Overview
A profitability model is only as good as its weakest number, so this repo exists to find the weakest ones and
back them with real sources. The library is split into 25 domains, from asteroid bulk density and launch
prices to cost of capital and space-resource law. Each domain has a findings file listing the values it
targets, what those values are today, and what a source would have to supply to confirm or replace them. The
work runs in numbered research rounds; the most recent found the first sources for the electric-propulsion
spiral penalty that spacecost applies.
Tiers
Every source carries a tier, so a value backed only by grey literature is easy to spot and upgrade.
| Tier | What it covers | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| T1 | Peer-reviewed journal articles | 91 |
| T2 | NASA and ESA technical reports, AIAA and IAC proceedings | 102 |
| T3 | Government and dataset publications with a DOI | 42 |
| T4 | Grey sources the models cite: company pages, news, textbooks | 56 |
Key highlights
How the library stays trustworthy as it grows.
- Filed by what it backs. Each source is mapped to the exact table cell or constant it supports in the three downstream repos, so any number in the model can be traced back to its evidence.
- Only redistributable full texts. The repo is public, so a full text is committed only when its licence allows it, and each file's licence is recorded. Paywalled sources get metadata, the abstract and their key tables instead.
- Numbers, not just citations. The figures pulled from each source go into CSVs that note the page or table they came from, ready to compare against the value the model uses.
- Findings feed back upstream. A revision list tracks 54 model values the evidence says should change, each followed from open through to applied, declined or withdrawn.
- Checked, not hand-maintained. The master registry is generated from the per-domain files, and a validation script checks the whole library for consistency.
Links
The registry, findings and hosted texts are all public. Counts on this page are as of research round 82.