How much does it cost to get into Space? Is an expendable rocket cheaper than a Single Stage to Orbit Reusable Launch Vehicle? Which is better High Tech or Big Dumb? I have been examining the various aspects of launch vehicle economics in past issues of this column. Materials, technology level, stage ratio, etc., now I will examine the organizational side of launch economics.
The actual costs of a launch vehicle is composed of;
Research & development - The United States Government has done a huge amount of research into rocketry, and spent huge sums. Unfortunately most of this research has not been directed to the aid of private industry. It has been focused on the needs of NASA and the military. This vale of secrecy has meant that private industry has in most cases had to continually reinvent the wheel when it comes to rocket development. In the early sixties NASA made a point to publish a lot of information on rocketry, but this came to a sudden halt with the space shuttle program.
Materials - It has been shown in this column that low cost materials make the cheapest rockets.
Manufacture - Simple design and the economics of scale can lower cost here.
Documentation - Documentation in private industry is a part of quality control, which is a part of marketing. The hot ticket these days is ISO 9000, which means everything from ordering toilet paper to orbital docking is documented.
Licensing & regulation - should be limited to the minimum assurance of safe operation. Unfortunately, to government, industry serves the purpose of supporting the regulatory agency paper mills.
Transportation - The fewer times you have to move something or change vehicles the better. A good example is the Gallilao spacecraft. It was loaded and unloaded, and transported across the country five times, and was severely damaged in the process. Also for small operations like ours, fuel is a significant cost.
Launch site costs - These include the rental of the site, lodging, and any facilities which have to be built at the site, such as a launch rail and bunker.
Insurance - Government agencies always insist on insurance coverage. currently this is expensive and hard to obtain.
Environmental protection - If the vehicle contains propellants or materials that are a threat to the environment, then provisions must be made to contain or clean up any accidents. We have chosen propellants that are environmentally safe.
Institutional overhead - Now, this is the all of the above category. Many organizations have a fixed, rule of thumb, figure that they use for overhead on any project. Typically in industry you take the hourly wage + parts * 3 to get an estimate of the final cost. This is a good quick calculation for a build vs. buy decision. In government the calculation is a bit higher, hourly wage + parts * 1000, which is why government operations cost so much.
When I once suggested a cost saving launch system to NASA, I was informed that the institutional overhead of a government agency so overwhelmed any cost savings that lower launch costs did not even enter into the picture. Then why is everyone talking so much about lower launch costs for NASA? For a free enterprise company with low overhead, a low cost launch vehicle makes sense, as costs are a big part of the profit equeation, but for a government agency launch vehicle costs make up such a small part of operational overhead that lower costs are insignificant. In this sense NASA is correct in turning every new launch vehicle into a reseach project. As an R&D organization NASA sees the greatest benefit by recovering new technology, even at high costs, for any new vehicle. The problem surfaces in the american publics desire for NASA to function as "America's State Airline for Space", a role in which those R&D launch vehicles are sopposed to function as economic vehicles.