Dennis Wingo says that NASA doesn’t need more money, it just needswhat NASA needs is a better architectural approach. I agree. But that’s doesn’t keep the jobs in the right places.
Despite my initial misreading of it, though, I even think that it’s possible to do it without the extra three billion. And it had better be, because I doubt if they’re going to get it.
Link is a bit messed up. Looking through there, I don’t see Dennis saying that NASA doesn’t need the extra money. He seems to be using the $3 billion per year extra. I like his point about near future ISRU investment though he’s preaching to the choir here.
From the link:
If the government chose to locate a base at a lunar pole (preferably the north to enable the maximum amount of surface exploration), and explore outward from there, caches of food, fuel, and other consumables could be staged. There are definite driving paths from the north polar region Peary Crater permanently lit zones down to Mare Frigoris, which then liberates a ground expedition to easily traverse the entire nearside Mare region. Much of the lunar farside terrain in the north is less onerous than in the south as well. Supplies could be emplaced by commercial landers who would use precision guidance to land their payloads, or the supplies could be carried overland by groups paid to do so. How much would the science value be raised and value given to the government by extending their scientific exploration potential. The government could incentivise this market in the same manner as COTS.
This is the beauty of the Moon, it is now within the possible grasp of private enterprise.
Having “a” government locate a base at EML-1 and/or EML-2 that facilitates private enterprise and numerous governments gaining access to the lunar surface would better facilitate Rick Tumlinson’s “Near Frontier” and “Far Frontier” vision than would a NASA flagged moon base.
Amend Tumlinson’s vision and place Alpha Town at EML-1 or 2 with ISRU supported reusable lunar landers.
Also, given Obama’s global-ist tendencies, this proposal from Buzz Aldrin strikes me as more politically feasible than a NASA owned and operated moon base.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldrin/a-different-kind-of-moon_b_317786.html
Further, does anyone really think NASA – as it currently exists – has a corporate culture that would permit it to successfully run a moon base in a manner that would allow a future “hand off” to the private sector?
The political point of turning such a venture into an internatinal effort is usually to make it TooBigToFail. But even that is no guarantee.
Some (not all) of those eco-nuts over at Huffpo and Dailykos are like the Mos Eisley of stupid. A more wretched hive of ignorance and stupidity you will not find.
Even the most flat-earth fundie looks like a jet-fuel genius compared to some of those bed-wetters. They seriously need to put down their computers and move back to the rift valley and eat fungi, maggots and worms if they really want to live their beliefs.
Bill White —
If you look at any US military base or NASA installation, you’ll notice lots of contractor personnel performing essential tasks. There’s no reason to assume that a future lunar base would not be run on the same basis, and over time quite a bit of functionality could be permanently transferred to commercial enterprises. If you’ve got enough people to justify a cafeteria, for example, you don’t need GS-14 civil servants for hash slingers. Eventually, you might even phase out the one big cafeteria for smaller ones run by seperate companies. Why not have a Macdonald’s on the moon, using tomatoes and lettuce from locally produced hydroponics tanks, and maybe someday using beef from lunar-raised cattle? It just takes time and steady expansion — no magic, no technological breakthroughs.
The Moon is our second beachhead in the sky after ISS.
An ISS on the moon is a sure way to prevent it from ever being developed. I really hope this does not happen. Space stations need to be sufficiently low enough cost that they can afford to be used and they also need to be workshop beach heads for prototyping and developing space infrastructure.
It would be putting the cart before the horse to think that such a developmental environment could be created on the moon before it was created in LEO. The CATS/New Space mentality has to also extend beyond LEO for anything interesting/sustainable to happen.
One can not develop low cost effective lunar infrastructure on Earth. There is little point going to the moon unless one goes with fast prototyping capability, a capability that is yet to be developed in space.