would it be possible with private finance to build a moonbase?

Hi, jaypauldini, - Happy New Year.

It is possible, given enough financial backing. A financier would either have to have loads of spare cash, or come up with some way of making a very substantial profit, to consider the outlay and risks.

For a start, just think about the scale of the problem - the space station (ISS) orbits at about 350km above the Earth. The distance to the moon is over 1,000 times that.

John

Why not? There were enough money to finance it lost on the stock exchange in 2008.

You just have to wait for Moondows Wista to start selling. The operating system to take us to new heights.

what i would like to know , is is it actually possible to go to the moon and build a moon base on it? as private finance invests in space shuttle flights to repair satellites and to put new ones up in orbit. Only 3 errors.

Sorry, I presume you have not noticed that there is a spelling check. I can understand that writers from not english speaking countries make errors, how ever I consider that somebody from an english speaking country should be an example.

English is not my language but I make the effort to use the spell check.

I thought he just didn't think much of the space shuttle. As far as spelling and using spell checker. at times I do this on break and I push it before checking. matter of fact............I can't find my spell checker on this reply page.

Oh s&^t ! Please let's not go around the spelling and grammar maypole....again.

Besides, my spelling and grammar is way gooder than yars!

i am a terrible speller,so i don't know how to correctly spell it,what do i do?

haha,im dislexic, your lucky you coudl read it at all

AS you say, nothing is impossible.

There is of course, lots of improbable.

D'you realize you're replying to a comment posted nearly 5 years ago?

Yes. When first replied, I did not look at the time. I was looking at the history of the OP. Seems like the OP has a long history of these types of questions.

How is it that You found this ? I guess you were looking over my history too. Being still subscribed to the thread after 5 years seems unlikely.

Thanks for the note.

Its all in fun, and a little education, for me.

Too old to go mining for work, and too young to ignore interesting or provocative questions.

Have a good day, one less left, you know.

LIT.

It popped up as a new post on a thread to which I was subscribed - I very rarely unsubscribe, just in case something interesting pops up.

A little quote from some old Pink Floyd (seems rather more significant now than when I first heard it - 40 years ago):

"And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death"

I think so. And probably less than $700 billion USD.

Depends on what kind of returns it would have on its investments.

Right now, recreation is the only possible return. And that would be to the very few.

Look on history on the real reasons colonization happened.

$, aahhhh I hope I didn't give it away.

other than that, military strategy.

phoenix911

You wrote,"Right now, recreation is the only possible return." How about mining? Silica, magnesium, and HE³ just to name the ones off the top of my head. The HE³alone would make the base worth the trip.

HE³ for fusion would solve most of not all of our energy questions.

Just my opinion, Dragon

We dumped enough "value" in the market the last few months to easily finance moon bases, flying cars, and the rest of the Jetson's lifestyle.

But when it comes to moonbases, I too am not sure the return to the investors.

Where do you get these notions?

As preoccupied with space as you seem to be, one would think that you would have a firmer grasp of the relationship of the planets/moons to each other, prior to posing the question.

Possible? Yes. Practical? No!

It would take more money than the Bush administration has squandered on the Iraq war and the financial giveaway to do it.

i have no idea where the planets are, i'm just curious as to why we have a space station and not a more practical moon station

In my opinion, it is a geography issue. A V2 rocket can go from the Moon to the Earth, but it takes a Saturn V rocket to bring it back.

The Moon is covered in Hydrogen and Oxygen. The solar wind has deposited, literally implanted hydrogen into the surface. One estimate stated for every pound of Tritium mined from the surface 10,000 gallons of water would be created as a byproduct.

Next the surface is covered in light metal oxides

Add to that, Washington State University just confirmed that 3D printing is doable with Lunar Regolith.

Put the two together and leave piles of building block supplies for the picking up.

The moon has a lot going for it as a source of parts to expand farther into the solar system.

Besides there is a lot of room. The surface of the Moon is about the size of all the land on Earth. Add to that the best protection is down underground the area for everything gets really big.

The nice thing about vacuum is dust falls to the ground as fast as a hammer.

What I think will cause the Moon to have bases and then cities is governments not wanting to be left out of the exploiting of the Moon. Even if just for showman ship. If a private company starts it then the government will want to control it.

Eventually I see the Moon as the capital of the Earth. Everyone will be able to see it. First we have to survive adolescence.

As misguided as business is it needs to make a profit out of most of it's activities and that means that for a Moon base to be practical they must get some sort of return on their investment.

The problem with this is that if the Moon were made of solid gold there for the taking you would go broke trying to transport it back to Earth. This is because the cost per kg of transporting anything from the Moon back to Earth is greater than the current price of gold.

That make the few kg of Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions the most expensive and precious gems on Earth and they are likely to stay that way for some time.

Currently there isn't anything on the Moon that is know of that is precious enough to make a Moon mission let alone base profitable and that means business won't touch it with a 10 foot barge pole.

I will however state that there is no way to know what scientific research will turn up until you do the research and returning to the Moon is the same. Until you actually do it you have no idea what new technologies, materials or knowledge will be gleaned from returning to the Moon and that alone makes is wort doing.

What value does a Moonbase represent for private companies, or individuals? Of course as a Satellite, you don't have to launch it, and it is pretty large. I suppose a case could be made for it as a place for communications installations with onsite maintenance crews. Still it seems that life in space is pretty lousy compared to life on Earth. Sex without gravity is even reported as problematic. The old Space Wheel spinning seems more attractive than living on the Moon, to me these days. One reason for people to live in outerspace, either in a Space Station, or on the Moon, or Mars is that if we blow each other up, some of the species may survive, but I'm not sure that that is something private industry will regard as a profit making selling point. "Send your kids to the Moon! Make sure your seed survives! You know the government is failing, and doesn't care about you anyway!" How's that for a marketing strategy? -Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there? Try the Moon, You'll be grateful to get back home! Of course the answer to your question is, it would be possible to go to the moon and build a base on it. So far it has turned out to be the case that making satellites on earth and sending them up from here, and then sending another when the old ones break down is more cost effective in general. I haven't checked on the L5 Society lately. You might be interested in their old plans. The experiments with Earth bound closed systems have so far failed. We do need three planets and maybe a Moonbase, Space Station orbiting it and Terraforming of Venus and Mars will call for a Vatican financed initiative.

It certainly is possible, but sit down and make a list of all the problems one would face. That's why only large governments can put people in space, build space stations, send astronauts to the Moon. One would need several cargo-carrying rocket ships to carry the building materials, food, water, machinery and so on. Saturn V was immense in scale and lifting power. My MOS at Redstone Arsenal was in propellants, explosives and warheads. The Saturn V was as tall as a 36 story building. It was capable of boosting 129,000 Kg into Earth orbit, or 48,000 Kg to the Moon. The Saturn V's 1st stage, with 5 F-1 engines, had a total thrust of 7,500.000 pounds, using RP-1 and LOX. The 2nd stage , with 5 J-2 enjines (liquid H2 and LOX) had a total thrust of 1,250,000 pounds. The final stage still had a thrust of 250,000 pounds. Now, anyone who wanted to establish a Moon base would have to have at least several of these ferry-rockets to boost materials to the moon, and return the main parts of the rocket. I don't recall what the total cost of a Saturn rocket was, or the cost of a single launch, but you would be talking in the Billions of US dollars. Plus modern technology and the numerous technicians and engineers that would be needed. Hope that answers a few of your questions.

Dropping in to see how this question was answered is a bit of childish fun. I was prompted to look up the L 5 society on youtube where I took the time to watch a couple of short videos. I don't think I had thought about the L 5 Society since the Eighties. If all it would cost is the price of the war in Iraq, wow, that seems affordable. Hell now adays they just print money anyway. I've got a few nice designs, but I really ought to print up more money. How about calling my money Transcendos? What about Astro Bucks? You know the Chinese, Russians and Americans and French need to have a vacation spot, where their suffering Cosmonaunts, Astronauts, can get away from the lousy Space station. They need a place with a working toilet and some gravity. What say we hire all the out of work Russian Rocket scientists and the rest of the out of work Astro engineers and form a quasi company country that prints nice looking money to give to people for stuff from here, needed to get away from them? From what I hear life on Mir sucked, and the International Space station is like pretty miserable as well. I really felt bad they had to go back to diapers there for awhile. Yes! Yes! Private Industry could do better. But the key to profitablity is more miserable space people stuck in lousy jobs. They don't even seem to have string to tie onto their tools! I tell you visitors to the Transcendia Vacation Space Station would get a ball of complimentary string. You could soon tell a cool spaceperson because they would have a nice ball of string. I might even throw in a knife like I've got where you don't have to expose the blade to cut the string, as a safety measure. It would be a TV Combo deal where you get some string, and a way to cut it if you drift over from the stupid International Space Station, to my place for a party. Then Del would show up and make little bows and arrows. People would go out on the veranda and shoot arrows at the Moon.

Hey Trancendian (I think next time I'm going to shorten that to Trance),

Speaking of string; what ever happened to the space elevator idea? I guess we're still waiting for better string.

Well anyway, once we get that stuff it should be no problem, right?

Right. As far as carbon nanotubes enabling the space elevator off the coast of Ecuador I did wonder how that would help Moon Bases. I guess it would. Of course a Space Elevator would be grand as an integrated part of the Solar System Transport infrastructure. I hadn't forgotten about it but just went off thinking about quality of life issues. It is too bad that Submariners don't have a holiday retreat under the water too. Actually comparable space events, and ocean events and technologies are precedents for whatever use the Moon has for us. There are a few privately owned and operated submarines for instance. If Nano Tech does enable the Space Elevator, which is impossible without it, space visits would be about the same as visits to the deep by tourists in commercial tourist submarines. Great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. I did work for an Airline once. I could go most anywhere, but wouldn't have any money in my pocket when I got there. Lately I simply don't go anywhere. The best string I've used commonly is called in the movie business Trick Line. However there is another string recommended for use with a Plumb Bob, that I forget the name of right now. A good string has no memory. Again, Right! nice of you to remember.

A very doable YES!

Now the problems to overcome:

Money - those that have it have their own agenda not always in the best interests of the venture;

Tech - What the governments and aerospace companies know they will not share. Yes you can get outdated intel but all the little proprietary details you will have to develop in house;

Any organization this big with this much money invested will draw sycophants and factions who will try to draw you into many paths at once for their own gain;

Leadership- who would you trust that is capable of running a multi-billion dollar endeavor to commercialize a Moon base and not be corrupted by the issues;

Politics of Earth- Some will try to help, many harm and others will try to mire you in legal battles for reasons of their own gain;

Training? What, Where, Who?

Most of the Standard SF and public thinking is based on bad or limited data. The First thing I would do is take up supplies, infrastructure and bring back a drill core sample as deep as possible. I would sell it to the worlds universities at a million per foot with terms.

Plan on materials development and mining (mines are your first safer homes). You have vast amounts of power and raw supplies.

Develop L4 for industry ( L5 is for living )

Hire selected non violent criminals for some labor. ( they have lived in adverse confined spaces and adapted to it ). Also pay them well.

Also work on a heavy lift system to launch from the Moon for further exploration and exporting of finished products. (why export materials when the finished product can be better made in low and 0gee.

This is just the tip of the Iceberg.

Brad

Good Answer.

Dragon

It is possible to send remote landings(unmanned). It is not possible to send manned landings yet( the supposed manned landings were faked)- that is why US cannot get to the moon before 2020 at least with a genuine manned landing.

Not quite true Neil,

I don't think the prism reflector was set by robotic landing. Was some faked? quite possibly. Many of the pictures would be beyond the ability of pre photoshop tech to do.

Radiation right now is at a major low. To bad they dropped the ball on systems.

Brad

You did not ask when. Right now, possible by very very highly unlikely. And even less smart.

I'm sorry,

The CR4 Moonbase is currently only in the pre-design stage. Keep watching here for updates.

LMAO IGGP

Now, back to pre-designing.

I'm still stuck on the space elevator idea. I have more questions than answers, of course.

1) At what altitude does weightlessness occur? 1a) Is there a graph somewhere or perhaps a mathmatical equasion showing how much weight diminishes as a function of altitude? Does a person weigh less on a high mountain peak as opposed to sea level?

2) If a large, Skyhook type balloon were to lift a rocket into the stratosphere, could a significant amount of weight (and consequently fuel be saved?

A balloon reaching a diameter of 300 feet was able to lift 5500 lbs into the stratosphere to 89000 feet in the late 50's.

3) How about a space elevator planted on the moon rather than (or along with) earth? Since the moon always has just one side facing earth and 1/6th the gravity it seems like a better candidate.

I have lots of other questions but I'll stop for now.

Since there is no rating for "Good Question" I gave you a Good Answer.

Regards Dragon

Hello Shadetree,

Someone must have ate the Spam

3) How about a space elevator planted on the moon rather than (or along with) earth? Since the moon always has just one side facing earth and 1/6th the gravity it seems like a better candidate.

The moon is a good candidate except the lack of a faster rotation makes less centripetal force to use. And it wobbles (tech term) due to rotation and trajectory conflicts.

I know that an Earth space elevator is 500 miles to Geosynchronous orbit plus a percentage depending on how much mass you attach to the top of it.

The Lunar space elevator lunar-synchronous point is over 1.5 times farther than that of Earths. The Lunar cable itself could be much smaller.

I think a small metallic asteroid turned space station at L1 64,692 km from the lunar centre would also be good. The problem with L1 is it is the high point between two gravity wells so would need constant adjustment. Attached to a lunar space elevator and hung a little into the Earths gravity well would be a major transportation boon.

Brad

"I know that an Earth space elevator is 500 miles to Geosynchronous orbit ..."

I think you'll find it's more like 22,000 miles.

Thanks for the link UV,

And a GA for the pertanent info.

Hello jaypauldini:

This point may have been made as I have not read past the first 6 posts.

What you actually mean, is it possible for super rich people to finance this moon base etc? Rather than the money convoluted away in mutitudinous directions by way of 'investment' by the 'masses'?...............Excuse me, just got to take a breath...........

To my way of thinking the 'private investor', that is everyone who has savings, well, just about, has already financed the space missions so far. Dupont who I think was one company who invented non stick pan coating, was sponsored by investments and all the large and tiny engineering companies who built the rockets and boosters etc were financed by private investment.

There may or may not be other inventions which will make as much money for the various engineering and chemical companies as the space race has done to date. I would say it is more than likely other inventions will make more than enough to finance a moon base.

This is my own 'raw' thoughts written as they are formed, and somehow it has some kind of sense to it. I think I am trying to boost my own ego more than anything. But, I will stop now or my 'point' if that is what it is, will be lost in the mire!

Take care and have a great new year................