Private Company On The Moon?

[The Jedi Master]

As we all know, President Obama plans to privatize space exploration, handing it to companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. You may also be aware that some companies plan lunar orbit flights for tourists once the technology is available to them. So, theoretically, could the next manned landing on the moon be a private company? If so, who will be first? I'm curious to see answers!

[Vaebn]

Yes, No, Maybe

[DerekL1963]

You may also be aware that some companies plan lunar orbit flights for tourists once the technology is available to them.

In other words, those companies are pretty much never going to the moon. If nobody flies, then the technology never gets developed.

[Borklund]

As we all know, President Obama plans to privatize space exploration

No.

handing it to companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

No.

You may also be aware that some companies plan lunar orbit flights for tourists once the technology is available to them. So, theoretically, could the next manned landing on the moon be a private company? If so, who will be first? I'm curious to see answers!

No.

[The Jedi Master]

No.

No.

No.

I fail to see how this is an argument.

[Apollo1391]

if private company is going to do something significant it will be spaceX

[Borklund]

I fail to see how this is an argument.

It's not an argument; they're facts. President Obama is not privatising space exploration (Don't confuse Orion/SLS with Commercial Crew and Cargo) and there is literally no way the next manned landing on the moon is a private company (it'll be either Russia or China on the moon next).

if private company is going to do something significant it will be spaceX

If that happens it'll happen many, many years from now.

[TMS]

As we all know, President Obama plans to privatize space exploration

Its not his to privatise. Space exploration is being pursued by other nation-states or national conglomerates. Besides, the division between what is private and what is public has been blurring for years - not just in space exploration.

...handing it to companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

"Handing it" is an understatement. The technical challenges still need to be overcome by those who enter the market. Added to which, breaking up the stranglehold Lockheed has on USAF contracts is probably no bad thing.

You may also be aware that some companies plan lunar orbit fights for tourists once the technology is available to them. So, theoretically, could the next manned landing on the moon be a private company? If so, who will be first? I'm curious to see answers!

It's likely that EM-3 will head back to the Moon under NASAs control, as part of the Orion/BLEO project, in 2021-23.

By 2021, Virgin Galactic will be too busy convincing rich people that 5 minutes of sub-orbital weightlessness actually means they've been into space.

SpaceX on the other hand...

[K^2]

it'll be either Russia or China on the moon next

Russia isn't even in the race, and won't be in any shape to be in the race for at least twenty years. China has a chance, but their approach is too similar to one adopted by the Soviets, so I kind of expect a similar outcome.

Private companies do have a real chance to do a Moon landing, but there has to be a profit in it. Currently, there is none.

[The Jedi Master]

Private companies do have a real chance to do a Moon landing, but there has to be a profit in it. Currently, there is none.

Think about it--wouldn't YOU walk on the moon if you had the chance?

[Kimberly]

Think about it--wouldn't YOU walk on the moon if you had the chance?

Yes, but not if it cost 1.16 billion dollars--the cost of building and launching a Saturn V rocket. Clearly, it's not so much about people willing to pay, it's about people being able to pay.

[Lanfranc]

Russia isn't even in the race, and won't be in any shape to be in the race for at least twenty years. China has a chance, but their approach is too similar to one adopted by the Soviets, so I kind of expect a similar outcome.

However, the cause of the Soviet outcome wasn't so much a flaw in their approach as it was the entire Soviet economy and civil society literally breaking down. I don't think that's very likely to happen in China – although then again, that's what everyone said about the Soviet Union right up until it actually broke down, so who knows.

[K^2]

Soviet space program was rotting long before Soviet Union collapsed or even entered serious economic decline. It was the sort of program that could get some results in very short time, but not the sort of program that can be sustained in the long term. They built the rockets they could build with post WW-II tech, but they didn't build the infrastructure needed to advance.

[Tommygun]

The only way I think we will see private companies going to the Moon in the next 20 years is if NASA offered some kind of multi billion dollar X Prize for landing there.

A three billion dollar prize might be worth it. Think of all the new start up companies that it might inspire and new ideas that could come from it even if it is not successful.

[wronkiew]

There's the Google Lunar X-Prize worth about $30 million. If there are any winners they will be the next to land on the Moon. Not with passengers, obviously, but it's a start.

NASA itself simply does not have the money or the ability to even plan a credible manned Moon landing under the current constraints. It is possible that that could change five years from now, but only if either SpaceX is wildly successful or the mandatory spending problem simply evaporates. Major government procurement reform would help there too.

One private company seems like it has the right set of people to make a go at a private human landing: Deep Space Industries. They have published some papers about manned Moon landings, although their spiffy web site advertises an asteroid mission. I think asteroids are more interesting anyway, can't wait to see them in KSP.

[Fractal_UK]

It has taken over 50 years of space program to get to the point where private companies are involved in the process of space travel at all. Yes, after this period of time, we have managed to create a fairly sizeable market for satellite launches but if you look at the private companies that are competing in this market, the list of names is rather suspicous. At the top of the list we have Arianespace, a company that among its major shareholders we have CNES (the French national space agency) and EADS (a European defense consortium whose major shareholders include the French and German governments). We have SpaceX whose working capital was derived by a comparatively small fraction of private capital and a very large amount of NASA seed funding and we have much the same story with Orbital Science Corporation and their Antares rocket.

The point is, numerous governments have had to work fairly had to get a private market for these services up and running. When humans decide to exploit resources on the moon, there is no reason to think that it will be any different, it will be national enterprises that pioneer the technology and make it possible. It will be private companies that make it cheap and profitable some years afterward.

My prediction for the next humans on the moon is that they will be Chinese taikonauts but a (probably irrational) sense of continentalism makes me hope that they will instead be from the ESA.

[Sirrobert]

If private coorporations head out to space, they will probably start with mining. I can't see space tourism to be economicly possibly with the current tech.

If we still had a cold war we'd probably already have Mars collonies by now, but I gues it'll have to make a profit in this age. And that's probably going to take awhile

[wronkiew]

We have SpaceX whose working capital was derived by a comparatively small fraction of private capital and a very large amount of NASA seed funding and we have much the same story with Orbital Science Corporation and their Antares rocket.

Not to discount your argument that private space has benefitted from advances made by NASA, but I think your numbers are off. From Wikipedia:

As of May 2012, SpaceX has operated on total funding of approximately $1 billion in its first ten years of operation.

...

As of April 2012, NASA had put in about $400–500M of this amount, with most of that as progress payments on launch contracts.

Also, there is a big difference between payment for services and seed funding.

[Fractal_UK]

Not to discount your argument that private space has benefitted from advances made by NASA, but I think your numbers are off. From Wikipedia:

Also, there is a big difference between payment for services and seed funding.

Not really, much of the money that SpaceX has received has been various forms of development contracts, NASA has effectively subcontracted design and development work out to SpaceX such that SpaceX can develop a capability to provide NASA with that named service later. This isn't a direct subsidy but it has the same effect, it provides SpaceX with funding to develop a particular capability. One of the major distinctions between this mechanism and direct subsidy is that NASA is effectively positioning the goal posts in terms of the capabilities that it wants SpaceX to be able to provide them with in the future.

[jwenting]

Soviet space program was rotting long before Soviet Union collapsed or even entered serious economic decline. It was the sort of program that could get some results in very short time, but not the sort of program that can be sustained in the long term. They built the rockets they could build with post WW-II tech, but they didn't build the infrastructure needed to advance.

yet the USSR has a space program able to put men into space reliably and repeatably using turn key technology at reasonable cost, the US has nothing of the sorts and hasn't had anything of the sorts since Gemini (Apollo was NOT reasonably priced), 40 years ago, which is roughly when Soyuz was devised.

The US threw away their space program for political capital, using it to buy votes by spreading out the contracts for developing and building stuff to whichever senator's or congresscritter's district was required to get an extra vote on the appropriations committee.

Cost, reliability, and efficiency were thrown out the window.

And now the US has no manned space program, and has to rely on 3rd parties using purchased Russian technology for even its unmanned launch capability (yes, UAL uses Soviet engines, the US can't even design their own rocket engines any longer).

[DerekL1963]

If private coorporations head out to space, they will probably start with mining.

Why would they start with the one thing absolutely guaranteed to lose them money by the dump truck load?

[Joshington]

I remember reading a book about this last year. Basically, a guy is using NASA's crappy track record to become president and private space companies are funding his campaign. The guy who's helping NASA says that can't happen because then someone will tow an asteroid too close to Earth planning to mine it, and a bunch of other stuff. I really wish I could remember the name.

[jwenting]

Why would they start with the one thing absolutely guaranteed to lose them money by the dump truck load?

asteroid mining is going to be a big money maker, once you get the massive initial investment out of the way...

And that's the problem, people think short term. If it doesn't make a profit before the next board meeting it gets no funding (or in political terms, if it buys no votes in the next elections).

[K^2]

And now the US has no manned space program, and has to rely on 3rd parties using purchased Russian technology for even its unmanned launch capability (yes, UAL uses Soviet engines, the US can't even design their own rocket engines any longer).

Russia can't design them anymore either. They are using old designs. To their credit, they can still build them, which isn't as trivial as it might sound even given the designs.

And yes, planned economy worked great for some of the initial leaps that Soviets have made. And yes, US also killed their space program, albeit, in different ways. None of this contradicts the fact that Soviet program has been effectively stagnant, well, since the Soyuz. And that's long before the money dried out.

[DerekL1963]

asteroid mining is going to be a big money maker, once you get the massive initial investment out of the way...

Mining what? There's not one single naturally occurring material on Earth that you wouldn't go stone broke mining in space and returning to Earth. And selling it to who? By the time you've got enough space infrastructure generating enough economic activity to start thinking about buying stuff mined in space... your notional space miners are competing against cheap transport from the surface. (Because without cheap transport, you'll never have that extensive infrastructure in the first place.)

And that's the problem, people think short term. If it doesn't make a profit before the next board meeting it gets no funding (or in political terms, if it buys no votes in the next elections).

No, the problem is, people don't do the math and don't think about the economics. They just repeat cargo cult phrases.