Comments on: Suborbital Cargo Agents? http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/02/suborbital-cargo-agents/ Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen Sat, 05 May 2012 20:53:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Ken Murphy http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/02/suborbital-cargo-agents/comment-page-1/#comment-7570 Ken Murphy Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:30:55 +0000 http://selenianboondocks.com/?p=1383#comment-7570 "far easier to take a business guy and get him interested in space, than it was to take an aerospace engineer, and somehow get him to understand business." Guilty as charged. The business that you're talking about is freight forwarding. They consolidate the small shipments of various companies into the large freight containers. It's a well-established industry, and can probably offer many lessons for the nascent commercial microgravity science industry. I'm more excited than ever about the potential for the space industry to become a growth industry for our nation. Heaven knows we desperately need growth industries right now. I'm also excited that I may soon have the opportunity, as an individual investor, to invest in this industry. “far easier to take a business guy and get him interested in space, than it was to take an aerospace engineer, and somehow get him to understand business.”

Guilty as charged.
The business that you’re talking about is freight forwarding. They consolidate the small shipments of various companies into the large freight containers. It’s a well-established industry, and can probably offer many lessons for the nascent commercial microgravity science industry.
I’m more excited than ever about the potential for the space industry to become a growth industry for our nation. Heaven knows we desperately need growth industries right now. I’m also excited that I may soon have the opportunity, as an individual investor, to invest in this industry.

]]> By: Trent Waddington http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/02/suborbital-cargo-agents/comment-page-1/#comment-7512 Trent Waddington Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:36:36 +0000 http://selenianboondocks.com/?p=1383#comment-7512 Richard Garriott was saying at SpaceVision09 that he is looking into making it easier to find experiments for private astronauts to take up.. combined with a reduction in the cost per seat, he hopes, it could mean at least break even on the ride, even if no profit initially. That kind of tipping point will dramatically increase demand, which should drive supply... although demand is already greater than supply for the $30M seats. Richard Garriott was saying at SpaceVision09 that he is looking into making it easier to find experiments for private astronauts to take up.. combined with a reduction in the cost per seat, he hopes, it could mean at least break even on the ride, even if no profit initially. That kind of tipping point will dramatically increase demand, which should drive supply… although demand is already greater than supply for the $30M seats.

]]> By: Colin Doughan http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/02/suborbital-cargo-agents/comment-page-1/#comment-7509 Colin Doughan Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:51:38 +0000 http://selenianboondocks.com/?p=1383#comment-7509 In fact, when I talked to NASA's CRuSR program, they spoke of conversations with SpaceX. SpaceX's preference would be to outsource their experiment booking and experiment customer relations completely to Cargo Agents ('brokers', 'integrators'). Which I found interesting coming from a company who is so vertically integrated! I think this further highlights the need for this type of service if even SpaceX sees the need for a such a service. In fact, when I talked to NASA’s CRuSR program, they spoke of conversations with SpaceX. SpaceX’s preference would be to outsource their experiment booking and experiment customer relations completely to Cargo Agents (‘brokers’, ‘integrators’). Which I found interesting coming from a company who is so vertically integrated! I think this further highlights the need for this type of service if even SpaceX sees the need for a such a service.

]]> By: Jonathan Goff http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/02/suborbital-cargo-agents/comment-page-1/#comment-7508 Jonathan Goff Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:08:28 +0000 http://selenianboondocks.com/?p=1383#comment-7508 Dave, Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised with Dragon Lab flights if the broker model would take some extra data to prove it was a business case. Dragon is so big that filling it up reasonably well would require several, possibly dozens, of customers. It's one thing trying to find 5-15 cubesat customers, its a whole different animal trying to find 6000kg worth of flight experiments. I think things will eventually get there, but it's going to take a while to rebuild the microgravity science world after the last NASA admin's gutting of funding for that research, and the rest of the past 30 years experience with Shuttle being the only access method. ~Jon Dave,
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised with Dragon Lab flights if the broker model would take some extra data to prove it was a business case. Dragon is so big that filling it up reasonably well would require several, possibly dozens, of customers. It’s one thing trying to find 5-15 cubesat customers, its a whole different animal trying to find 6000kg worth of flight experiments.

I think things will eventually get there, but it’s going to take a while to rebuild the microgravity science world after the last NASA admin’s gutting of funding for that research, and the rest of the past 30 years experience with Shuttle being the only access method.

~Jon

]]> By: Dave Salt http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/02/suborbital-cargo-agents/comment-page-1/#comment-7507 Dave Salt Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:31:13 +0000 http://selenianboondocks.com/?p=1383#comment-7507 Jon, you may be interested to know that Max Vozoff pitched a very similar concept during a DragonLab workshop in Holland, last October. His concept was for ‘brokers’ and ‘integrators’, who SpaceX expected to act as the interface between themselves and customers. Brokers would be expected to buy bulk opportunities and then re-sell them to a large number of customers, where as Integrators would simply act as service providers to SpaceX and so work as subcontractors. However, due to market uncertainties, they did not expect the ‘broker’ to be a viable business model until a large number of flights have demonstrated the real customer demand. Jon, you may be interested to know that Max Vozoff pitched a very similar concept during a DragonLab workshop in Holland, last October.

His concept was for ‘brokers’ and ‘integrators’, who SpaceX expected to act as the interface between themselves and customers. Brokers would be expected to buy bulk opportunities and then re-sell them to a large number of customers, where as Integrators would simply act as service providers to SpaceX and so work as subcontractors. However, due to market uncertainties, they did not expect the ‘broker’ to be a viable business model until a large number of flights have demonstrated the real customer demand.

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