What Bigelow really said...
mlin...@my-deja.com
Bigelow's statements. Here is an email from Greg Bennett, reposted with
permission:
MARCU$
(BTW, I wouldn't say Ed's characterization of what Bigelow said was
entirely accurate -- based to what Greg says -- but I and Mike probably
have to admit he came surprisingly close of actually posting an accurate
report after all. Bigelow seems be the same rare species as Andrew
Beal [=billionaire *AND* space buff]; he'll be great news for space
tourism but he will also need some time to get things going. )
--------------------- Begin included message -------------------------
Hi Marcus!
Good to hear from you! It sounds like you need something you could
post on Usenet, so feel free to repost this note. And apologize to
folks for me; I thought maybe I could keep up with the discussions
there, but there just aren't enough hours in a day. I have difficulty
keeping up with my personal mail, too, even with the help of
secretaries.
[...]
Back to my day job: If we're successful at Bigelow Aerospace in
deploying translunar cruise ships, all our previous forecasts for the
Artemis Project become so much wastepaper. As Randall Severy said, "Bob
Bigelow made mincemeat of our financial plans." It knocks about three
orders of magnitude off the forecast transportation costs and makes the
trips to the moon much more pleasant and safe, so it's wonderful news.
We just haven't had time to get back into the spreadsheets to figure it
all out. This changes everything.
About the $500 million: it sounds like folks are making it too
complicated; so unfortunately the answer is wordy.
My boss said he would invest $500 million in Bigelow Aerospace
(actually more if necessary, but that number establishes a commitment).
He didn't put a condition on the investment other than to say that he
will put that much into me company even if the company has no revenues.
We expect it will cost a lot more than that to get to the point
where we're deploying translunar cruise ships. We have a lot to do
between here and there. So think of it as seed money.
We really don't know how the program will develop. We are hoping
we can do this with business partners and others investing in parts of
the whole commercial space infrastructure. If that happens, things will
move much more quickly.
Launch costs are trigger points. If freight to orbit gets down to
$550 a pound, with passenger launch a little higher, we have a
financially viable program. Going the other way, the translunar cruise
ship will consume 100 launches of a Venturestar-type vehicle a year.
That does big things for the economies of scale in the launcher
industry. So the anticipated reduction in launch costs seems to be very
reasonable at this point.
Some folks tell us we're being way too pessimistic, that launch
costs will come down way below $550 a pound. But ... well ... you know
how conservative I am about these things from my work in the Artemis
Project. Robert Bigelow is even more conservative, and when it comes to
business, I trust his instincts. He's the businessman; I'm just the
dumb rokkit sighuntess. But we do have the same basic philosophies
about how to build a business.
Bigelow Aerospace is only 3 months old. As a company, we have to
grow and develop our in-house capabilities before we can really expect
people to take us seriously. Having lots of capital is good, but we're
not going to build spaceships out of dollar bills. Our goal is to
deploy translunar cruise ships within 15 years, maybe sooner, but we
expect to deploy several different spacecraft along the way. We'll take
it one step at a time, making sure we have that same solid
infrastructure I've been going on about in the Artemis Project.
Greg
----------------------- End of included message -----------------------
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Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Pat
pat
mlin...@my-deja.com
Hm, seems so, yeah. Although I would be much happier if he for once
could be gratuitous and admit (for example) I never said the things he
claimed I had said -- about internal combusion engines costing billions.
>> Ed's comments mentioned all the great things Burt supposedly said
would
>> happen almost right away. You said he overstated things.
>>
>> On 1998/08/25 you wrote:
[snip]
>I'm fairly sure this was personal email, so please don't post that
again.
It wasn't!! I pulled that one from DejaNews. I never post email quotes
without prior consent.
MARCU$
Pat
mlin...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <37B8916A...@clark.net>,
> Pat <p...@clark.net> wrote:
> > I think you owe Ed an apology.
>
> Hm, seems so, yeah. Although I would be much happier if he for once
> could be gratuitous and admit (for example) I never said the things he
> claimed I had said -- about internal combusion engines costing billions.
>
Um try a little harder, marcus.
i know it's hard, try, "Ed, you were right about this, i'm sorry".
I'll work on ed too, when he's wrong.
pat
mlin...@my-deja.com
Pat <p...@clark.net> wrote:
>
>
> mlin...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > In article <37B8916A...@clark.net>,
> > Pat <p...@clark.net> wrote:
> > > I think you owe Ed an apology.
> >
> > Hm, seems so, yeah. Although I would be much happier if he for once
> > could be gratuitous and admit (for example) I never said the things
he
> > claimed I had said -- about internal combusion engines costing
billions.
> >
>
> Um try a little harder, marcus.
>
> i know it's hard, try, "Ed, you were right about this, i'm sorry".
>
> I'll work on ed too, when he's wrong.
Work on Ed when he is wrong? In that case, before I apologize, I'd ask
you to force Ed to address his claims about Col. Bill Bruner (spelled
"Birner" in another edwright post from 1997)... I showed Ed that
Bruner/Birner could not possibly have claimed ~20 SSTO tanker flights
would be enough for a two-way lunar landing mission using the Delta
Clipper. As usual, I posted *facts* from the same Aerospace America
article the Bruner/Birner analysis supposedly was about, and I posted
*calculations* to back up my claims that Ed must be wrong about what he
said. As usual, I got an angry response in return, but Ed has carefully
avoided the subject ever since -- just as he did back in 1997/05/27, by
the way.
I wrote:
> > So I suspect
> > you didn't understand what Bruner was explaining to you, as usual.
Ed replied:
> This is another typical Marcus Lindroos tactic. You weren't there,
> you have no idea what was said, yet you argue with someone who was
> there, insult me, call me a liar. Well, I suppose it's easier
> than arguing your case based on facts.
PS: I did not accuse Ed of "lying", since the word implies the guy knows
exactly what Birner/Bruner was saying but is deliberately distorting the
story. I am saying that Ed apparently did not understand what was being
discussed, or does not recall what the correct number of SSTO flights
was.
Pat
pat