Rumoured Announcement Of Private Lunar Mission

[Zaune]

Wired.com

Internet rumors have been swirling for several weeks of a secret venture backed by private entrepreneurs that would return people to the moon’s surface. It seems that the veil will finally be lifted this week, during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 6.

“The Golden Spike Company invites you to attend a game-changing announcement about the future of commercial human space travel to the Moon,” reads the announcement for the media briefing. ”Executives from the company will describe the team, the mission architecture, and the business model.”

Many questions remain about the prospects for such a mission, including its feasibility, rationale, and how the company intends to fund the endeavor, which will likely run to billions of dollars. Early rumors suggested that backers included Warren Buffet and Richard Branson, though these have since been shown false. The plan may also include a $120 million deal with SpaceX to provide a heavy rocket to reach the moon. SpaceX had no statement about such a deal when Wired reached out to them on Dec. 2.

The Golden Spike Company is registered in Colorado to planetary scientist and aerospace engineer Alan Stern, who ran NASA’s science directorate from 2007 to 2008. Stern also worked in the private spaceflight sector that year, as an independent research representative for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. In a 2011 interview he said, “I hope that in 10 to 20 years’ time, we are on the hills of human return to the moon, so that we could then go on with humans to explore the solar system. I think this is our destiny.”

Golden Spike is a reference to the ceremonial spike driven into the rails connecting the U.S. transcontinental railroad in 1869, which helped open up the American West. The company has recently started both a Facebook group and Twitter account.

The company has apparently been around for a while. A conference presentation from May mentioned a company called Golden Spike that was “backed by respected scientific and astronautical entities” and “envisions the development of a reliable ‘Cislunar Superhighway.’” That same presentation mentioned a “cooperative initiative coalescing between independent, national and international enterprises [that] could see 2 to 4 people on the surface for 1 to 4 weeks at an estimated cost of US$5-10 billion.” Whether this plan is the same as Golden Spike’s is unclear.

Colour me... well, frankly, not very excited at all. I hope they want to use a moonbase as a proof-of-concept for manned expeditions to Mars and beyond, but I have a horrible, horrible feeling that this Golden Spike Company's business plan is going to boil down to offering the adventure holiday of a lifetime to billionaires.

[Simon_Jester]

If we can get the hardware up and into production such that people start vacationing on the moon, research and economic development will follow. I would love to see someone open a resort on the moon that charged a hundred million dollars for a two-week stay... because it means that we've got a permanent moon base and that we can put more people into it for a reasonable (by NASA standards) sum of money.

If D. D. Harriman wants to put a man on the moon so he can go to the moon, I'm happy enough as long as the moon shot actually happens.

[Guardsman Bass]

This sounds like a whole lot of nothing. As the article mentioned, it's been one engineer's pet project for a couple of years, and he's been throwing around endorsements that didn't exist (such as fictional support from Branson and SpaceX).

[K. A. Pital]

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

[Zixinus]

Well, it would be a good thing in the long run, as other have pointed out: if a private party develops the infrastructure and whatnot to get and actually stay on the moon, that means that NASA and the like can also use that infrastructure to get to the moon. It would also show various governments funding their own space agencies that reaching the moon wouldn't be that insurmountably expensive.

Though, really, this just has a lot of noise. Unless they show the actual hardware they'd need, or even just the money for it, this may be nothing but waving some billionaire's fantasy.

[PeZook]

I am more excited about the private ventures to offer lunar flybys, which are actually feasible right now and within funding capability of a private corporation ; It's a baby step, sure, but combine that with orbital propellant depots and it has potential to grow.

[Zaune]

Well, it would be a good thing in the long run, as other have pointed out: if a private party develops the infrastructure and whatnot to get and actually stay on the moon, that means that NASA and the like can also use that infrastructure to get to the moon. It would also show various governments funding their own space agencies that reaching the moon wouldn't be that insurmountably expensive.

True enough, but the problem with that is that there's a reason lunar exploration -manned or otherwise- has been on the back burner since Congress wound up the Apollo program. If one's long-term goal is a permanent, self-sufficient population off-world then the moon is kind of a dead end; there are precious few local natural resources to work with and zero prospect of terraforming, and while I'm sure you could do some very interesting things with metallurgy and chemistry in the lower gravity, shipping food and raw materials out and manufactured goods back will be prohibitively expensive until we get around to building orbital elevators.

[Simon_Jester]

If you're taking the "Mars Direct" line of argument (I remember this one from the late '90s, Zaune)...

The catch here is that right now we should be far more worried about the lack of desire to launch space exploration than about which planet we choose to colonize. If we have regular tourist flights to the Moon and back, you can bet that an expedition to Mars, or even a Mars base, will start looking a hell of a lot less fanciful. Not because we need a Moon base to do a Mars mission, or vice versa. Just because it gets people interested and establishes the infrastructure of heavy launch and so forth that makes things simpler.

[PeZook]

It would be pretty useful because, frankly, we have next to no experience with long-term habitation outside of the magnetosphere. Even an Apollo-style crash manned program to beat the Chinese to Mars or something will absolutely need that experience, because it will require astronauts to live for YEARS in deep space and on the rather meagerly protected Martian surface. We could probably do in high Earth orbit, yeah, but surface habitation has its own unique challenges, a lot of which we probably just can't imagine - and hospitals are a lot nearer when the test habitat is on the Moon

If we can get that experience from a corporate resort hotel, well, why the hell not? The rich spend money on far, far more pointless things.

[Welf]

A permanent moon base for tourists? Won't happen. The costs are way to high to be profitable. I think I read something about plans for a flight around the moon for 150 M USD per ticket, with 2 tourists. If I assume 100 M USD per ticket to the moon, only billionaires could afford that. And since there are 'only' 1.200 of them, that's a very tight market. Especially since not all will want to go to the moon, and some won't be physically able to make the trip. So I assume there's a total market of maybe 2 or 3 billion. That's just not enough to justify such a huge ling-term investment like a moon base.

[Guardsman Bass]

It sounds like they're planning two-person flights to the Moon, with a project cost of $7-8 billion and an individual flight cost of $1.5 billion (so $750 million per astronaut). They're smart enough to say that they're actually targeting the service at governments, who they think might be willing to pay for something like this. SpaceX is an example of how a space company can (probably) find solvency by landing a major contract with a government.

I don't know enough as to whether they could realistically hit that price-point, but it's not that much more expensive than sending some of the unmanned probes that we've sent . . . after you pay the initial $7-8 billion (which is the rub). The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter cost about $583 million by comparison, but you could do a lot more with astronauts actually on the Moon at this point.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Call me cynical, but I think $7-$8 billion is a low-ball figure, unless they can get others to share the necessary tech for cheap or completely free. Much of the technology is going to have to be redeveloped. And that isn't cheap, especially when you have to be even more fanatical about safety than the US was during the Apollo missions and precursors. Having even one major accident while you're getting things in order to actually get someone into lunar orbit, much less on the moon, would really fuck over people's willingness to invest.

If private industry can get to the moon, awesome. But I'm skeptical that they can get enough money together to get there.

[PeZook]

This is why I think private industry will only actually do that if they get some infrastructure to use first.

See, much of a lunar mission's expense comes from the need to ensure absolute, near-100% reliability for the lander, because if the lander fails, you are TOTALLY FUCKED. Rescue is literally months away: no way the crew is going to survive that long.

But if there is a rescue base in lunar orbit, equipped with an automated lander that could evacuate the crew or just deliver supplies until another mission could be put together, then much less obsessive safety measures can be used. This is in addition to mature technologies (we really do know a lot more about rocketry than we used to ; Witness how Titan boosters kept exploding, while the Ares I flew on the first try), etc.

That is of course for commercial everyman flights - if a company plans to get government contracts to do SCIENCE! or something, the concerns change.

[Simon_Jester]

True enough, but the problem with that is that there's a reason lunar exploration -manned or otherwise- has been on the back burner since Congress wound up the Apollo program. If one's long-term goal is a permanent, self-sufficient population off-world then the moon is kind of a dead end; there are precious few local natural resources to work with and zero prospect of terraforming, and while I'm sure you could do some very interesting things with metallurgy and chemistry in the lower gravity, shipping food and raw materials out and manufactured goods back will be prohibitively expensive until we get around to building orbital elevators.

You're skipping a 'missing link' there, Zaune.

Between where we are now and a permanent self-sufficient population off-world, there's a critical objective: getting a semi-permanent population out there at all. Mir and the ISS represent an advance in this direction- we're talking about something along the lines of an Antarctic research station, not City in Space. You have to walk before you can run.

Because the moon is much, much closer than any other heavenly body, we have a big advantage when picking that as a place to put our first semi-permanent base. The journey itself is not too demanding- no risk of permanent health problems from zero-g exposure, three days out and three days back. We can concentrate more of our energy on the problems of landing, doing things on the ground, and taking off again.

Granted that a lunar research station is unlikely to evolve into a large, permanently populated economy with viable industry in its own right. At least not with anything close to current technology; 2100 may see us playing industrial chemistry with absurdly versatile blobs of nanotech, or something like that. But a lunar research station is much easier to build, and therefore more likely to get built, than a permanent Mars base.

Who would commit to a permanent base on Mars before we've even set foot on the place? And if we decide to send expeditions, it'd take at least as long to get one set up as it would to base on the Moon in the first place.

[Welf]

It sounds like they're planning two-person flights to the Moon, with a project cost of $7-8 billion and an individual flight cost of $1.5 billion (so $750 million per astronaut). They're smart enough to say that they're actually targeting the service at governments, who they think might be willing to pay for something like this. SpaceX is an example of how a space company can (probably) find solvency by landing a major contract with a government.

I don't know enough as to whether they could realistically hit that price-point, but it's not that much more expensive than sending some of the unmanned probes that we've sent . . . after you pay the initial $7-8 billion (which is the rub). The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter cost about $583 million by comparison, but you could do a lot more with astronauts actually on the Moon at this point.

Well, at least the business model makes now sense.

Private are much more efficient and can deliver for less cost that government agencies. At least if there are no external effects, there's a market with many suppliers and you can easily terminate and replace a contract. In other words, the total opposite of a this. But since everyone knows that private is cheaper (at least in politics), NASA can present a moon landing for a smaller budget due to the miracle of free markets. And as soon as the contracts are signed and the budget is approved, additional costs will show up slowly with each addition too small to justify a stop to the project. And if a certain point is crossed, too much money will already been wasted to stop before it's finished. At the end the whole will cost more then it would have if it stayed completely in NASA's hands, and SpaceX will make a nice cut. But politics will be satisfied because they "saved tax payers money", or at least tried.

[Simon_Jester]

A permanent moon base for tourists? Won't happen. The costs are way to high to be profitable. I think I read something about plans for a flight around the moon for 150 M USD per ticket, with 2 tourists. If I assume 100 M USD per ticket to the moon, only billionaires could afford that. And since there are 'only' 1.200 of them, that's a very tight market. Especially since not all will want to go to the moon, and some won't be physically able to make the trip. So I assume there's a total market of maybe 2 or 3 billion. That's just not enough to justify such a huge ling-term investment like a moon base.

As others note, if someone starts selling access to a lunar base, governments will get into the action (including, say, ESA being willing to put a Frenchman on the moon and keep one there even though France could never ever afford their own moon shot). Space tourism would really only be a small part of the market.

[Welf]

A permanent moon base for tourists? Won't happen. The costs are way to high to be profitable. I think I read something about plans for a flight around the moon for 150 M USD per ticket, with 2 tourists. If I assume 100 M USD per ticket to the moon, only billionaires could afford that. And since there are 'only' 1.200 of them, that's a very tight market. Especially since not all will want to go to the moon, and some won't be physically able to make the trip. So I assume there's a total market of maybe 2 or 3 billion. That's just not enough to justify such a huge ling-term investment like a moon base.

As others note, if someone starts selling access to a lunar base, governments will get into the action (including, say, ESA being willing to put a Frenchman on the moon and keep one there even though France could never ever afford their own moon shot). Space tourism would really only be a small part of the market.

So basically governments would finance the whole thing? And why would they pay a private company, instead of doing it themselves? This is a very limited market with extreme amount of investments. Every possible customer is known, and needs to make his orders years and decades in advance. And the customers have the knowledge and resources to do it themselves. There isn't really a benefit from having a private company doing this. So why not cut the middle man, pay the same price, and get more control?

[Ralin]

So basically governments would finance the whole thing? And why would they pay a private company, instead of doing it themselves? This is a very limited market with extreme amount of investments. Every possible customer is known, and needs to make his orders years and decades in advance. And the customers have the knowledge and resources to do it themselves. There isn't really a benefit from having a private company doing this. So why not cut the middle man, pay the same price, and get more control?

Because the free market will always be more efficient and deliver better results than a government agency. Duh.

[Guardsman Bass]

I think having more of it under one corporate roof allows for more consistency in how production is done with spacecraft. SpaceX can say, 'We're buying parts from X and Y for this spaceship with the money you're giving us every year to accomplish a pre-agreed upon goal", whereas a directly NASA controlled project gives Congressmen much more room to meddle with the particular details of construction for political reasons (creating more inefficiencies).

[Simon_Jester]

So basically governments would finance the whole thing? And why would they pay a private company, instead of doing it themselves? This is a very limited market with extreme amount of investments. Every possible customer is known, and needs to make his orders years and decades in advance. And the customers have the knowledge and resources to do it themselves. There isn't really a benefit from having a private company doing this. So why not cut the middle man, pay the same price, and get more control?

Imagine you're the government of, say, India.

There is no fucking way that India's government would build its own moon program. They don't have the money, they don't have the technical base. And the millions upon millions of very poor people who want reliable electricity and stuff like that would crucify them. So there is no way that India will ever consider "cutting out the middle man."

And yet a lot of countries around the world (including India) have piggybacked one or two astronauts on another nation's larger program. Such as Intercosmos. Or the Space Shuttle. That's so much cheaper and easier than building your own rockets, it defies comparison.

A private program can do this kind of piggybacking just as well as a national one. So if no national ones are on the planning horizon... this starts to stand a chance again.

[Sea Skimmer]

India actually was working on a manned space program until they ran into a funding issue this year, but its still not canceled. Aside from national pride, India has a government that however inept, realizes that space technology can create a huge amount of spinoffs which are important for building a modern high tech economy, which has been the perpetual goal of the modern Indian state. They actually totally are willing to fuck over millions of poor people to do it, because that's exactly what they've been doing for over sixty years, and frankly not much hope exists to improve the situation of a billion people without radical economic changes. No reason it can't or shouldn't happen, US schools are flooded with Indian engineering students who have few chances of finding a good job back home, unless they are created. As it is India has already put an orbiter around the moon, and are working on a joint lander with Russia.

A private moon mission, I am not holding my breath, but at this point if a booster already existed that could be used, it isn't impossible either.

[Welf]

I think having more of it under one corporate roof allows for more consistency in how production is done with spacecraft. SpaceX can say, 'We're buying parts from X and Y for this spaceship with the money you're giving us every year to accomplish a pre-agreed upon goal", whereas a directly NASA controlled project gives Congressmen much more room to meddle with the particular details of construction for political reasons (creating more inefficiencies).

You're mistake a feature for a bug. The idea that private companies are always more efficient is popular, but wrong. It's just that inefficient companies will produce inferior products for higher prices and then get punished by the market. That way they get the information that they suck. In a market with only one supplier and few customers that just doesn't work. The customers can't compare the prices.
The next problem is the contract. Something like a moon mission is extremely complex. Writing down all features and expectations in a contract is probably impossible. This pretty difficult with large scale projects on earth. And here you have comparable projects with known technologies.
Also, with an external supplier you don't have control. How do you know the actually do what you want them to do? The development and testing of technology is very important in such a project. So as government you either double structures and test again and lose the (imagined) cost advantage, or you do the testing yourself, and do half of the job yourself.
And final problem: what do you do if they breach the contract and just don't deliver? Do you stop payments and let them go insolvent? Then all the knowledge and organization that was built up (with your money) is lost. So from a certain point on you are stuck with a supplier.

example: Boeing and the death spiral of death.
Boeing wanted to reduce costs and gave away many parts of the construction to suppliers. To a point where they couldn't control what their countess suppliers where actually doing. In the end the costs where higher than if they had done it themselves. While it's not exactly the same, the problem is similar. Loss of controll is not a good idea in complex projects.

Imagine you're the government of, say, India.

There is no fucking way that India's government would build its own moon program. They don't have the money, they don't have the technical base. And the millions upon millions of very poor people who want reliable electricity and stuff like that would crucify them. So there is no way that India will ever consider "cutting out the middle man."

And yet a lot of countries around the world (including India) have piggybacked one or two astronauts on another nation's larger program. Such as Intercosmos. Or the Space Shuttle. That's so much cheaper and easier than building your own rockets, it defies comparison.

A private program can do this kind of piggybacking just as well as a national one. So if no national ones are on the planning horizon... this starts to stand a chance again.

Yes, but why pay a private company when you can join a such an international project?

[Simon_Jester]

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.

[Lord Zentei]

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.

Anyhow, capitalists are a species of economic creature that's adapted to making a profit delivering goods and services that consumers are willing to pay for. If that were to include space flight, then they would deliver space flight. They don't, so the inference is that the consumer isn't interested enough (and/or it's not economically feasible enough). Don't denigrate the capitalists for that.

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.

[Grumman]

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.