Michael Kaufman
Someone from each group will have about five minutes to report their team's product. Every group is speaking a different language. So if possible, the person presenting has to translate for the rest of us. Give us enough context to help us understand.
Team 4: Human Habitats / Advanced Materials
We didn't have any representative RPCs so we focused on materials. Our scope was divided into two pieces: space processing of earth and extraterrestrial materials. The idea is about the opportunities right now and what we need to do to create better environments for this to happen.
Lunar materials is a tenth or a hundredth of the effort compared to the earth to get materials to the point where they can be used. So the energy argument for using lunar materials is extremely favorable.
Microgravity materials has been studied for a long time. The weight shield experiment in the space shuttle is an example. It's a big disc that created a vacuum behind it three orders better than on earth. In that vacuum there is ultra high purity. The market could be very high. We understand the Russians are actually investing in a production type facility on this. This is an example of something that is successful. We have institutional ADD and move from path to path. The point is: this is successful and others are beginning to pick up on this so we need to get aggressive with it.
We talked about foam steel and touched on combustion. This is only a sampling. There are a whole lot of other things NASA has done as pilot projects.
What are some of the high level ingredients that would help this process? The right kind of government is one. The idea is to take a portfolio of projects to help reduce the risk on commercial companies. We should use what we've already done in the RPCs in a new commercial way. We also discussed globalization and using international contributions.
We need to capture the imagination of the public as an important part of how we move forward. We need to establish a public vision.
Key challenges and obstacles include the current cost to get off earth. We must reduce cost significantly. The frequency of launches is low as is the learning cycle. We have to push the cycle for developing the mission down to months or less, not years. The SPG is shooting for a month. We think along with that, when the frequency goes up that the demand will go up in a highly non-linear fashion. We will reach the knee of that curve and demand will sky rocket.
We also talked about multiple customers. Space commerce is largely in the communications arena right now. We need to broaden the customer base.
We discussed ideas on new businesses. The supply of oxygen to NASA on the moon is one area. Let industry figure out how that could be done. We need a broader customer base than NASA, however.
Team 7: Power, Propulsion, and Chemical Systems
Essentially, it comes down to research and education. We worked through a timeline of systems. Ultimately, a lot of things done in the current two-year period leads to the next period of COTS, CLV, CEV, etc. Training of a new workforce and retraining of the current workforce is necessary. The inspiration of the users is very important. This will really pull the demand. Government systems are only a part of that. We need to create desire. Orbital tourism will be a big part of that. Larger systems and capabilities will require inspiration in developing the desire.
Technically speaking, supply is today's technology. Then the technology in 2008 and beyond was looked at. The technology will have to take us through 2013 and beyond. Who will pay for it? Tourism will help pay for it beyond 2013. Research and education will have to be brought up to speed. Miniaturized satellites, new launch systems, and deep space capabilities are very expensive. The solar array is also a big idea for the future.
Demonstration projects are a critical issue in any new technology in space. In order to persuade folks to bring new technology in, demonstration projects are necessary. The 2008-2013 timeframe is what we're looking at. Validation is essential. The demonstrations should be paid for by those who will be the greatest beneficiaries.
Comment: I think it's very logical for the person who benefits from a technology to pay for it.
The fundamental business plan should address that. Profit is a good word.
Comment: Demonstration either succeeds or fails but tests always succeed as a test. The real question is to think of it as a demonstration, or do you want to test what works and not?
I love the word test, but it has a different texture than a demonstration. In all these cases, we need to do the same sort of thing and engage from the very beginning.
Our investment strategy is: we need it. The biggest component of that is research and education. We need them today and not just for 2013 and beyond.
Team 2 : Human Life Support
We weren't looking at things beyond 2005. We talked about life support systems for NASA that already exist and can be bought, but not in large numbers. Up to 10 IVA suits a year can be obtained, but that does not constitute a business. However, in less than five years, these environmental suites could have a spin off as a bird flu suit.
The real demand in the short term is for the suit that may be needed for sub-orbital flights. There are organizations that are begging for the IVA approach to be taken. The projections would be for thousands of people going up per year.
The official line is: Branson will fly folks in shirt sleeves.
Q: Did you mention remote medicine?
A: We mainly addressed lighting, communication, etc.
Comment: There may be an early market here on earth for that.
Reporting back on physiological status, such as firefighters, is a current application. We restricted ourselves to the life support aspect of the suit.
Comment: John Hinds is here, and through his Stanford partnership has developed some fantastic projects for monitoring health. This is a very mature system.
We mainly addressed being able to breathe, stay warm, and communicate.
Comment: The same size devices that have to support a space crew of six is about the same size as a washer/dryer. Things can be recycled in different ways. Those are very trackable technologies for use on earth and space.
I work on all those things and are in favor of them, but we applied a realistic business model to our team's work. Until folks become concerned about recycling their water for example, it won't happen within five years.
In short term, this is not an investment opportunity in the next five years.
Team 3: New Spacecraft Systems
We looked at supply components to be lighter, cheaper, and fully integrated. The organization to supply that is geared to a commercial bend.
The demand included tourism, the delivery of fuels, and biotechnology.
Partnership opportunities addressed how we get people interested. We also looked at subscriptions and how to bring data to the front. In terms of investment, we saw it driven from the demand side. Anything of high volume and providing cheap access to space will help drive industries to that market. When we look at partnership opportunities, we see many different scenarios.
Team 5: Imaging
We looked at imagery and HD cameras. We took that as our initial supply. We looked at what the demand is for that and what would be appealing to investors.
There are already lots of examples of how this could succeed commercially. Lots of people would buy if the cost was low enough. Insurance companies could use it to evaluate claims. Environmental monitoring and regulation certification are other uses. As we go forward in time, more and more digital applications will occur.
On the supply side, it needs to be flight ready and able to fit on smaller vehicles. The HD cameras could be used for rendezvous and docking of spacecraft in the near term and exploration purposes. Mining and tourism in the longer term would create a demand for this technology.
Team 6: Communications
Basically, we're the phone company for space. Our demand and supply depends on other services. Remote sensing would create some demand. To demonstrate some of the technologies, we could model after the NASE ASE demonstration. We really need the demand and data rate to push things. A lot of our problem was struggling with the demand. The other aspect was whether NASA would ever get comfortable with buying and adopting a COTS like approach.
It's interesting to compare the negative to positive of how we could make these things happen. We tried to flip the negatives into positives. Open standards and demand for different products was discussed.
People have talked about an off-earth data archive on the moon. Then a market would have to be created on why that was desired.
Q: It sounds like the success of a communication plan depends on folks going to space a lot and needing to communicate to many different points. The interdependencies are obvious. Is that necessary for success?
A: If you had a couple of applications with high data demand, it could drive the need for a communications infrastructure. So the demand could be there without a high volume of things going on in space.
Comment: There seems to be some market for programs NASA didn't want to fund. What are the tradeoffs? The Mars Rover is an example. NASA could use it then sell it for other commercial applications.
Any utility thing needs foresight so the infrastructure can be put into place. The requirements won't always pull you. It's a process of putting it in place and then the demand will come.
Comment: There are a lot of interests that just don't have the bandwidth.
It takes an investor with a vision and capability to make it happen. It's one of those things where the application will backfill the capability.
Comment: Some folks are afraid of opportunity, but as soon as it's there, they want it.
Team 8: Private / Public Partnerships
We dealt with creating an alternative set of public/private models to support space commercial enterprises. There is basically a model with four pieces. These are infrastructure, something that creates value once its in space, operability in space, and a way to market it. Today, the guiding model is somewhere around NASA often being the integrator of all the pieces. NASA in the future would not be the integrator; it just provides the elements of it. RPCs supply great packages.
There is a lot of operability and value created. For the future, the integrators are private sector only with some public/private structures. One key thing for the future regarding the infrastructure is that state facilities could provide this capability. In the future, this could be a state activity and an economic development argument.
RPCs could be the integrator for the value packages. NASA would provide more of the infrastructure and move back into its R&D mode. The operators could still be NASA but private operators and multiple forms of both would happen in the future.
The need to create a private sector financing model incentive is necessary to make this happen in the future. This implies that ACES could create a third session day of just an investor's forum, then the government participants would present what they could provide in infrastructure.
Right now, our tax money goes to NASA, and they want to get back into space exploration.
Comment: Some of the RPCs would come up with the components. We have a $10B budget in our company. Our project incorporates most of the points bought up. For things to happen, the company has to know what it costs to get into space, make something there, and get it back. The shuttle technology is proven but expensive. The launch vehicle we have is two external tanks attached to the sides of the orbiter. Riding up on the stack could be a personnel carrier outfitted accordingly for either laboratories, manufacturers, etc. Launching a stack like this will be expensive. It will carry up 30 personnel at a time. It's modeled after the Delta Clipper. There could be free floating laboratories or a series docked together. I have a presentation I could show after we adjourn to anyone interested.
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Click here to view the presentation on the Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering
Last session I talked about crystal growth in space and how we could develop it as a market. I now have a slide presentation to share with you about that.
There are two market niches. One is to make jewelry from inorganic compounds and the other is to grow protein crystals that support pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, NIH structural genomics centers, and universities. This second niche has a greater market once we prove it can be done.
The jewelry can be encased so it lasts forever. People will pay tens of thousands of dollars for this until the market is saturated. There are many different ways to market this capability.
Ten years ago, crystal structure determination took a long time. Structure based drug design is used by all pharmaceutical companies. NIH was selected to do high throughput proteomics and has done $240M worth over ten years. The problem is that producing protein is difficult, with only 12 out of 100 being good. However, we've just achieved a 100 out of 100 rate.
Here is a summary of the results for 22 international structural genomics centers. If anyone can improve a crystal once you have it, they would have a great market. There is a need for better crystals. Space can help us get it. You heard about the Merlin. It has a lot of advantages but it weighs 56 pounds. We can get it down to about 18 pounds, so the flight costs clearly has to go down.
We know the size range and about how many crystals we can get in a middeck locker, then we know the costs to mount the jewelry equals a net revenue (except for the flight cost) is about $1M. We can do many different experiments for growing crystals. The market for this area is worth billions of dollars.
The market for protein crystals is not as great as jewelry right now. The market has no interest if it has to wait two to six months for a flight. It wants multiple chances and very quickly. They would pay for it with the jewelry income. The word will spread. We have to convince these companies that it will help them and help other companies, then they'll jump on the bandwagon. We have to support it somehow. Jewelry will support it for the first three years.
We have many different types of hardware. We realized early on that many people wanted to participate in protein crystal growth. We have hardware that accommodates thousands of samples. Space can help.
The overall success rates for PCG are less than 10% based on one space flight. However, if two flights per protein are considered, the success rate jumps to 22%. Twelve proteins flown 10 or more times has a success rate of 100%.
Q: What is the value added of the better crystal?
A: It shortens the time, and to a pharmaceutical company that could be $100M. Every pharmaceutical company today would pay me to grow crystals in a cost effective manner.
Q: With this crystal structure, can they figure out which are the winners and losers faster?
A: Yes, it drops from millions to thousands having to be tested.
Q: So you need a round trip service, correct?
A: Yes, it has to be round trip and they can't pass 6G's of impact. It has to be a gentle re-entry.
A good idea will be funded by NASA up to a certain point. NASA funded us $10M to build a flight prototype 10 years ago. Then they cancelled the program. The prototype still works but is depreciated as an asset and just used as a museum artifact.
Q: If you were to drive the cost low enough to where it wasn't an issue, what would be the size of the market?
A: It's a pretty good market.
Q: For your shrunk version, what's the actual weight of the solutions in it?
A: Four liters worth. So it couldn't be shrunk without affecting the size of the crystal.
Q: Are the crystals that grow in space typically free floating?
A: Yes, but you don't want them to sit for very long or they will start to attach to each other.
Michael Kaufman
Thank you.