Laughing Wolf has a couple good posts--one a general tutorial on writing a business plan, and another on specific issues associated with space business plans.

On the latter, though, I think he spent a little too much time at NASA. I don't understand what he means about space tourism being a "limited" market. From my perspective, it's the only one that's not limited, at least in the sense that there are millions of existing payloads, and millions more are continually being manfactured by (as the old joke goes) unskilled labor. In my opinion, he has far far too much faith in space manufacturing, particularly given its dismal payoff so far, relative to the hype for the last thirty years.

I believe that there may be money to be made from this field, but it's not going to be a major driver for reducing launch costs, because the lucrative applications (if there are any) will be those for which great value can be extracted from small amounts of mass (just as currently the most money made in space consists of delivering a few thousand pounds into orbit which then returns millions of dollars of revenue in the form of (rest) massless photons). Only tourism requires the huge amount of up and down mass that will force up launch activity, and force down costs.

Yes, space manufacturing has to cope with the cost of getting raw goods up and finished goods down the gravity well, the latter obviously the less problematic. There has to be a damn good reason for manufacturing in space to make it worth the cost, and the cost has so far to fall, that may hold true for a very long time.

Therefore, space manufacturing will only fly for real if we are using raw materials sourced in space at a lower cost than material and transport cost from the surface, and/or (mostly AND) if the destination and purpose for the manufactured goods lies in space.

Both those things are possible, but it is tourism that would tend to jump start them. You gotta have a "killer application" for space; the Visicalc or Lotus 1-2-3 of the new frontier.

What about manufacturing electricity and microwaving it back to earth, a-la, O'Neal. See "The High Frounter" By O'Neal. Thus, we keep clean air, low maintanence, NO COMPETITION, unlimited power source, need I go on? Very high start up cost, but many needs are filled, OURS, the enviorment, NASA???, space development, adventure. etc. Jim Coomes. Pattaya, Thailand.

Surely another market would be transport. With a RLV you are only 45 minutes from anywhere in the world. Thats bound to be a significant market for both passangers and cargo. I would think much larger then tourism.

ta

Ralph

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