Value chain · CLM-1027
In plain terms
Getting a crew from low orbit up to the construction site took half a day and a stage the size of a small airliner, refuelled at the top with fuel the slow electric ferry had carried up. Counted fully, moving one worker's year of labour into orbit cost about a million 1977 dollars.
The claim as recorded
The personnel orbit transfer vehicle the programme settled on is a single-stage LO2/LH2 vehicle of 216.5 t start-burn mass carrying 90 t (80 people and 6,600 man-days of supplies) from LEO to GEO in "approximately 11 hours" plus up to 12 of phasing, refuelled at GEO with propellant the EOTV delivers, flying every 15 days on 90-day crew tours, at $1.3M per flight in 1977 dollars; Battelle re-prices the flight at $13.5M once the HLLV and EOTV delivery of its propellant is charged to it, and puts the transport cost of one man-year at GEO at $1.2M via PLV and POTV or $780K via a personnel module on the HLLV.
Evidence behind this: T3-programme summary and the Battelle review; costs in 1977 dollars.
Scope and limits
Battelle gives the one-way time as "5 1/2 hours" (PDF 47 / 2-13) against NASA's 11; the two-stage 890 t reference POTV in the NASA summary is retired in the same volume's conclusions. The personnel module is costed as construction equipment, not transport. No emergency evacuation capability is costed: Battelle wants 5 to 12 reserve POTVs, $176M to $528M (PDF 30 / 1-24).
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
PDF p.89 / 2-19: "The nominal transfer time beginning with separation from the LEO base and docking at the GEO base is approximately 11 hours. Orbit phasing requirements could add an additional 12 hours ... This capability is sufficient to deliver up to 80 GEO workman and food and crew accommodations for 6600 man days. The total dry mass is 13,420 kg while the main impulse propellant is 200,000 kg." PDF p.91 / 2-21: "Using crew rotation cycles of 90 days results in POTV flights approximately every 15 days." SRC-532 PDF p.139 / B-31, render read: "TOTAL COST PER FLIGHT $1,309K"; PDF p.34 / 1-28 note 13: "Adjustment reflects direct charge of 1 HLLV flight plus 5 percent of EOTV flight costs plus $50K downtrip propellants to POTV"; Table 1.3.2 POTV per flight Battelle 13.5. PDF p.98 / 3-25: "the current transport cost for one man-year is $1.2 million ... If the HLLV is used in place of the PLV, the transportation cost of a man-year is reduced, under similar calculations, to $780 thousand per man-year."
Basis: hours; tonnes; people; USD 1977 per flight and per man-year
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-003 not published in this releaseQST-015 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1027
CLM-1027, Energy Aperture, as of 1981.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-532
- CLM-1024The 1979 government estimate put a heavy-lift flight at about ten million dollars of the day, most of it people refurbishing the vehicle...CLM-1026The electric ferry takes half a year to climb to geostationary orbit but burns about an eighth of a kilogram of argon for every kilogram it...CLM-1028Building the rockets was priced at seventeen billion 1977 dollars and running them at about 2.8 billion per satellite, or roughly sixty...CLM-1029In 1980 the programme's own accounting had rockets at roughly one dollar in four of a satellite's cost and nearly one in two of the money...CLM-1030The independent 1980 cost review said the government's rocket numbers were fair for the stage the programme was at, then added spare...CLM-1031A launcher a third the size of the reference one would cost about a fifth more per kilogram to fly and need four launches a day instead of...CLM-1033At the higher of NASA's two peak figures, the launches would have needed about 6 per cent of US daily hydrogen output and 30 per cent of...CLM-1034The programme's transportation workshop said the schedule was probably unrealistic, and the programme's cost reviewer said the launcher...
- Also from SRC-555
- CLM-1023The programme's last word on its rockets describes a launcher of about 11,000 tonnes at liftoff flying about once a day, gives fleet sizes...CLM-1025In 1980 the people building the case set themselves a goal of thirty dollars a kilogram to low orbit, hoped for fifteen later, and said in...CLM-1026The electric ferry takes half a year to climb to geostationary orbit but burns about an eighth of a kilogram of argon for every kilogram it...CLM-1029In 1980 the programme's own accounting had rockets at roughly one dollar in four of a satellite's cost and nearly one in two of the money...CLM-1031A launcher a third the size of the reference one would cost about a fifth more per kilogram to fly and need four launches a day instead of...CLM-1033At the higher of NASA's two peak figures, the launches would have needed about 6 per cent of US daily hydrogen output and 30 per cent of...CLM-1034The programme's transportation workshop said the schedule was probably unrealistic, and the programme's cost reviewer said the launcher...