Yesterday, Vladislaw continued his series on building really big things in space. Does SIZE matter? New Poll. Star Trek News!
While thinking up clever comments for that diary I recalled that I have long dreamed of giant sports venues in the micro-gravity of low Earth orbit and I found this image which well illustrates the actual size of the space shuttle external tank, in human terms.
If refurbished as habitable volume in low Earth orbit, this tank would provide a fantastic venue for playing various zero-gravity games derived from soccer, hockey, football, lacrosse, etc. . .
But how could anyone possibly pay for it?
What role, if any, should the taxpayers play in financing such a thing?
My thoughts on how to build such a beast (and how it might be financed) is in the body of the diary, along with a poll to explore what attitude Congress, NASA & the public should adopt if such a proposal were actually floated.
Of note, that tank is much smaller than what would be feasible and actually using a shuttle external tank is more expensive than would be necessary.
As Ross Tierney at Nasaspaceflight explained to me, it would be far less expensive to simply launch a pre-built facility as payload on top of a Jupiter 120 or Jupiter 232, and since the external tank has diameter of 8.4 meters and the Jupiter series might well accommodate a 12 meter payload fairing (PLF) a 50% increase in diameter is very feasible. Shuttle C, Shuttle B - 16 page pdf and Ares V could also be used, but those options strike me as being much more expensive than Jupiter.
Regardless of launcher, what if an even larger custom built Bigelow habitat were launched in that 12 meter PLF? Could that provide a 17 meter diameter stadium? Which would be twice the diameter of the volume found in this photo?
Now that could allow for zero-gee sports games perhaps played six on six (six players per team, at one time).
Note this aspect of Ross Tierney's comment:
Of course, in zero-g you can actually get "stuck" in the middle of large spaces for a long time, unable to reach any walls or handles to push yourself around. The Skylab guys mentioned this as a problem they all encountered at least once in their 6.6m dia module. They could try "swimming" in the airflow, but it wasn't very effective and usually they needed a colleague to give them a shove towards a wall. 12.0m dia...
Now visualize that same problem if you were in a 12 meter diameter volume or a 17 meter diameter volume. One cool answer? Giant fans!
Create air currents that circulate the stadium, and I'd give the players wireless remote controllers that could control the direction of those fans and I'd add fabric to connect players arms to their torso to create sails that could be used to capture those air currents for propulsion.
Eh, but who pays for this?
SHOW ME THE MONEY!
Financial calculations, suitable for a beer soaked bar napkin:
(1) One heavy lift launch vehicle, whether valued at [incremental] or [average] cost:
Note, incremental cost is not average cost but the cost to add one more launch to an existing manifest. For example, suppose it costs $1.9 billion to launch 6 HLLV missions in a given year and $2.1 billion to launch 7 HLLV missions, average cost would be $300 million while incremental cost would be only $200 million.
Another example, building one MER rover cost 100x while building two MER rovers cost 125x. Incremental cost of MER #2 was 25x which reduced average cost to 62.5x.
Should NASA sell launches to such a developer? And if so, at what price point? (This is part of the poll question.)
==> Not at ANY price;
==> Above cost (make a profit for the taxpayers);
==> At average cost (share fixed costs pro rata, lowering net taxpayer costs);
==> At incremental cost (taxpayers break even);
==> Below actual cost, this idea is COOL!
Okay, for purposes of this diary, a flying monkey told me to budget $300 million dollars for item #1.
(2) A ginormous Bigelow habitat:
A more reasonably sized Bigelow BA-330 is being tentatively offered for sale at $100 million dollars:
The exterior of the craft is intended to be 45 feet (13.7 m) long by 22 feet (6.7 m) in diameter.
Eh, not big enough! So lets budget $300 million for a much bigger Bigelow habitat AND a BA-330 for human living accommodations when not playing space sports.
Another flying monkey tells me to budget $400 million dollars for item #2.
(3) Miscellaneous and sundry items
The BA-330 and the sports stadium need to be connected to each other and we need a place with airlocks to park visiting space ships that bring crew, guests and so forth. Russia's FGB-2 cost about $300 million however it could do lots of things.
Okay, flying monkey number 3 adds another $300 million dollars.
That adds up to a cool one billion dollars. So where do we get that money?
SHOW ME THE MONEY PART TWO
Nice edifice complex you got there, buddy.
From CNN Money (October 2007):
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Corporations have developed an edifice complex once again.
Companies are rushing to pay top dollar to put their names on new stadiums and arenas. Three deals in the New York area alone have been announced in the past few months with the sponsorship dollars totaling nearly $1 billion. And potentially the biggest deal, naming rights for the new shared home of New York's Giants and Jets football teams, is yet to come.
Citigroup's record $20 million a year naming rights deal for the new Mets stadium signed last year has reportedly already been matched by Barclays. Computer network equipment maker Cisco will put its name on the new Oakland Athletics stadium. Computer network equipment maker Cisco will put its name on the new Oakland Athletics stadium.
The latest deal was announced Thursday. British banking giant Barclays PLC (Charts) agreed to pay a reported $400 million for a 20-year deal for the new basketball arena in Brooklyn (the future home of the New Jersey Nets), even though Barclays is not a player in the retail banking market in New York City.
$20 million per year for name rights? But that is for a stadium on Earth and our stadium will be the FIRST in space and be seen and potentially used by teams from around the world - US, Europe, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, India and so forth.
If the LEO stadium can remain functional for seven years and if GLOBAL name rights were worth $50 million per year that is $350 million or 1/3 of the costs of construction. The flying monkey has spoken.
Game console licensing
"Console wars" is a term used to refer to periods of intense competition for market share between video game console manufacturers. The winners of these "wars" may be debated based on different standards: market penetration and financial success, or the fierce loyalty and numbers of the fans of the system's games. The term itself does not strictly denote a clear winner in each case, though. Console wars generally do not decide if a manufacturer continues in or abandons the industry.
and this
Worldwide sales figures
1. Wii – 34.55 million, as of 30 September 2008 (2008 0930)[update][24]
2. Xbox 360 – 25 million, as of 25 November 2008 (2008 1125)[update][25]
3. PlayStation 3 – 16.84 million, as of 30 September 2008 (2008 0930)[update][26]
35 million Wii selling at $200 each generates $7 billion in gross revenue.
My favorite flying monkey suggests charging $350 million dollars for the exclusive global rights to sell the "official" console game versions of these zero-gee sporting events.
An interesting note, total Wii sales are roughly equivalent to NASA's annual human spaceflight budget, just to offer some perspective.
Cellular phone sponsors - the official cellular phone of . . .
MONTREAL — The Internet now has reached a landmark one-billion users worldwide and that number is only expected to grow as wireless devices such as cellphones allow more users to surf the web, says digital tracking firm comScore.
* * *
Mobile Internet devices such as small laptops, called netbooks, and cellphones that connect easily to the Net combined with social networking and blogging will make a difference, Gavin said.
"I think those two things working in tandem really are going to make it more accessible to people and it's going to involve and engage people a lot more. From the growth we've seen, you just expect that momentum to get quicker and quicker, really."
Internet-connected cellphones in the Asia-Pacific region and in the Middle East and Africa is a way around not having mass broadband connections via computers.
"The technology is a lot more affordable and people have got the (cell) phones anyway." Gavin said.
Can you hear me now? Good!
Now think global marketing:
The alpha flying monkey tells me we've rounded up a billion dollars without sports energy drinks or the television rights for the events themselves.
Financing ongoing operations
Use could be maximized by inviting teams from all around the world to compete. I have little doubt that the Japanese public (for example) would eagerly support one or more teams in competition. As might Brazil, India, China, Europe, Russia, and pretty much everywhere else.
How might such a team be supported?
By TV contracts for covering the competitions.
By selling replicas of the clothing worn by the competitors.
By selling food and drinks (beer, soft drinks sports energy drinks) used by the competitors.
By rampant and unrestrained marketing of every kind nature and description.
Imagine, if you will, a tournament in this giant volume conducted as follows:
Two teams of six travel to the orbiting sports venue. Five players and a substitute player.
They train for a few days in LEO and then compete for a few days. Losers fly home. Winners take on a new set of challengers the next week. Every week a new crew comes up and that will be BIG news in that team's home city. Which means vending space for the marketing types.
Wash rinse repeat.
Once a team wins four series in a row, both teams come home and two new teams go up there. Once FOUR teams have won four times in a row, we have playoffs.
Everything gets televised and teams are recruited from every city and nation and college and corporation - think corporate softball team on the planet. Of note: Larry Ellison of Oracle spent $200 million NOT winning the most recent America's Cup competition.
Fringe benefits:
Start-ups and NewSpace companies would see far more business than they ever imagined.
SpaceX, Orbital, Souyz, Kliper, Dreamchaser, Shenzou, Atlas V Big Gemini knockoffs -- once a week 6 people need to go to LEO. Sometimes 12 when both teams rotate. Maybe more if additional BA-330s get attached as hotels.
Zero Gravity 727 flights are in HUGE demand for practice purposes and maybe they run a minor league of sorts playing zero-gee games on those vomit comet flights for much less money.
Okay, do WE support this approach or do WE resist this approach?
Strikes me as a terrific way to draw the world closer together especially if non-US teams win at any degree of frequency. This could also considerably reduce the cost of accessing LEO, meaning NASA could thereafter accomplish more, for less money.