? It would seem not. Government is just a stepping stone along the path toward the exploration and utilization of space. Government is not the path. More often than not government is a stumbling block – as well as a stepping stone.
Going to Mars: Talking Head Vs Rocket Builder, earlier post
If one examines government space policy and NASA technology / architecture decisions over the last 25 years, most evidence points to short-term or even backwards thinking.
Both Congress and NASA have somewhat of a cargo-cult attachment to the way Apollo and Shuttle programs approached space ops. With regard to NASA human spaceflight, it has made conservative choices – reuse SSMEs, SRBs, fly re-entry capsules BEO, avoid on-orbit assembly, avoid intermodal transportation, ignore low-boil-off tech – and pursued architectures with long-term budget unsustainability, such as Ares and SLS.
Arguably, it is ventures such as Planetary Resources, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX that are pursuing longer-term sustainable plans to push humanity’s sphere of influence further beyond Earth.
Folks:
Just a bit of an explanation of intermodal transportation systems. Intermodal refers to transportation technologies that are designed for a specific environment, taking advantage of the environment unique aspects, yet being able to deliver standardized cargoes from anywhere to anywhere. The standard shipping container is a good (the best, really) example of standardized cargo and the ships, trains and trucks that carry them are examples of intermodal transportation elements.
John brings up a good point about using capsules to return directly to the surface of Earth for beyond Earth orbit as being wasteful. I wholeheartedly agree. Until we learn the skill of aerobraking to Earth orbit or make access to space inexpensive enough to afford the fuel margin to achieve Earth orbit, BEO operations will be very limited.
tinker
“They (SpaceX) brought cargo to the space station! NASA’s been doing that for 30 years!”
Not quite. NASA&DOD have not been able to cut the costs to LEO with shuttle or EELV technology for decades, although a 10 fold decrease has been available.
Intriguing insight by NGT: Avoiding the gravity well may be the answer to a trillionaire. At what $/kg does the business case close? Space challenges the mind unlike many other ventures.
More importantly, how does the government shift funding to start working on the BEO technology and missions. If ISRU is successful, will it be tax exempt?
Funny thing though, you can make lots of profit going nowhere. Build a HUGE rocket for Mars (its way too big for Mars or the moon), but do not have the technology in place nor the budget to conduct a single mission. Provide sole source contracts and have Congress specify 130 mT and “SLS 1.9B/yr for decades”. Build a capsule for BEO, but omit GCR shielding, the ability to return from Mars or an asteroid, a transfer stage, and all mission hardware. Raid all the tech. funds and limit cheaper alternatives. Brilliant!
The same expensive product lines and their upgrades have been pitched to Congress for decades by corporations to maintain 7% fee with sole source contracts because no one else has the expertise nor desire to build such an iinefficient beast. Add in government oversight and the cycle is close to a perpetual motion machine.
Take a look back at the 1988 Launch Options Buyers Guide
http://ota-cdn.fas.org/repo…
If Congress wishes to ——Then it should
Limit NASA, DOD———— Growth Maintain existing LVs
Deploy ISS——————– Fund Advanced Liquids
HSF to Mars/moon———–Economical Cargo vehicle
The past decade? SSME->RS68->SSME, 4 seg to 5 seg to 5seg composite to be replaced by adv. liquids, J2->J2X mothballed for RL10s. Orion–Economical Cargo vehicle?
The difference between government funded and commercial space ventures is exploration and exploitation. The latter does not carry the negative connotation of slave labor, or displacing natives, however, destroying natural environments such as vast areas on the Moon or Mars could be a problem that arises.
Commercial space per se should not undertake exploration and discovery. Sure they will discover possibly incredible things by serendipity as they mine the Moon or asteroids or colonize Mars but who wants wholesale discovery to have commercial price tags and control by individuals.
NASA and ESA and other organizations, publicly funded, can explore and return the riches of discovery – knowledge, to humanity. It is not perfect. There remain self-interests but it is far better than individuals or corporations doing so.
Furthermore, there will need to be limits to the commercial exploitation of space. The riches are too great. No, we do not want the first trillionaire to be born of space resources. Commercial may prove and deliver the first resources back to Earth. They may development the robotics/machinery for remote and independent-of-Earth processing of materials. Governments, a unified World organization, will need to take control of the natural resources of space and utilize the technology commercial developments. Commercial will not return the riches of space and sell them to the highest bidder.
Actually mining, construction, road building, is usually a boon for archeaologiests, etc because they would never beable to get that much funding to move so much dirt. It is rare indeed that a day doesn’t go by when a discovery is made because of the primary activity. I would hope that any mining done on Luna will have a cadre of Lunar geologists tagging along to look at the various levels of luna.
And since miners need geologists, they’re not just tagging along as charity cases, they are valuable service providers. Win win.
You know that these lunar archaeologists/geologists will be robots, remotely controlled or autonomous. Eventually, there might be a regular human on hand waiting for opportunities but funding any mining operations will be a heck of a lot cheaper if you leave humans back home.
“Furthermore, there will need to be limits to the commercial exploitation
of space. “
Really? Then what are these limits, and who sets them? This “unified World organization” you talk about? If a space faring nation with the capability to exploit space resources decides they do not want to adhere to these limits, do you advocate going to war to stop them?
Sounds like Russia’s invasion (exploitation) of the Ukrainian crisis and Crimean land grab. The international market place is still maturing. By the time substantial resources can be returned to Earth, I hope that that market place will be mature enough to handle it and set controls on the sale and distribution of the wealth. Making this analogous to the Russian-Crimean situation, without international law and regulations, sanctions lead Russia to retaliate by cutting the spigot of natural gas to the EU. Once you have resources from space streaming in, a dependency will happen and you could have the same tit for tat circumstances if you don’t have international law and commercial regulation.
Your thoughts on some government system that works and controls the wealth of space is unlikely. I don’t know the answer. But it is likely that we fight over space resources just as we do now.
It seems to me that neither a government nor a corporate solution will ever work for long. Greed and the desire to fight for our tribe is just part of our nature. We will need Space resources to survive on earth and in space but that will not change us. We will still have to put up with wars and the like.
Wish I could look into the future and see something better. But I don’t
Human
Sorry. I’m more optimistic and I choose to imagine that this new age of communications creates a framework for reaching rational solutions to our problems. We are not completely done yet. Take, for example, the Crimea/Ukraine problem. There is still room for the Russian leader to confuse the circumstances and mislead. And not yet is there a way for the average citizen to peer into Crimea and see directly what is happening. The CIA can but _not yet_ us. Almost but not fully there yet. Add to communications the solving of the problems of human health and control of our own evolution. The resources from space are limitless and once robotics reaches self-sufficiency, we will not be wanting for the basics for living and more. There are problems along the way such as a population that doesn’t have enough work to do due to automation. Certainly, one can look at all this as opportunities to do everything wrong.
“By the time substantial resources can be returned to Earth, I hope that
that market place will be mature enough to handle it and set controls on
the sale and distribution of the wealth.”
Um, the ‘market place’ *never* ‘sets controls’ on any kind of arbitrary limit. Humans do. Usually in the guise of government or some other controlling body, but its still humans making the final decisions on what the numbers are.
If one set of humans decides what the limits are, you can bet there will be another set who disagree on those limits, or even that there should be limits. If both sides are set in their positions, how do you reslove that, especially if the ‘no limits’ side has the wherewithal to go into space and get the resouces themselves?
If a nation has the capability to go into space and get resources, there is a good chance they will be dependent on *nobody* for *anything*. That, after all, is one of the potential advantages of space exploration and the exploitation of space based resources. Again, if that is the case, how do you propose to enforce these arbitrary limits if someone decides to ignore them? Sanctions wont work if they can get the resources themselves, so that really only leaves the military option, does it not?
Wars have been started before because one side limited another side’s access to resources, and I don’t think that scenario is any less likely for space resources.
It is a jump to go from 50 – 75 billion in combined assets to a trillion. Especially if you dump so much of a commodity onto a market it turns it into a free good.
I agree its seems like a stretch but consider if Gates had not seeded his non-profit foundation but rather several more commercial ventures. He could be worth $100s of Billions today. We need something better than Washington politics and we do not need S. R. Hadden Industries in space. You make space a shared world resource.
Actually, even counting all of Bill Gate’s donations he would not have broke 100 billion .. about 93 billion.
That’s rather obnoxious thinking by NDT. Sure, the initial expeditions to the Americas were publicly funded, but the follow-up voyages that actually helped to get things going were often private ventures by groups of rich individuals.
Actually even the initial voyages weren’t ‘publicly’ funded. Queen Isabella didn’t administer public funds in any meaningful way, but rather was the head of the family that controlled Spain and had individual authority to spend her family’s wealth (just like a private individual).
That’s exactly NDT’s point, isn’t it?
Actually about half was privately funded, as Columbus had already arranged financing.
“About half of the financing was to come from private Italian investors, whom Columbus had already lined up. Financially broke after the Granada campaign, the monarchs left it to the royal treasurer to shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of the enterprise. Columbus was to be made “Admiral of the Seas” and would receive a portion of all profits. The terms were unusually generous, but as his son Diego later wrote,[citation needed] the monarchs did not really expect him to return.
In the April 1492 “Capitulations of Santa Fe”, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10% of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
If you want to see the future, look at the subtle messages that can be teased out of the business ventures of Elon Musk,
Each day I Google Spacex, every other day I see progress on exploration.
Example, long ago I posted here, detailing a Mars Sample return mission just like this. Affordable mars sample return! Now it could happen soon.
http://m.space.com/24984-sp…
Spacex is using methane to make a super big exploration vehicle with engines that can be used over and over again so real exploration of moon and Mars will be affordable.
http://www.nasaspaceflight….
Mr. Musk has an exploration plan that he is executing.
For Mr. Tyson not to see that commercial exploration is already underway, and well a head of that Public Space, SLS Orion so called “exploration, he must have his head stuck in the sand.
Tyson is not a business person? His jobs are usually government funded? Never bite the hand that feeds you?
Mine, mine, but bite the hand humor and take that *coughpointstothissitecough* are fun to do and fun to read. Beside, it is a moral obligation to bite the hand if the hand is reeking of corruption.
Dennis Wingo should be commended on an excellent capture of the issues that will define NASA’s future, as well as putting the past in context. As he points out at the end “Unless we can bring a return on investment from our manned spaceflight activities, they simply will not persist in the face of daunting demands on the budget brought about by the retirement of the baby boomer generation.” This is key, and I fully agree. Yet – by leaving the option open to an SLS and ISS program that become more “rational” and “develop a rational program of exploration and development” I have to wonder if eternal optimism is tainting everything that was said before in this well done piece?
We should be open to the possibility the budget goes nowhere, remaining at levels that are not much different than today, and that this too may be a dose of optimism. We should consider the possibility programs like SLS are incorrigible, and so too would be any progeny, trying to develop landers or habitats or any other exploration elements much as was done before. That is to say, slowly, at ridiculous costs, leaving any possible missions so far in the future as to be irrelevant, and inevitably consumed by events.
Do we really need a strategy that relies on programs like SLS to be rational? That program is quite rational already. SLS is an organic coming together of people around their rational interest. The strategy needed for furthering exploration and an expansion of humanity beyond Earth need not be rational – not to everyone anyway. It need merely align an understanding what is not going to change, how NASA will continue to decline, and how some key events could tend to unfold, to set up some saving grace for NASA, well out of harm’s way. It may be time to think more like Hari Seldon on strategy, setting up a Foundation (and a 2nd Foundation as well), even if it means making Trantorians think this is all part of the plan to save an Empire no longer worth saving.
Can anyone answer this question yet?: How much PROFIT has Elon made from SpaceX so far?
Profit is not Elon’s single objective. But since you ask, clearly enough to keep funding his basic launch operations as well as his R&D areas. Enough so that he doesn’t need to undertake an IPO for SpaceX. I doubt anyone outside SpaceX knows just what the numbers are but Elon does keep saying that they’ve been profitable for at least the last couple of years.
None. But, it might come at some point. That’s the nature of pushing the envelope. Most commenters only push the cushions of the couch.
If he is going to keep plowing his money back into his company(commercial space exploration/settlement) I wish he made more.
Not odd at all, Keith. Tyson is right, it takes a far bigger commitment and capability to engage long term space work than corporate entities have the stomach for. Getting to the ISS is not easy, but building it was magnitudes harder. The private sector would never have done that. Too risky for an unknown return.
Was true once but not now. All Bigelow is waiting for is commercial crew then he’ll start flying his first private space stations.
In addition, space has until recently been an all-government affair. There’s been no ability for commercial to access space other than in the area of satellites.
John Kavanagh said: If one examines government space policy and NASA technology / architecture decisions over the last 25 years, most evidence points to short-term or even backwards thinking.
The NASA of fifteen years ago and earlier was an organization in which a pretty fair number of representatives with experience in a variety of different systems and functions would convene in order to discuss and decide upon plans and processes. The NASA of the last fifteen years is an organization in which representatives with little if any technical experience and most coming from only one or two organizations, notably mission operations and the space station program office, convene and make decisions based mainly on political considerations. For the earlier programs, especially in the early phases, you did not even get into the program office without serious technical experience in functions you were going to be expected to lead. Now many of the leaders have zero technical experience and many have no experience at all in the areas they are leading. NASA’s humans space flight effort has become a mature and corrupt organization in which it is difficult to make anything happen, especially on a schedule and budget. The commercial providers are showing how much can be done. ISS, Constellation, Orion, Shuttle in its later stages, all have been showing how to avoid doing it.
I would suggest also the shuttle in its early stages. And during its design. And Freedom. And VentureStar. And NASP. …
Programs that were under-bid and over-sold, were never really defined properly until way too late in the development. All created in some vague effort to try to get more funding, which inevitably failed, leading to compromised or cancelled systems. I’m not sure there was much difference between NASA today, and the “NASA of 15 years ago”.
I don’t see why this bothers you so much, Keith. NGT is correct in his main point. And he’s sorta right about SpaceX. He misses the point that SpaceX is on an early step of a ladder firmly leaning on Mars. He also misses the point that the government-supplied ISS gave SpaceX a destination.
But in the main, he’s exactly right. The costs of initial forays are prohibitive for commercial companies. The Dutch figured this out; a very small country that controlled huge amounts of wealth in the Indies. Portugal, too, another small country that realized the role of government in exploration; Henry the Navigator’s maps were state secrets and rightly so.
You are kind of ignoring a couple facts though.
“Inter caetera (“Among other [works]”) was a papal bull issued by Pope Alexander VI on 4 May 1493, which granted to Spain (the Crowns of Castile and Aragon) all lands to the “west and south” of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west and south of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde islands.[1]
It remains unclear to the present whether the pope was issuing a “donation” of sovereignty or a feudal infeodation or investiture. Differing interpretations have been argued since the bull was issued, with some arguing that it was only meant to transform the possession and occupation of land into lawful sovereignty. Others, including the Spanish crown and the conquistadors, interpreted it in the widest possible sense, deducing that it gave Spain full political sovereignty”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
The Church gave all the land to the Kings under the divine right of kings. Of COURSE the government was involved, there wasn’t capitalism yet. Hell there wasn’t even merchantilism yet it was still under parts of feudal investiture. Land was granted by the king. It wasn’t that exploration was to expensive to be carried out, it was because you were asking permission from the crown to explore THEIR land. Like Columbus, they explored because they were promised land rights.
Tyson talks Musk (and others) build.
The business model for private space is following closely the business model that private aerospace followed over 50 years ago. NACA/NASA does the fundamental research/testing on airfoils/fuselage/nacell in wind tunnels and passed that data to the private companies. One of the first customers for private aerospace was the postal service.
Now NASA is doing same thing extracting the key know how (heat shields, engines, etc) and providing it to private space NOT burdened with government bureaucracy. One of the first customers for private space is the government for resupply of station.
Space tourism is already here it will sustain the private enterprise. Ironically it was the Russian side of ISS that allows space tourist – talk about capitalists. Private US hotel on the moon will be there is 20 years – as this where US govt has abdicated its natural lead.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ma…
Why do energy companies explore for gas and oil? Why do mining companies explore for gold, siliver? Why do gemstone companies explore for diamonds, rubies etc?
Well gosh .. they explore because they will NEVER EVER get the legal right to capture and sell those resources .. of course…
This is a silly arguement. No one is going to incur the exploration expense unless they get rights to resources..
It is a moot arguement to even have the discussion UNTIL rights are established that once you invest a billion dollars ( which drug companies ROUTINELY invest) you get to put those assests on the books AS an asset the company owns.
I love this documentary, we live just a couple blocks from where the “Wagon Wheel” used to be.
http://video.pbs.org/video/…
NTG misses the point. Low cost to orbit IS the breakthrough.
He’s also quite wrong with his “Been there, done that” comment. NASA certainly wasn’t delivering cargo to the Space Station 30 years ago because it didn’t exist. Besides that, NASA has never performed automated cargo delivery to the Space Station. That was left to the Russians, Europeans and Japanese until SpaceX and Orbital came along.
NGT may be a famed science popularizer but he is not a famed scientist. There is a difference.
I think DARPA has probably had the most influence by funding all kinds of university research projects. I worked on a DARPA funded project at Berkeley back in the late 90s and I’ve used the MOSIS service which is still going.
http://www.longviewinstitut…
http://www.mosis.com/
Neil deGrasse Tyson’s analysis of commercial space fails due to a faulty premise. He assumes (incorrectly) that Elon Musk and SpaceX are so dependent on making a profit, that the company will not take the risks that are needed to accomplish great things.
Clearly, Dr. Tyson hasn’t listened to any of the interviews in which Musk discusses his dream of Mars. Yes, the gentleman wants to make a profit, but a positive bottom line (while important) is not an end unto itself. The money is important because it enables the vision — and not in its own right.
Musk is not beholden to a board of directors. He want to go to Mars. He understands that you’ve gotta have a business plan and be cash flow-positive to get there. This is what Dr. Tyson doesn’t get.
I so agree
Look at how Musk has Spacex doing so much at once to create the tool box for getting us off this rock now. He is not playing it safe he is innovating rapidly. Just like when NASA had to when they had a plan in the Genesis days. Musk is the man with the exploration plan, not public Space. He will force Pubic Space to follow, help him, just has he is forcing cheaper launch to LEO.
Lead, others will follow.
The man with the plan.
After 40 years of nails pace public Space how can I not be a Musk fan.
I think everyone has missed the main point that NGT was trying to, rather cryptically, make. It is simply that no private company will invest billions of dollars into a project with unknown return. Even SpaceX had federal funding and a signed contract with NASA for resupplying ISS before they cut the first piece of metal.