Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

A US Lunar Colony?

9 Comments

New legislation is being introduced in the House:

The Reasserting American Leadership in Space Act (H.R. 1446), introduced by Rep. Bill Posey (R-Florida), would direct NASA to come up with a plan to return to the Moon and “develop a sustained human presence” there by 2022.

…But Houston, we may have a problem passing the Reasserting American Leadership in Space Act, considering that in September 2009, President Obama’s blue ribbon Human Space Flight Review Committee concluded that any plans on the part of NASA for future human exploration of space beyond low-Earth orbit would be “perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources.” In other words, further exploration of the Moon would require money that NASA just does not have and is unlikely to get from Congress.

That’s not the problem. NASA has plenty of money to establish a lunar base. What they don’t have is the discretion to spend it intelligently toward that goal, instead being forced by the same people proposing this bill to waste billions on a launch vehicle it doesn’t need to do so. Someone needs to tell them that, if NASA won’t.

9 thoughts on “A US Lunar Colony?”

  1. Why direct NASA to do something? Why not just announce a $10 billion Prize for an operational Moon base, with certain livability benchmarks, room for expansion, hardware to get from LEO to lunar orbit to lunar surface and such. If NASA wants in on the party, it can get in line.

    2. Remember when Newt Gingrich suggested that (in response to a very leading question I asked at a public forum in Dallas)?

      The idea immediately became politicized and demogogued. Even the Space Frontier Foundation couldn’t resist taking a partisan shot at him (while giving a lukewarm endorsement to the idea itself).

      At this year’s Space Access, Jim Muncy (who used to work for Gingrich) explained why he won’t support prizes: If Congressmen don’t know who’s going to win a prize, they don’t know who to go to for campaign donations.

      (Muncy’s spent too long in DC to realize that’s a feature, not a bug.)

  2. Forget NASA and the politician, look the the private sector.

    Here’s a thought, now that Russia has a private sector, can we look forward to Russian entrepreneurs trying to do what the USSR failed to do: Put Russians on the Moon?

    1. We need to get affordable access to orbit. Once we have that, building a lunar base will just be another construction project. Without it, a lunar base will never be “sustainable.” As usual, the politicians are going about it horse cartward.

    2. “…can we look forward to Russian entrepreneurs trying to do what the USSR failed to do: Put Russians on the Moon?”

      You might…..

      was it not the Russians that put a crack into ISS mission rules and allowed a non-astronaut to ride a Soyuz up to the station?

      IIRC, he was not allowed off the Soyuz but it broke the NASA restriction on selling rides, did it not?

  3. I don’t really have much faith that NASA should be involved in any lunar base except as a supporting partner, much like the way they support civil aviation with aerodynamic and engineering expertise – instead of trying to tell airlines how to run a business.

    The goals of a private lunar base would probably not match up very well with what the government could justify to its internal bureaucracy and to Congress. For example, tourism, which is probably the easiest market (no heavy ore mining equipment required), would be a very hard sell for a government program, since the government is supposed to be doing things in the public interest. Catering to multi-millionaires’ exotic vacations, despite a few ISS visits, would be hard to justify. NASA has trouble with long-term goals, so almost any particular idea for lunar exploitation would probably get the ax before it got off the ground.

  4. What they don’t have is the discretion to spend it intelligently toward that goal

    I think there’s a number of big problems with NASA aside from that. But that phrase encapsulates what’s wrong with how NASA is controlled by Congress and the Presidency.

Comments are closed.