But NASA has not returned humans to the lunar surface because of lack of funding. The Gemini/Apollo/Skylab program cost tax payers less than $140 billion in today’s dollars. NASA’s LEO programs (Space Shuttle & ISS) has cost the tax payers over $220 billion in today’s dollars since Apollo. That was plenty of money that could have been used to return to the Moon.

NASA hasn’t returned humans to the lunar surface because they have been politically banned from doing so. Lack of money is just used as an excuse by some politicians because they simply don’t want NASA to be anything else but a symbol of a pioneering space program.

Even George Bush’s lunar program prioritized replacing the Space Shuttle first with Ares I over immediately developing a heavy lift rocket and lunar shuttle to go to the Moon.

And, of course, President Obama bluntly banned NASA from returning humans to the Moon.

So NASA will return to the Moon once they are politically allowed to do so by Congress. I say Congress because despite the current President’s anti-Moon sentiment, he has really shown very little interest in NASA’s manned space program. Obama seems more interested in being buddies with billionaires like Elon rather than trying to help NASA’s manned space program!

Marcel F. Williams

I would differ the approach, by having robotic and Manned being focused on finding minable water.
Or 80- 90% of total cost is finding where there is minable lunar water and perhaps limited program funds in demonstrational type mining techniques.
And I think the exploration Mars as something NASA should do.
Though I agree that search for life on Mars is over emphasized.
I think Mars manned exploration could something NASA should do [soon].
Though I might tend towards wanting NASA to do Manned exploration of Mercury, but as there seems to be little political interest in exploring Mercury,
and on top of that, no one even *appear* to think it possible.
I think Manned Mars should part of Lunar manned.

I say it this way, I would use lunar program to politically get to a Manned Mars.
Which I think is more important as compared to merely using infrastructure of Lunar program for Manned Mars.
And I see Manned Mars as one market for lunar water and lunar rocket fuel. So I see both as a symbiotic relationship. As I see commercial and NASA as symbiotic relationship.
Or said in different way, the only way that lunar water can be minable is by mining and making rocket fuel on the scale of 100 tonnes per year.
As far as I can see, this means lunar rocket fuel [or water] must be exported from the Moon.
And NASA’s budget limits the amount of lunar water which will be mined. Or NASA will mine “just enough”,
and just enough will not be enough.

“As for doing this “privately”, if someone can raise their own money and do it without government, bully for them and God-speed.”

I doubt such thing will occur within 10 years. And I would advise against say Bill Gates [or other billionaires] doing this. If for no other reason than there better things to do with the capital.
Though a billion dollars spent for determining whether their was minable lunar would be a good choice for charity.

“But we are paying several billion dollars a year for a space program and I do not think it’s unreasonable to require that we get something of value for that investment. ”

Generally, such a notion is wrong.

NASA goal should to lower the cost of doing anything in space.
What you are doing with mining lunar water, is getting rocket fuel to high earth orbit for about the same cost of
shipping rocket fuel to high earth orbit.
Getting lunar rocket fuel to high earth for same costs as shipping
rocket fuel from Earth, isn’t lowering rocket fuel at high earth orbit [in the near term], but it is achieving NASA goal.
Though it does significantly lower costs of rocket fuel at though lunar surface.
NASA job as ordered by Congress, is not get “value for an investment” this is something commercial companies must do.

It would a good deal or value if NASA only spend 40 billion dollar determining whether there was minable water on Moon. In same sense it would a good deal
if NASA only 200 billion dollars determining it was possible for something like the Shuttle to work.
NASA spend more than this and one say [be charitable] that results were “mixed”.
So one could say 40 billion dollar with a clear result is better than 200 billion with a mixed result.
And one say that if Chinese used technology from the Shuttle to successful
have a usable space vehicle, it would not be the worst thing to happen.
Likewise, if in future if NASA explored the Moon and found minable
lunar water, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen if some Chinese
billionaire successful commercially mined lunar water.
I would prefer an American or Japanese or European billionaire did this- but it’s waste of NASA investment to cause such thing sooner rather than decades or centuries later.

But what is desired is NASA to get more budget so it can do more space exploration, and I think a low cost and relatively quick exploration of the Moon
to determine whether there is minable water, is in to right direction.

Yeah, and we would still be building, extending and repairing interstate highways, railroads and port facilities — there’s a “recipe for failure” for you.

Now you’ve had your say. You reject this idea — we get it. Enough.

Point 1: In any engineering project there is an optimal funding level where maximum efficiency can be achieved (though that can be difficult to determine). That level for the plan proposed by Dr. Spudis and Tony Lavoie was estimated to be about $7 Billion/year. When you go below that level you will get less efficiency (that is you may spend less money in any one year, but the project will cost more overall). Additionally the time span to complete the project is not likely to only double with a halving of the yearly budget.

As an example the ISS was given in the 1990’s a $2.1 Billion/year budget (with no adjustments for inflation for years). That process eventually succeeded, but with many delays and “cost overruns”. One was for the automated water transfer system. When the system was eventually developed it showed that 2 more Remote Power Control Modules (RPCM’s) were required. Unfortunately (also to stay within the budget caps) the RPCM production line had been shut down. Consequently the unit cost of the new RPCM’s was very high producing both a delay and cost overruns (with the requisite snarky news articles). That type of thing was replicated many times across the program.

Point 2: There is also a minimum funding level below which nothing will be accomplished. I do not know where that level is (the $1 to $16 Billion range will certainly encompass it). Go below that and whatever amount you are spending (however low) is being wasted.

Point 3: The issue of funding stability also needs to be considered. In the early days of the Space Station (approximately 1985 – 1989) every year the program received a budget and estimated out year budgets for planning purposes. Then the next year it would all drastically change (all ways downward – of course). Consequently a significant portion of the next year would have to be spent replanning/rephrasing the entire project. As a result very little real progress would be made in those years.

So in order to have a successful program you have to:
– Determine the minimum funding level for the proposed project.
– Get political buy in to fund the project at (at least) that level (hopefully with cost of living adjustments).
– Get political buy in to fund the project consistently.

In a democracy that is a tall order even under optimal circumstances. Unfortunately the current circumstances (in terms of both economics and politics) are anything but optimal.

As for doing this “privately”, if someone can raise their own money and do it without government, bully for them and God-speed. But we are paying several billion dollars a year for a space program and I do not think it’s unreasonable to require that we get something of value for that investment. Why not have them find out if extracting and using lunar resources can be made to work from a systems point of view? For ensuring our long-term future in space, it makes more sense than questing for life on Mars.

Maybe it will not get funded. maybe it will be funded and than year later it will be decided to not continue funding it.

A problem with Manned Mars, is will get something like a repeat of Apollo. And you get same problem with 16 years on the moon.
Plus you want 7 billion per year. NASA may want 10 billion per year, so this same reducing budget and requiring a longer time. So NASA may want 10, and they get 6 billion, and then 5 years later they could getting 4 billion or less.

I think you plan for less than 7 billion per year, and plan on it taking less 16 years. And because that total is less, maybe Congress will start it sooner than 9-10 years.

How make it cheaper? Don’t have NASA mine lunar water.
Not one should mine lunar water before exploring the Moon to determine where is the best areas
to mine water. Once this is known then it is possible to make a decision of whether mining lunar water is a good idea.
And it’s a good idea, if at some point it cost less to mine the water and make the rocket fuel
than the cost to ship the rocket fuel.
Now you could make the argument that it’s going to require a lot time and experience, and increase in ability to finally get to the point in time when mining lunar water is profitable.
OR after exploring the moon, what may find that it’s only takes a relatively short time [high capital cost in beginning] to get to point of it being profitable to mine water.
But such decision doesn’t need to made at this time, it can be made, after exploring the Moon.

So I say at least separate to a package you selling into two parts. I would prefer, that lunar water be commercial mined. Assume this is the starting premise.
I think if commercially mine it could actually profitably be done- just as any mining on Earth is done. And if the results of the exploration doesn’t indicate lunar water can be profitably mined,
this actually a good thing. Why mine anything which is not profitable?

But if you want NASA to mine lunar water, the congress at that time when it has gotten information
from exploration can then decide if the want to do part B. Or call it a different lunar program.
So instead of a congress doing the impossible of making decision for a Congress 10 or more years in the future, let the Congress make that choice in the future, when they have more facts available- because they do it anyway.

So you sell Congress on a cheaper program, and you say at some point congress can decide
which options it will take.
So the news cycle will be talking about the cost of the program which is which being past as bill.
The reporter will add costs they think it will costs. And NASA will add to cost of whatever is proposed, and when it’s executed it will probably cost more than planned.
So when all said and done it might actually cost 7 billion or much less per year. And maybe NASA will do it for 30 year, or maybe it will require less than 10 years.

Believe what you want to. I do not assume that the agency will get $16 billion per year to fund “exploration” (or “development of space faring capability”, as I prefer it). My point is that if you know where you are trying to go and what you are trying to do, you can plot a strategy that gets you there eventually.

The lunar architecture that Tony Lavoie and I published two years ago returned us to the Moon in about 9-10 years for less than $7 billion per year. After 16 years, we were producing more rocket propellant on the Moon than we were using to get there. Cut that budget allocation in half and you simply extend the schedule — if it takes 20 years to get to the Moon, so what? At least we’re moving in a consistent direction. Because we now know more about the lunar poles and its deposits than we did then, my suspicion is that we could get water production up and running sooner than previously estimated.

Of course, if it was decided to fund the agency at $1 per year, not much is possible (but that’s true for all other agency activities as well.) But we are not in that situation and are not likely to be. Moreover, at least some of what NASA does (Earth science) could be appropriately handed off to other agencies. And ISS will not last forever — wasn’t meant to.

So I do not think I am being unrealistic. I am asking for a space program that returns long-term societal value for public money spent. I realize that such a concept is not currently fashionable, but it should be.

Short version: Political concerns (“What will the House Republicans say if we release that planning document?”) overrode efforts to actually firm up requirements and implement the President’s Healthcare program. Shorter yet: People screwed up managing what should have been a fairly straightforward middle-sized software engineering job.

The implication — for me anyhow — is that if the Obama administration had put its mitts on any reasonably ambitious space project and tried to push it forward from within the White House in JFK style that things would have gone very badly. Management skill strikes me as a much larger issue than whether Marburger or Holdren had a better vision of the future.