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Taiwan Building Lunar Lander For NASA Moon-Mining Mission (blastingnews.com)
MarkWhittington quotes a report from Blasting News: According to AFP, the Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology in Taiwan is building a $47 million, 3.7 metric ton lunar lander on behalf of NASA. The vehicle is designed to carry a rover called Resource Prospector, which would roll about the lunar surface searching out deposits of oxygen, hydrogen, and water. The Resource Prospector mission is still being formulated but is envisioned to be a joint project with several national space agencies and commercial companies. The lunar lander is the first vehicle of its type to be built in Taiwan. "The Resource Prospector would take samples from about a meter beneath the lunar surface and then heat them in an oven to ascertain what the materials are that comprise it," reports Blasting News. The mission is part of the second stage to NASA's Journey to Mars program called "Proving Ground." "Should the Resource Prospector prove to be successful, the moon could be used as a base for space journeys into Mars," says Han Kuo-change, the head of CSIST's international cooperation program.
None at all. The military runs its own space program. The last time the military was interested in cooperation with NASA was when the shuttles were build. However, the military bras saw how expensive, unreliable, and pointless were the shuttles and lost all interest even before the first shuttle flew. (Those things had basically no military, civilian, or scientific application that could possibly justify their cost. The NASA built them anyways)
It's not so simple: the initial investment is huge, and the returns are slow. It takes a visionary (like Musk), with a bottomless well of cash (like Tesla Motors) to enter the playfield. There are safer investments with higher and faster returns if one has that kind of money, and wants to multiply it. Without the "vision" it's simply not going to happen - corporations prefer easy, immediate profits over multi-decade investments, and the asian ones are more conservative that way than the western ones.
For this to happen, it takes a special kind of person in a leadership position. This *might* happen, but I don't see any candidate currently.
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because there is no money in it. its not a real market, there is only artificial demand. hence no free market and lots of crony capitalism and subsidies; eg spacex and nasa.
when there is money and its half way free, russians usually get it. even the usa airforce uses russian rockets now.
It should be illegal for American organizations to buy stuff from abroad?
Ezekiel 23:20
So who gets the mineral rights? Or is this like Milo Minderbinder: 'we all get a share'?
Like computers, clothing and almost anything else? What if it is made in the US, but the company is based elsewhere?
And what about companies who deliver to American organizations, because it would be easy to set up a company that has only US workers, but buys everything abroad for an extremely small fee.
What if the goods are better then what you can buy? What if the workers are in the US, but are not Americans? What if there is only 1 person working who isn't American, but Samoan pr Puerto Rican who has served in the military?
At what moment should you say that capiltalism is not good anymore and the people are more important (dare I say socialism?) and what if that means that youneed to increase taxes to pay for the extra cost?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
if there is real competition(instead of crony capitalist control) and real money (instead of subsidies) is space transport and infrastructure business
Already there. I can think of a half dozen organizations capable of launching a satellite into orbit and I'm no expert at all. (SpaceX, ULA, Orbital Sciences, NASA, ESA, ROSCOSMOS, CNSA off the top of my head) Several of these are private companies and more are coming online in the near future (Blue Origin, Orbital ATK) Government money is still a thing but becoming less so by the day.
opened to private enterprises, asian companies (and russians) will blast american ones like spacex to bankruptcy.
Based on what exactly? There is nothing preventing asian companies from getting into space now. It's not like the US can tell a company in India that they aren't allowed to launch anything into space. You pretend like the US is incapable of competing but so far the only private companies that are launching stuff into space are based in the US.
but usa is big on preaching free markets but bad at practicing them .
Believe whatever you want but the actual fact is that the US among the strongest advocates of free markets and global trade. Sometimes to a fault. This is unlike countries like China where there are very substantial trade restrictions on foreign companies and currency controls. I would argue that the US isn't especially good at negotiating favorable free trade deals but they keep trying.
BTW, I've read that article now, and your inference is hilarious. THIS is your argument? An obsolete Iridium sat launch is "missile technology transfer" to you? First, just because ITAR is anal to the level of requiring background checks for SpaceX's chefs and janitors doesn't mean that being handed in a comm sat to launch on behalf of its owner and operator will teach you how to build a modern missile (which the Chinese already knew by then - when do you think they got nukes, anyway?) Nor do I see how it counts as "techology transfer" to a transportation provider unless all parcel delivery does. Second, what could a primitive Iridum unit teach the Chinese that the previous "higher-end" Eutelsat or Intelsat units didn't? Or the Westar 6, also known as AsiaSat-1, manufactured in the US but launched by the Chinese as early as in 1990? Or do you blame Clinton for that, too? ;)
Ezekiel 23:20
"capiltalism is not good anymore and the people are more important (dare I say socialism?) "
Socialism never works. Take a look at Venezula.
Crony capitalism is not capitalism. In the 18th C crony capitalism was called mercantilism. Laissez faire (which is not equal to caveat emptor) rose in opposition to mercantilism. Every proponent of the free-market has been against the merging of govt and business (you know all the "good" things that government does) because government involvement inevitably leads to crony capitalism / mercantilism. Everyone from Menger to von Mises to Hayek to Ayn Rand argued for small government because otherwise you get to crony capitalism.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
NASA is NOT paying taiwan to develop this. THis is a partnership with Taiwan in which Taiwan is paying for their half of this. Basically, they are supplying part of this mission, while NASA is putting it and other items on the ground.
IOW, this does NOT take away from American jobs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.