It is argued that the current focus on Earth-to-Orbit transportation by commercial firms is misplaced due to market saturation on the supply side. There is an increasing mis-match between the direction and trend generated by most military and civil space launch requirements and those of telecommunications. The incompatibility of the military and civil space trends towards smaller and lighter space systems when compared with the commercial world's trend toward larger satellites makes predicting launch services requirements difficult.
Furthermore, known market elasticity will result in lower profits for launch service providers because demand-side will lag supply side until the price to the launch consumer is below about $500 per pound. Examples are proffered that show no presently funded technological approach is able to achieve such a price. Some examples of some of the funded activities at the Marshall Space Flight Center will illustrate this point within the context of their Space Launch initiative.
However, there exists a series of pristine in-orbit space transportation markets that can provide a new source of revenue by employing available technologies. These technologies also appear to hold promise for profitable commercial space exploration under the proper conditions. It will be shown that employment of this technology can realistically reduce costs to commercially profitable orbits by a factor of two while providing a more reliable transportation service. This technology, nuclear electric propulsion, can from the basis for profitable commercial space exploration enterprises to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
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Roger X. Lenard is a retired military officer with over 2000 hours of single seat fighter experience; He was an air combat tactics instructor pilot and squadron test pilot. He served on two Presidential commissions, one for President Reagan, in planning the Strategic Defense Initiative program. He served President Bush on the Space Exploration Initiative as the Mars Exploration co-chairman. Mr Lenard invented the Lightweight Exoatmospheric Projectile Program, a project entering initial flight-testing for the Navy's Upper Tier Defense System. He was the program manager for the former Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Program, has negotiated several international high technology agreements, and also ran the SDIO's hypervelocity gun program. Mr Lenard was on special assignment to Marshall Space Flight Center to perform NEP system concept design.
Mr Lenard has served on the New Mexico State Board of Education, and the New Mexico Governor's Productivity Task Force. Mr Lenard holds a B.S in Physics from Portland State University and Master's degree in Chemical Physics from the University of Puget Sound.
No Tickets Required and Visitors are Welcome
This Lecture has been organised by the Royal Aeronautical Society's Space Group and will be held in the Society's Lecture Theatre commencing at 18:00 hrs.
Contact: Conference Department, RAeS, 4 Hamilton Place, London, W1J 7BQ
Tel: 020 7670 4300 Fax: 020 7670 4349. Email: space@aerosociety.com