Private Moon Landing in the works?

[spaceboy89]

Not too pleased about the Sun link. That's a tabloid known for crap...

I agree, however it is interesting that it is the only mainstream British press outlet that I have seen run the story. I wonder what we'll see after the announcement.

[mrmandias]

Simply by dropping a few names, it is possible to make the most unlikely and outlandish proposals sound respectable and newsworthy.

Someone should send Freeman Dyson a text message. 

For the Planetary Resources PR event they named investors but refused to provide any budget figures, which can lead one to wonder if a few ultra-wealthy people gave them a token donation just for fun, or in order to get them to go away.  That their total headcount is only something like two dozen and they need to find peripheral sources of revenue to keep the lights turned on suggests that they could be operating on a shoestring.

Just a few years ago, in 2008, there was the announcement by Galactic Suites that they would have a space hotel in LEO by 2012, with the modules constructed by EADS Astrium.  However, that was total news to Astrium, which denied any knowledge of the project

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Suite_Design
 
If Golden Spike can priovide real budget figures then it could be an indication that they are real, which would be a welcome change from the usual snake oil cures for futuritis.

You've hit on something, here.

Just because billionaires support something doesn't mean they're going to give billions to it. (Though I don't think they want them to just "go away.") Putting billions into something like Planetary Resources /right now/ would probably be a horrible investment decision. But a few million to advance the state of current knowledge? That may work. You don't massively reduce costs by starting out with an enormous financial investment... You'd just be encouraging wasteful spending.

They've got a good concept with the Arkyd spacecraft. It solves some important problems for the long-term vision and is a decent idea all by itself and can be done for a relatively small investment. Planetary Resources' only chance is to figure out how to do something that sounds like it'd cost trillions (i.e. mine asteroids) for only billions or maybe even just in the hundreds of millions. But to get to that point, to figure out exactly what they need to build, what asteroids to target, and how to process them, they need to build Arkyd and develop it as a flexible platform that can mostly pay for itself (or it will never get to the end-goal while still being affordable).

There are lots of little hobby-become-startup space groups out there with small teams and small funding (or no funding) but hoping to accomplish grand visions. What is Golden Spike? Probably something like that, maybe more. But whatever it is, I sort of doubt they'll be a fully-formed and funded private Apollo program. Which is fine. This sort of stuff takes time, and there are lots of interesting advances being made that will make this increasingly doable.

That's the great thing about Planetary Resources, they have a plan to get there from here, and if they don't make it all the way there, the steps along the way are still worthwhile.

But its hard to see how you can scale up a plan for lunar ventures.   I guess you could start by doing flybys and/or setting up a station at L1, but I don’t see the a reasonable commercial market for it or a big lever to get government backing.

[daveklingler]

>
- Bigelow hab, because they're already involved with SpaceX and because they're the only inflatable game in town
>

Paragon and Thin Red Line Aerospace are also developing an expandable hab based on TRL's Ultra-High Performance Vessel (UHPV). Thin Red Line has also worked on the Bigelow expandables, and with NASA, Boeing etc.

http://www.thin-red-line.com/projects.html

Wow.  It's never occurred to me that Bigelow had outsourced anything.  Thanks!

I'd be surprised if SpaceX made an end run around Bigelow, however. Unless the choice wasn't theirs to make.

Last night after I'd posted I noticed the SpaceX lunar mission thread.  It's a toss-up whether speculation on Golden Spike's mission components belong there or here, but I guess if nobody else wants to make WAGs, I'll take my WAGs there. 

[go4mars]

its hard to see how you can scale up a plan for lunar ventures.   I guess you could start by doing flybys and/or setting up a station at L1, but I don’t see the a reasonable commercial market for it

At a guess, Zond style tourism to start, with an elaborate Gantt chart of increasingly elaborate and ambitious plans, funding TBA (post IPO?).

[simonbp]

IMHO, their point is to land, and so that's what they are planning to do as soon as possible. Landing on the Moon isn't all that more expensive than orbiting it, it's just more risky. So, a reasonable strategy would be to start with a few unmanned landings to prove out the system fully, and then put paid customers on board.

An Apollo-style strategy of incremental manned flights only made sense because the Apollo vehicles had to be manually flown. That's not going to be the case for any modern lander. Especially they can be targeted at sites with high-res LROC imagery to prevent an Apollo 11-type situation where the autopilot flies into a hazard.

[mrmandias]

IMHO, their point is to land, and so that's what they are planning to do as soon as possible. Landing on the Moon isn't all that more expensive than orbiting it, it's just more risky. So, a reasonable strategy would be to start with a few unmanned landings to prove out the system fully, and then put paid customers on board.

An Apollo-style strategy of incremental manned flights only made sense because the Apollo vehicles had to be manually flown. That's not going to be the case for any modern lander. Especially they can be targeted at sites with high-res LROC imagery to prevent an Apollo 11-type situation where the autopilot flies into a hazard.

That makes sense technically, but not commercially.  Unless there's a $$$ market for unmanned lunar landings that I'm missing, that means they need big capitalization.

I eagerly await their announcement.

[ChefPat]

I wonder if Paragon/Thin Red Line have flown any hardware yet?

[neilh]

The Sun has now picked this up

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4677877/Richard-Branson-moon-trip-plan.html

If The Sun is correct in the details of its story, then we might have some idea of the mid- to long-term business case.  Virgin Galactic is all about space tourism, after all, and I can't see Mr Branson funding something  (no matter how cool) with no hope of some return on his investment.

FYI, the "Took a photo of the moon above Necker to help decide where to put the Virgin Galactic hotel!" quote the Sun references at the end  makes it sound like it's a recent remark from Branson, but it actually dates back to January:

http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/necker-moon

[Chris Bergin]

Yes, I wouldn't put much stock in anything a tabloid comes up with (and for the Americans here - which is most of you - the UK tabloids are about as raw as they get). Check out - but don't respond on here about it - the http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/ that's just finished. Ruthless doesn't cover it.

Anyhoo, I need my beauty sleep (tee hee), so let's keep this thread calm overnight. As my Grandma used to say, "It'll all come out in the wash" (the details will be forthcoming).

[cro-magnon gramps]

Yes, I wouldn't put much stock in anything a tabloid comes up with (and for the Americans here - which is most of you - the UK tabloids are about as raw as they get). Check out - but don't respond on here about it - the http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/ that's just finished. Ruthless doesn't cover it.

Anyhoo, I need my beauty sleep (tee hee), so let's keep this thread calm overnight. As my Grandma used to say, "It'll all come out in the wash" (the details will be forthcoming).

As my Grt Yarmouth, Norfolk, UK Mom used to say, "Its an ill wind that blows nobody some good." so I am looking at all this positively, that whatever happens, some good will come of it...

Gramps

ps it is more than beauty sleep, it will keep you around longer, working the news, like the honest journalist you are. For which we are greatful. "So What is the ONLINE sign doing on???"

[Robert Thompson]

Conjecture on likihood of a Baumgartner Zond shakedown?

[Nelson Bridwell]

(I can fully empathize with anyone who thinks it is foolish to spend all that money on the ISS and only use it for a few years.  Even so, I am not sure that LEO is a meaningful objective for NASA.  To quote our great leader, "We've been there before." )

Wasn't Obama referring to the Moon?

Yes, that is exactly the point.  If Obama's strategy is "been there, done that" then he should focus NASA funds on Mars missions and leave LEO for commercial investors.

(Although nothing in real life is ever that simple.)

[QuantumG]

Yes, that is exactly the point.  If Obama's strategy is "been there, done that" then he should focus NASA funds on Mars missions and leave LEO for commercial investors.

That's exactly what Buzz told him to do and what he announced, way back when.

What you're missing.. what so many space advocates continue to miss.. is that this isn't a dictatorship. Obama can neither take responsibility, nor take the blame, for the state of space policy in the US. It's all the result of multiple players, of which he is just a minor one.

[Nelson Bridwell]

If Branson was a pure businessman then I think that he would instead be investing in point-to-point suborbital transport, and then LEO tourism, which might become respectable niche markets within 25 years.
I see Lunar surface tourism as more like 50 years away.

However, if he is the first private (senior!) citizen to set foot on the Moon then that could put him in the history books, and be of immense PR value for his businesses.

But if he and his investors want to recoup their enormous investments then the only realistic potential near-term clients for a lunar transport service would be government-funded geologists, astronomers, and doctors performing basic research and exploration.

[Comga]

What any of us think Branson would or should do is irrelevant at best.
(We do know that Stern has talked with Branson, and may still be talking with him.)
What Buzz told Obama isn't relative either, although that's not what QuantumG said.
This is about a specific private moon landing program, of which we may learn more on Friday.  Can we wait for that and hold to our Topic?

[Nelson Bridwell]

But its hard to see how you can scale up a plan for lunar ventures.   I guess you could start by doing flybys and/or setting up a station at L1, but I don’t see the a reasonable commercial market for it or a big lever to get government backing.

Really interesting question:  If a single lunar mission costs almost $1B, how many prototype test vehicles could they afford to manufacture and launch?

Possibly none.

I suspect that they might be able to manufacture, launch to LEO, and extensively test all of the required modules for the first lunar surface mission, and only proceed with TLI when everything checks out OK.  This might particularly make sense if the lander and other modules are reusable.

[Nelson Bridwell]

Sorry that this is on a tangent, but all the questions about ways to make any revenue from manned lunar missions brought to light a thought:

Forget NEO PGMs and water from the Lunar poles.

If a commercial space firm wants to generate real revenue from space they should find a way to expeditiously retrieve useful rocks and sample from Mars for the scientific community.

How many billions would the proposed NASA+ESA sample return missions have cost?

[joek]

But its hard to see how you can scale up a plan for lunar ventures.   I guess you could start by doing flybys and/or setting up a station at L1, but I don’t see the a reasonable commercial market for it or a big lever to get government backing.

Really interesting question:  If a single lunar mission costs almost $1B, how many prototype test vehicles could they afford to manufacture and launch?

Possibly none.

I suspect that they might be able to manufacture, launch to LEO, and extensively test all of the required modules for the first lunar surface mission, and only proceed with TLI when everything checks out OK.  This might particularly make sense if the lander and other modules are reusable.

That assumes they go it alone.  I suggest that there is a confluence that involves a private-government partnership where they (private) make an offer NASA (government) finds very difficult to refuse.

While I don't necessarily expect GoldenSpike to come out of the gate with such a proposal (at least publicly), I wouldn't be surprised if that is their expected end game, or if they've been shopping it among select government stakeholders.

Let's face it, government-sponsored-funded BLEO HSF has been facing hard times, and is likely to be facing harder times in the future.  A few big names putting money on the table and saying "we should go that-a-way" could have a significant influence on our direction--much more so than at any point in the past.

[Comga]

Sorry that this is on a tangent, but all the questions about ways to make any revenue from manned lunar missions brought to light a thought:

Forget NEO PGMs and water from the Lunar poles.

If a commercial space firm wants to generate real revenue from space they should find a way to expeditiously retrieve useful rocks and sample from Mars for the scientific community.

How many billions would the proposed NASA+ESA sample return missions have cost?

This is not relevant. 
We don't know how this private moon landing will pay for itself but most of us agree NASA won't be their source of funding, for many reasons.  It doesn't matter how much it would cost NASA to do a sample return mission.  NASA is not going to buy moon rocks at $xE8/kg.
This is still off the topic of this particular private moon mission.

[Nelson Bridwell]

Great little documentary on the development of the Apollo Lunar Module:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=cwrXcuK4LgY