Rumoured Announcement Of Private Lunar Mission

[PeZook]

Satellite launch capability is a direct result of that great ego trip, since it was developed to support the needs of NASA manned spaceflight missions.

[Simon_Jester]

What Simon said. If the capitalists cannot pay for a space base upfront, let's at least make them pay via their luxury consumption.

Stas, you know that luxury taxes harm workers more than the rich, right? Elasticity of supply vs elasticity of demand, all that? Much like the luxury tax of the early 1990s in the US should have taught everyone. At least it taught the labour unions - they were the ones who ultimately lobbied for the repeal of that tax, not the rich.

The luxury he's talking about is the luxury of traveling to the moon, paid for by rich people who want to go to the moon. Which, obviously, would tend to pay for going to the moon. Is that sufficiently clear?

That being said, government sponsorship of spaceflight A-OK, IMHO. But I imagine those who don't give a shit about space would disagree, of course.

I would. I do not want the government to spend our money funding another trip to a desolate wasteland whose greatest selling point is that it's a bitch to get to. Things like satellite launch capability and materials research should be justified by terrestrial benefits even before you start talking about the great ego trip; a rescue base in lunar orbit cannot.

How do you justify a thing which has never been done by talking about its terrestrial benefits? There's no precedent.

[Lord Zentei]

The luxury he's talking about is the luxury of traveling to the moon, paid for by rich people who want to go to the moon. Which, obviously, would tend to pay for going to the moon. Is that sufficiently clear?

Aw, shit. And I worried that I was being too obvious.

I would. I do not want the government to spend our money funding another trip to a desolate wasteland whose greatest selling point is that it's a bitch to get to. Things like satellite launch capability and materials research should be justified by terrestrial benefits even before you start talking about the great ego trip; a rescue base in lunar orbit cannot.

There are terrestrial benefits. If nothing else, there are the spinoff technologies, such as these for Apollo and these for Hubble, etc.

[Grumman]

Satellite launch capability is a direct result of that great ego trip, since it was developed to support the needs of NASA manned spaceflight missions.

Satellite launch capability predates NASA by almost a year. It triggered the space race, not the other way around.

I do not want the government to spend our money funding another trip to a desolate wasteland whose greatest selling point is that it's a bitch to get to. Things like satellite launch capability and materials research should be justified by terrestrial benefits even before you start talking about the great ego trip; a rescue base in lunar orbit cannot.

How do you justify a thing which has never been done by talking about its terrestrial benefits? There's no precedent.

How was Arthur C. Clarke able to identify the potential utility of geosynchronous communications satellites more than ten years before Sputnik?

If nothing else, there are the spinoff technologies, such as these for Apollo and these for Hubble, etc.

The moon landing did not achieve these things. There is no "because we landed on the moon, we were able to develop X", only "because we were able to develop X, we were able to land on the moon".

[Lord Zentei]

The moon landing did not achieve these things. There is no "because we landed on the moon, we were able to develop X", only "because we were able to develop X, we were able to land on the moon".

I did not claim that the moon landings themselves produced those benefits. But the materials research and launch capabilities were justified in and of themselves vis-a-vis terrestrial benefits quite apart from the ego trip. That was your criteria, wasn't it?

[PeZook]

Satellite launch capability predates NASA by almost a year. It triggered the space race, not the other way around.

SOVIET satellite launch capability predates NASA, but it was NASA which built the first ever satellite constellation and built up the US capabilities that are now used to support commercial satellite launches. It wouldn't have done so had it not needed to support the "huge ego trip" - that is, the manned lunar landing program.

Of course like with all the other space spin-off technologies, it would've happened eventually, just much, much slower.

The moon landing did not achieve these things. There is no "because we landed on the moon, we were able to develop X", only "because we were able to develop X, we were able to land on the moon".

The sentence actually goes "Because we wanted to land on the Moon, we had to develop X". You see a whole range of commercial boosters in common use now which had money thrown at them in order to support the lunar program, for example. The AGC was the precursor of fly-by-wire systems for military and commercial aircraft, and it was literally the first device of its kind (a digital computer autopilot), built only because NASA demanded one.

EDIT: Oh, because of the absurdly stringent computing power limitations, entire new programming techniques had to be developed specifically for the AGC, such as task prioritization. The project literally advanced computer science by years because of what to be done to make it work.

[Sea Skimmer]

SOVIET satellite launch capability predates NASA, but it was NASA which built the first ever satellite constellation and built up the US capabilities that are now used to support commercial satellite launches. It wouldn't have done so had it not needed to support the "huge ego trip" - that is, the manned lunar landing program.

Not to mention the first Soviet satellite was a completely useless toy that did nothing but beep a radio signal, and that was the only reason it was orbited first. Meanwhile the first US satellite Explorer 1 had actual scientific instruments that discovered the Van Allen radiation belts, and it was still thrown together in only a couple of months. Being first isn't everything.

[PeZook]

Well, measuring changes in its orbital path allowed russkies to determine the density of upper atmospheric layers, but compared to discovering the Van Allen belts...yeah, not that impressive

[Welf]

If such an international project exists and has credible chances of turning into hardware and not just dreams on paper, sure. That is a rather large "if."

A private company that could get the job done would at least have a market from these numerous governments, which is my point. Whether that would be the most efficient way to go about it is irrelevant.

Yes, but that private company who can do that job needs to be created first. I read that the Apollo program employed up to 400.000 people. So I assume that even a very lean company would employ 5.000 - 10.000 people. Administrating that is in itself a huge challenge. Setting up the company will cost hundreds of millions alone. And then more money is needed to do the actual stuff. And since I doubt there's venture capital in the magnitude of a few billions for that kind of company, the first customers will have the privilege of paying the necessary development and infrastructure. So in the end the new private company won't bring much on the table. In case of lesser developed countries like India they may have the advantage of a more efficient organization, but since that company is new and has yet to develop that, that's not a given.

And in a situation where governments are interested enough in space flight to pay billions to a private company, chances are good that a international co-operation would work. So there may be a market, but one with better alternatives.

I'm not saying that it can't work. If big companies like Boeing or EADS would join the game, then things would be different. Those companies actually have experience with moving huge resources and administrating big projects. And already work with related technologies. And they know how to work with governments.

[PeZook]

I'd be wary of drawing too many analogies between Apollo and any modern spaceflight concepts: technology really has advanced quite a bit, all the major infrastructural costs are paid for, and above all, Apollo already used private contractors for almost all the work in the first place

[K. A. Pital]

SOVIET satellite launch capability predates NASA, but it was NASA which built the first ever satellite constellation and built up the US capabilities that are now used to support commercial satellite launches. It wouldn't have done so had it not needed to support the "huge ego trip" - that is, the manned lunar landing program.

Not to mention the first Soviet satellite was a completely useless toy that did nothing but beep a radio signal, and that was the only reason it was orbited first. Meanwhile the first US satellite Explorer 1 had actual scientific instruments that discovered the Van Allen radiation belts, and it was still thrown together in only a couple of months. Being first isn't everything.

Butthurt much? The radio signals also relayed temperature and pressure, and structural integrity of the satellite. Not to mention the first space medicine research with Sputnik 2 also before Explorer 1.

[K. A. Pital]

Well, measuring changes in its orbital path allowed russkies to determine the density of upper atmospheric layers, but compared to discovering the Van Allen belts...yeah, not that impressive

Sputnik 2 detected the Earth's outer radiation belt in the far northern latitudes, but the significance of the elevated radiation was not realized. In Australia, Professor Harry Messel intercepted the signals but the Soviets would not provide the code and the Australians would not send the data. In 1958, with Sputnik 3, they began to cooperate and confirmed the findings of the U.S. satellites Explorer 1, 3, and 4.

So the satellite itself has little to do with it; the realization on the ground has. Not "Explorer-1 was the first satellite to discover" - rather American engineers have been the first to realize what it means.

[Irbis]

Not to mention the first Soviet satellite was a completely useless toy that did nothing but beep a radio signal, and that was the only reason it was orbited first.

Yeah, and that is also reason why Sputnik-2, larger than what, half dozen first US satellites put together, was launched first, too?

Meanwhile the first US satellite Explorer 1

Wrong. Actual first US satellite, the apple-sized mighty Kaputnik, was by above standards worse than useless, even before it ended up as field decoration

had actual scientific instruments that discovered the Van Allen radiation belts,

Also wrong, these were discovered by Sputnik-2, just thanks to butthurt US pressure Australia withheld transmissions and USA get to publish findings first. Oh, not to mention dozens of other things S-2 found USA won't repeat for two years, till 1959.

and it was still thrown together in only a couple of months.

Because, duh, after first two punches your reputation can't fall any lower and you can afford to slow down

Being first isn't everything.

Yup, being first and second and third is