"Colonising the moon may be 90% cheaper than thought" - Popsci

[Coyote27]

http://www.popsci.com/colonizing-moon-may-be-90-percent-cheaper-we-thought?JoD4rSLMpFGvc0D3.01

This article claims that we could start a lunar colony for $10 billion and have it become economically viable as a fuel depot for further exploration.

[Kaos]

The flaw of this plan is that a lot of technologies NASA develops are not used. Hence, the lobby groups for these technology will block the plan unless their technology is included. This will complicate the mission and increse the cost until it is too expensive again.

There are relatively cheap plans to the moon and to the mars long known, but not used for precisely these reasons.

The plan is good (but not new) nevertheless.

[RainDreamer]

Sounds too good to be true, but we will see. The most crucial part is still being able to send a survey bot up there to see if we can mine hydrogen easily enough from lunar crust, and that haven't even been done yet.

[Frozen_Heart]

The flaw of this plan is that a lot of technologies NASA develops are not used. Hence, the lobby groups for these technology will block the plan unless their technology is included. This will complicate the mission and increse the cost until it is too expensive again.

There are relatively cheap plans to the moon and to the mars long known, but not used for precisely these reasons.

The plan is good (but not new) nevertheless.

Its sad that human progress is purposely blocked by people for their own personal gain.

[tater]

Finding useful amounts of hydrogen is a pretty big "if."

[DerekL1963]

Sounds too good to be true, but we will see. The most crucial part is still being able to send a survey bot up there to see if we can mine hydrogen easily enough from lunar crust, and that haven't even been done yet.

Ayup. In the same vein, even if the handwavy parts work - the colony only "pays for itself" (becomes "economically viable") if someone ponies up the cash (to the tune of probably ten plus billion USD a year) to fund the missions to use up the mined hydrogen.

[regex]

This article claims that we could start a lunar colony for $10 billion and have it become economically viable as a fuel depot for further exploration.

Implying that we're suddenly going to be doing "further exploration" if we have a moon base.

[WinkAllKerb'']

costless launch from earth, Atmosphere like and rated that ; ) until it unbalance to much tide one way or another ; )

[Karriz]

Even without the hydrogen thing, I think it'd be a good idea to build a Lunar base using private partnerships. Something like the Commercial Crew program, but for the Moon.

Building a big telescope on the far side of Moon for exoplanet research for example, might be worth doing.

[smjjames]

Much like how the ground sampling stuff works in KSP's resource system (both stock and MKS use the biome unlock), we need to send some prospecting rovers (roverS, plural) over there to find out just how plentiful resources are.

I say rovers (or maybe landers), plural, because you can't go by just one datapoint from one spot on the moon. I realize rovers/landers cost money, but if you don't find resources to be great in one spot, do you give up completely? No, you find other spots. So, with the fact that we can get pretty good ideas on resource concentrations and target those areas, we could send two, maybe three.

[windows_x_seven]

Colonizing the Earth would be even cheaper.

[Godot]

Colonizing the Earth would be even cheaper.

First you have to erradicate the native dominant species there (and/or use a few of them as slave workers for your colony)

[Dkmdlb]

I love the language "90 cheaper than we thought" as if we thought it was going to be cheap but it turns out it's going to be even cheaper.

[ComradeWolfe]

Its sad that human progress is purposely blocked by people for their own personal gain.

One small step towards progress for a man can impede the giant leap of progress for mankind.

[Dkmdlb]

On the other hand, mankind is nothing but an aggregate of individuals.

[vger]

On the other hand, mankind is nothing but an aggregate of individuals.

Some humans have a much stronger desire to do what is best for the tribe, rather than just him/herself. Unfortunately, they are rare, because we no longer get to "see" how interconnected we all are.

Not long ago, a political leader said, "You didn't build that," in a speech. It was a message to people who think they did "everything on their own," and were blind to the fact that they were relying on utilities, food, shelter, etc created by other people. Much of this has become transparent to us these days. We no longer feel that bond. It was much easier to experience when a hairy beast wandered into a village made of twigs and paper, and everyone ran out of their huts to either chase it away or kill it. It was once easy to see how selfish behavior could end up destroying everyone's lives, including your own. Hardly anyone cares about that anymore.

[justidutch]

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals, and you know it.

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[magnemoe]

Ayup. In the same vein, even if the handwavy parts work - the colony only "pays for itself" (becomes "economically viable") if someone ponies up the cash (to the tune of probably ten plus billion USD a year) to fund the missions to use up the mined hydrogen.

Most get used in the moon missions themselves, main bonus here is that you only need fuel to go to LEO. Other bonuses is launching half empty centaur stages for deep space probes who cut down on launcher costs, a LEO to GEO tugs who would be pure income.

No this does not have to be economic viable in it self but you could do a lot of science on moon for the money and build up capabilities and make an manned asteroid or mars mission far cheaper.

[WinkAllKerb'']

First you have to erradicate the native dominant species there (and/or use a few of them as slave workers for your colony)

might even worth a sig ; )

[Dodgey]

So what is it about this proposal that makes it so much cheaper compared to other proposals.

[DerekL1963]

Most get used in the moon missions themselves, main bonus here is that you only need fuel to go to LEO. Other bonuses is launching half empty centaur stages for deep space probes who cut down on launcher costs, a LEO to GEO tugs who would be pure income.

No this does not have to be economic viable in it self but you could do a lot of science on moon for the money and build up capabilities and make an manned asteroid or mars mission far cheaper.

Spending 10 billion to save 50 or (at the way outside) 100 million a flight... makes sense, how exactly? That's point of my original post, we don't fly enough (by an order of magnitude or more) for the economics to pencil out - the missions end up "far cheaper" only if you handwave away the actual costs of the "cheap" fuel.

That's been the deep flaw in all the "fuel depot" studies to date - the "savings" only materialize via dodgy accounting.

[spudman2]

First you have to erradicate the native dominant species there (and/or use a few of them as slave workers for your colony)

We're working on it, give us time.

[CptRichardson]

So what is it about this proposal that makes it so much cheaper compared to other proposals.

Using the nice little things called 'SpaceX' and 'Falcon 9/Heavy' for the launchers instead of the 'Senate Money Waster', err, SLS. Turns out, if you're not reinventing the wheel every three years, you can actually get things done in a reasonable manner. We also have experience in assembling things in orbit (to a degree) now, so we can use more than one launch and send up a transfer stage to dock with instead of using the Saturn V.

[magnemoe]

Spending 10 billion to save 50 or (at the way outside) 100 million a flight... makes sense, how exactly? That's point of my original post, we don't fly enough (by an order of magnitude or more) for the economics to pencil out - the missions end up "far cheaper" only if you handwave away the actual costs of the "cheap" fuel.

That's been the deep flaw in all the "fuel depot" studies to date - the "savings" only materialize via dodgy accounting.

I know, but if you are going to Moon anyway it changes the calculations. Or more honest get someone else to spend 9 of the 10 billion.

[DerekL1963]

I know, but if you are going to Moon anyway it changes the calculations. Or more honest get someone else to spend 9 of the 10 billion.

"Going to the moon anyways" isn't in the plan...