Prospects for Inexpensive Space Transportation ROBERT C. RICHARDSON, III* SUMMARY In this paper the author argues that it is now possible to reduce the cost of transportation from Earth to LEO by about 2 orders of magnitude. He explains why costs have been high until now, why these can be reduced dramatically, and what is now being done in America to do this. He concludes that this development, alone, should greatly improve the prospects of deploying economically viable Solar Power Satellites and other large space structures. Background Space is the most recently opened area that industrialized nations can exploit for economic, political, social, and security purposes. While technological progress opened up access to space over 35 years ago, even the most developed countries have only begun to realize the benefits for life on Earth that lie beyond this High Frontier. The era of discovery and exploration of near Earth space will change into an era of economic exploitation by the onset of the next century only if two inter-related events take place. The first is the opening up of space to free enterprise, and the second is adequate launch cost reduction to permit the private sector to pursue profitable, large scale business ventures in space. Only when affordable means of getting from Earth to near space and back become available will the full economic potential of this new frontier be realized. Until recently most U.S. space activities have been initiated and managed by Government. One result of this has been that transportation costs tend to be buried in, or secondary to, the cost of the projects they support. And since the objectives of government programs have been dictated primarily by such national interests as security or intelligence gathering, they are paid for by the taxpayers and do not have to make a profit. As a result there has been little or no real incentive for reducing transport costs other than in an overall national budgetary context. While these priorities were logical and understandable in the cold war era, the failure of Government programs to give a high priority to reducing launch costs has been one of the major impediments to the civil sector's development of this vast new area. Free enterprise space activities have to pay for themselves and turn a profit. Transportation costs are obviously a major factor meeting this basic requirement. * Robert C. Richardson, III, Deputy Director, High Frontier Inc., 2800 Shirlington Rd., Arlington, VA 22206, USA.
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