Shoot for the Moon
Ian Randall Strock (M) - Writer/Editor of Artemis Magazine.
John Strickland - Programmer/Analyst in space movement for 30 years.
Edwin Strickland - Image processing.
Ben Bova - Guest of Honor, a couple novels about living on the moon.
Panelists discuss private initiatives for space flight and moon landings.
Ian: The Artemis Project is a venture to buuld a manned moon base.
John: I look at the practical aspects, advocate reusable vehicles. We need a practical system, a means of ferrying things between Earth orbit and the lunar surface. A lunar ferry vehicle that is easily serviceable and reusable. Get Hydrogen from Earth and Oxygen from moon rocks. Use resource most abundant in each case.
Ben: How do you get the money to do it? It will cost billions of dollars. Investors invest that much, but it has to be either very, very safe or a huge payoff. Dangers of space flight combined with long term investment turn investors off. Funding enough equipment to make lunar mining workable.
Edwin: Why do we want to go there? So we can walk on the moon? Apollo left us with a dead-end. NASA proposed a lunar-polar orbiter but Congress said "Huh? We've done the moon." and we've been stuck there ever since. Various nations are talking about sending missions to the moon. There has already been one commercial satellite that has reached the moon. A satellite that failed geosynchronous orbit was shot around the moon and the satellite is now in a useful orbit. Several private companies have proposed lunar rovers. Radio Shack has proposed a lunar communications satellite. We need many more science missions, but we need to do commercial missions in smaller jumps rather than a monster program like Apollo.
Ian: The government should go to Mars; commercial instruments should go to the moon. The .COM world has killed long term investing. Transorbital Company may put a lander on the moon, complete with picture sales, etc. Artemis wants to put a manned base on the moon. They are looking at commercial ways to raise money to fund the moonbase. Then they will do tourism. They are looking for customers and terrestrial businesses.
Edwin: These are the bootstrap methods that ar going to be needed. Bill Gates is not interested in funding a moon project, though he is interested in orbital internet links.
Ian: Robt Bigelow is looking for a way to build a cruise ship in space.
John: What kind of business is required for people to stay and live and survive. A mine base will need a habitat for people. Radio astronomy would be a good thing to do on the moon. Video tours would not need a base. Lunar burial could be a salable feature. The Navajos got all excited, saying the moon is a sacred place and you should not put remains there. But business does not need to listen to that.
Gregory: People are pricey. Human experience is important, but Saudi Arabia looks like the Garden of Eden compared to the moon. The smarted thing to do would be to drop a comet onto the moon and capture the water. Drop it first, then build a base. Fusion is 20 years from a realizable reactor and always will be. You have to b able to get some bucks out of the moon or it won't go.
John: The moon is a giant tektite, not a naturally made object.
Ben: If any government moved towards solar power in a big way, converted it microwave power might work. The Japanese might do it, and this could lead to mining the moon.
Edwin: NASA should go back to the moon. Some of the scientific experiments should be run. There are some things we do not understand about the moon, such as its global geology. The ice caps should be investigated.
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