Slashdot Mirror
Plan for Privately-Funded Moon Base
Anonymous Coward writes "Check out The Artemis Project. A project to have a self-supporting moon base and commercial flights within a decade. According to the FAQ, the project will be paid for by 'shameless commercialism'." The project's leaders say their approach is nothing like D. D. Harriman's, but more along the lines of P.T. Barnum.
" 3) completely pointless - if they tried to use the moon for population-control, like they did with the American West, they'd quickly find out that the moon does not have that much room... neither would have Mars, by the way."
:)
I haven't heard that anyone viewed the American West as population control, more like a whole bunch of people who didn't care for the stuffed shirts back east and wanted their own land came out here on their own -- then populated it like mad rabbits.
Also the issue has nothing to do with the size of Moon or Mars. Both have surface areas comparable to Earth's given the large percentage of water surface here. And we don't build *on* the Moon, we build *in* the moon, and that makes for a huge amount of room indeed, potentially.
But you are absolutely right that space in general is useless for population control, just as America was for Europe. You simply can't pack up and ship off as many people as are born each day, so it will never work for that.
It is *NOT* pointless however. First, sheer tourism -- rich people will pay a lot of money for exclusive vacations. Especially if rumors spread about sex in low gravity. Second, science will progress a lot from having more than one set of planetary data, and several observation points on the universe. Specialized enviroments like microgravity and cheap high vacuum labs also help. Third, it's great insurance for the human race to have independent colonies scattered about the solar system. Fourth, people with heart trouble, e.g., are likely to live a lot longer in low gravity. Fifth, though you can't control population, having those who hate the system most leave for space will reduce tensions. Sixth, its something those crazy humans *will* do, better get used to the idea.
this place has a lot to work out. they don't say anything about having help from nasa (which scares the crap out of me) or of what their infrastructure will be. as i looked through the site i notice things like 'space control', 'fusion power on the moon', and 'luna for the disabled'. yet a look into the links for infrastructure reveal a blank page. i'm not a tree hugger or anything but i'd like to be reassured that they aren't going to build a landfill on the dark side of the moon or jetison all their trash into space. as it is, what will saftey be like? laws? no one has soverign control of the moon, therefore the a private lunar colony will be much like the internet, built on good intentions but ultimately ungovernable and a relatively dangerous place to live. i don't think that i would want to go somewhere where there is no true way to stop someone from destroying an air-processing factory. i think that artimis has a lot of thinking to do, and i wouldn't expect for this to take off for closer to 50 years than their anticipated 10. america went to the moon in under 10 years but were we prepared to colonize in that amount of time? no. do we have a vehicle (aside from the saturn v, which are no longer manufactured) that is capable of reaching the moon and returning? no. it's taken us close to 30 years to come up with a feesable *idea* on how to colonize something like mars. this colony is for scientists, nasa isn't even worrying about the commercial possibilities. scientists will wear the same clothes for 3 months and live in a room the size of a phone booth, will workers and colonists? probably not. i'm afraid that if this happens in their projected 10 years, we will be hearing within a year that the project will be evacuated or that all of the colonists are dead due to some 'unanticipated problems'. i don't mean to seem pessimistic, but, well, there it is...
Some things I've noticed while looking around their site:
1) Their primary purpose is to make money (and to "have fun"). I don't know if I'd want to go to a moon base made by someone wanting solely to make money. I wouldn't put it past some managers (who will stay safely on Earth) to cut corners somewhere. And something like that would be disasterous. Their official policy:
To keep costs under control, the spacecraft are built using commercial aircraft standards and procedures.
I don't know if that's good or bad. Are aircraft standards good enough for spacecraft? A spacecraft can't just land somewhere if something goes wrong. OTOH, most all airplane flights have no problems (except maybe delays at airports).
2) Having a lunar colony created by a corporation is not too far fetched. The first European colonies in America were funded by corporations. Unfortunately, the first English colony, Roanoke, was a miserable failure -- everyone was gone (presumed dead) a few years after they arrived. Jamestown (the second attempt) also had a bad record with many people dying the first winter.
3) The lunar colony won't succeed until people have a good reason to leave Earth (i.e. escape a big brother government). Right now, I don't think we have that sort of intolerable situation.
Overall, I think it's a good idea (in principle). One must be wary and not but one's complete trust in this particular company until they prove themselves.
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
I read through many of the questions in their FAQ, which immediately threw more questions into my mind. The people involved in this project seem to have a good level of knowledge with regards to space travel and the physics behind it. This is good, of course, since I'd certainly want qualified people if I was going to take this sort of vacation.
;))
But where is the business model? I saw estimates for the feasibility study, project design, and testing. A couple year span is given for each. Where are they getting these numbers? Since they estimate the project to run over a billion dollars, where do they plan to get the capital?
And who's going to risk providing venture capital without a solid plan? They say that they plan to make an immediate profit through the entertainment angle. Well that's fine and dandy, but there is no mention of the overhead associated with doing this. This isn't like a standard vacation. You need lawyers to deal with possible accidents. Special security people would need to protect the enclosed environment from some nutcase going postal.
In short, private enterprise has pros and cons. They avoid the overhead of a government project. However, the people they will be transporting do not have the same level of expertise, trustworthiness, and professionalism as traditional astronauts. This adds to the expense.
Don't get me wrong - I think it would be a beautiful thing if we each had the opportunity to experience space travel. But these guys have their heads in the clouds, and really need to formulate a solid business model before they have any hope of getting off the ground (sorry that was kinda bad
Best regards,
SEAL
So, while the Artemus project will probably turn out to be a failure (although somebody will make lots of money off it anyway, because the aforementioned P.T. Barnum said something about fools and money...), I think it underscores the fact that space exploration needs to be commercialized. Turn NASA into a regulatory body, and hand off space exploration to joint projects between Universities and corporations. If the world governments wants to be a partner on some of these projects, let them pay their share, and enjoy their share of the profits/losses.