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| Why isn't space growing? Every decade brings new disappointments followed by new promises. We were supposed to have L5 colonies in 1995, private spaceports, $100,000 suborbital trips. | Why isn't space growing? Every decade brings new disappointments followed by new claims. We were supposed to have L5 colonies in 1995, private spaceports, $100,000 suborbital trips. In 2013, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy was to launch "later this year". |
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| When Apollo went to the moon, 8 trillion 2015 dollars had been spent worldwide developing usable rockets, and a Saturn V could put 120 tons in low earth orbit. Apollo cost $120 billion in 2015 dollars, and moonwalks cost a billion 2015 dollars per hour, per astronaut. There were 86 space launches in 1994, and 78 in 2013, with total 2010 global space revenues (including military) of 64 billion dollars. | Great ideas, but Space is HARD. The actual results are increased costs, and diminished launch performance. Our largest rockets are evolutions of designs begun more than half a century ago, the 23-ton-to-LEO Russian Proton (1965) and US Delta (1960), less than 20% of the capacity of the Saturn V. Communication satellites are still the main application, evolutions of the 1962 Telstar design, handwired boxes of trailing-edge electronics resembling 1960s aircraft. We launch about 200 tons to orbit per year. |
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| The semiconductor industry was small in the sixties, and Apollo consumed a significant fraction of global output before 1972. Global sales were 3.4 billion dollars in 1976, $295B in 2010, and $335B in 2014. The number of transistors per integrated circuit is increasing far faster, and total integrated circuit transistor production grows 70% per year, 200 times increase per decade. There are 1200 quintillion transistors in the world today, and Moore's Law growth shows no signs of stopping, in spite of decades of claims that the end was near. | Meanwhile, the global semiconductor industry grew from the first planar integrated circuit in 1960 to 335 billion dollars in 2014, five times the size of the space industry. Output is soaring - we've made 1 sextillion transistors (1E21), an amount increasing 70% a year, 200 times larger per decade. There are more transistors in a cheap USB flash drive than existed worldwide during Apollo. |
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| What if we bet our space future on transistors, not new rockets? What would space look like with 70% increased value per year? | What if we bet our space future on new transistors, not new rockets? What would space look like with 70% increased value per year? Server sky proposes to radically increase the value per kilogram of satellite launched to orbit, radically increasing the value delivered per launch dollar. Coupled to fast growing global markets, this will rapidly expand launch rates, the only proven way to lower per-kilogram launch cost. Server sky |
Server Sky - Energy in Space, Information on Earth
Tuesday May 5, 2015 700PM, Multnomah County Library
OrL5Abstract
Why isn't space growing? Every decade brings new disappointments followed by new claims. We were supposed to have L5 colonies in 1995, private spaceports, $100,000 suborbital trips. In 2013, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy was to launch "later this year".
Great ideas, but Space is HARD. The actual results are increased costs, and diminished launch performance. Our largest rockets are evolutions of designs begun more than half a century ago, the 23-ton-to-LEO Russian Proton (1965) and US Delta (1960), less than 20% of the capacity of the Saturn V. Communication satellites are still the main application, evolutions of the 1962 Telstar design, handwired boxes of trailing-edge electronics resembling 1960s aircraft. We launch about 200 tons to orbit per year.
Meanwhile, the global semiconductor industry grew from the first planar integrated circuit in 1960 to 335 billion dollars in 2014, five times the size of the space industry. Output is soaring - we've made 1 sextillion transistors (1E21), an amount increasing 70% a year, 200 times larger per decade. There are more transistors in a cheap USB flash drive than existed worldwide during Apollo.
What if we bet our space future on new transistors, not new rockets? What would space look like with 70% increased value per year?
Server sky proposes to radically increase the value per kilogram of satellite launched to orbit, radically increasing the value delivered per launch dollar. Coupled to fast growing global markets, this will rapidly expand launch rates, the only proven way to lower per-kilogram launch cost.
Server sky