This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
Astronauts

Buzz: Mars via International Commercial Moon Development

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
June 14, 2013
Filed under ,

The Call of Mars, Buzz Aldrin Op-Ed, New York Times
I am calling for a unified international effort to explore and utilize the Moon, a partnership that involves commercial enterprise and other nations building upon Apollo. Let me emphasize: A second “race to the Moon” is a dead end. America should chart a course of being the leader of this international activity to develop the Moon. The United States can help other nations do things that they want to do, a fruitful avenue for U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.
A step in the right direction is creating an International Lunar Development Corporation, customized to draw upon the legacy of lessons learned from such endeavors as the International Geophysical Year (whose purpose was to get scientists all over the world to focus on the physics and atmosphere of the Earth), the International Space Station program, as well as model organizations such as Intelsat and the European Space Agency. Space collaboration should be the new norm, including the tapping of talented Chinese, Indian and other space experts from around the globe.”
“In my view, U.S. resources are better spent on moving toward establishing a human presence on Mars. I envision a comprehensive plan that would lead to permanent human settlement on Mars in the next 25 years.

Marc’s note: Buzz, I like it in a big picture kind of way. However, I see a few practical problems with your plan. 1) The economics of it. How are you going to sell this grand vision? And who’s going to pay for it? We’ve got ventures trying to get to the moon now, but no ones got there yet and funding is very hard to come by. 2) Some in Congress won’t like the idea of working with China, so how are you going to sell that. 3) What’s the cost of implementing your Mars settlement plan? And who’se going to pay for it?
The public needs more than to be inspired by grand visions. They need to be sold on the economics of it and how it will benefit them. The Collins and Lampson op-ed below, “Space Exploration Is Imperative to Innovation and Inspiration”, has part of the answer, but people need to be convinced that the investment for innovation will lead somewhere. They certainly don’t want to pay for someone else to settle on Mars.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

22 responses to “Buzz: Mars via International Commercial Moon Development”

  1. Rob says:
    0
    0

    The general public doesn’t need to be sold on anything. They weren’t sold on Apollo, Vietnam, Iraq, Wall Street bail outs, NSA spying, and on and on. Many are too distracted with their personal lives to even care about the news. All that it takes is a leader (like Kennedy) to say we are going to do it. And then they just print up the money just like they did for the $1.5 trillion bankers bail outs. Only this time we will get something for the money besides promoting more fraud.

    • hikingmike says:
      0
      0

      And what about Congress? If we had a different President they liked, they’d just say “Ok sure”?

  2. rb1957 says:
    0
    0

    back in the day they had the “Hudson’s Bay Company”, so why not the “Lunar Development Corp.” … at least this time we won’t have pesky locals to contend with. Of course there a bunch of legal issues to sort out (a la Space 1999).

    • TheBrett says:
      0
      0

      What would the Lunar Development Corp sell, even assuming they could get title rights to land on the Moon? Hudson Bay Company had fur trading and other traffic with the Amerindian population.

      • rb1957 says:
        0
        0

        maybe advertising … imagine a (really) big neon sign … “Use Snibo … Snibo works!”

        • Steve Whitfield says:
          0
          0

          Agreed in principle. The problem with advertising is that you have to resell it every week, month, whatever. So you’d have to have the ability to do it cheaply enough to sell something for the minimum contract period.

          And for the record, we weren’t really too impressed with the job that Snibo did; it kept leaving sticky streaks behind

      • Steve Whitfield says:
        0
        0

        They could sell expertise, equipment rental, and on-site labor, for a start. Patent licencing will provide them with income as well. Once they have a handful of customers on the go, new products and services (that we probably won’t think of now) will likely appear every month. From there, above the sky is the llmit.

  3. TheBrett says:
    0
    0

    The economics are just hard, unfortunately. You either need to get extremely lucky and convince someone with a lot of power or money that this is something we ought to be doing (AKA Kennedy in the early 1960s), or you have the long slog of selling missions on the basis of science and technology.

    I support doing both, but it’s not something that fills you with optimism. Advocates have been trying to sell other people on the wonder and need for space exploration since the end of the Apollo Program, and it doesn’t seem to move the dial much on NASA’s funding. At best you get incremental increases, although those can still amount to some fantastic unmanned projects.

    I wonder if you could maybe sneak space funding in, in the form of tax credits that could be converted into income for either NASA or private space science efforts at a discount. Probably not with this Congress, but usually tax credits for space stuff would fall on the “plus” side for Republicans and Democrats.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
      0
      0

      Good thinking. Now, take it to the next level and make it an international commerce incentive. It is going to have to be international if it happens at all, so let’s bite the bullet and take the lead in formulating methods and process instead of playing catch up after figuring out that no country can do it alone. Taking theinitative usually gives you the upper hand in the decision-making processes.

    • Mark Friedenbach says:
      0
      0

      Tax credits can only make something profitable if it otherwise would have been if not for taxes. However if the costs are more than the revenue, tax credits won’t have any effect…

      • TheBrett says:
        0
        0

        Not necessarily. Just as we used land grants to finance schools back in the 19th century (and tax credits to finance low-income housing in the 20th), we can use them to generate a revenue stream for space exploration. The actual organization receiving the credit doesn’t use them – they just do a kind of “swap” with a bank or other financial organization so that said group gets the advantage of the credit, and the non-profit organization gets some revenue (albeit less than the value of the credit).

  4. cuibono1969 says:
    0
    0

    I would be perfectly willing to pay for other people to settle Mars.
    But the economics have to undergo a revolution first (reusability, better in-space propulsion). If NASA keeps coming up with 12-digit price tags for a single Mars mission it is off the table politically.

  5. Steve Whitfield says:
    0
    0

    Just an observation; it seems to me that Buzz Aldrin does the same thing every time he comes up with a new proposal (some of which have been very good proposals). He starts out sounding logical and making a selling point and then adds one phrase too many which takes away his credibility. In this case, it was a phrase that he’s choked on before. He was doing fine until he added, “building upon Apollo.

    In many ways Apollo is completely irrelevant to what may happen in the future, and any program that is either modelled on Apollo or an attempted extension of the Apollo Program is guaranteed to fail. Many people have spelled out the logic and said it in many different ways, but the bottom line is: we can never do Apollo again.

    • Todd Austin says:
      0
      0

      I’ll start this by saying that I hold a deep and abiding respect for Buzz Aldrin. He has not only accomplished hugely impressive work in his life for which the human race is in his debt, he has also overcome very serious and challenging personal circumstances on his journey to the present day. I admire him immensely.

      I had the good fortune to see Buzz in person at a public event two years ago. It was highly anticipated by the group I was with.

      The event was free form, with Buzz answering questions from an interviewer. He struggled mightily to form coherent answers to the questions posed. His replies were rambling and, as often as not, unrelated to the questions asked. It frankly was sad to watch.

      So, I would consider what you read now from him in that context. Clearly, he is getting excellent help pulling together new books and writings from the ideas he has. It’s also clear that his ability to see clearly through these questions is not at the level it was forty years ago, and so I would cut him a good bit of slack.

      He’s earned it.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
        0
        0

        Agreed, he’s earned it, and then some. He’s shown time and again in the past how knowledgable and intelligent he is. Then again, he’s 83 years old now, an age by which many people have run out of steam.

        Myself, I try never to assess anyone based on interviews with reporters or press conferences. Too many in the media deliberately think up no-win questions to ask in public, hoping they’ll be able to say, Gotcha! If people in almost any other profession did that they’d be looking for new job the next day.

    • hikingmike says:
      0
      0

      I don’t think that phrase hurts anything. You can just ignore that if you want. Or you can think of it as being after Apollo and that’s how it’s building upon it. Maybe he put that in to just make the obvious reference to his Moon experience. Shouldn’t be a sticking point.

      By the way, lots of current tech is probably in some way building upon Apollo, right?

      • Steve Whitfield says:
        0
        0

        OK, Mike, if we’re talking technology, then I guess there are some Apollo roots in today’s space programs, even if it’s only lessons learned. But I didn’t get the feeling that Aldrin was talking technology. To an Apollo-era astronaut, I think the Apollo legacy has two components — getting it done and American supremacy — neither of which is applicable to either today’s space endeavours or the program that Aldrin is proposing here, and which contradict Aldrin’s preceding statements. I think he included the Apollo reference for its dramatic effect, but it backfires because neither the reasons for Apollo nor the methods employed have any applicability to today or the future. I think the issues of international and sustainable alone are enough to declare any new program as “not like Apollo.” But that’s just how I read it.

        One thing is certain; the rate of HSF progress and the rate at which money is allocated to HSF will never again be what they were during the Apollo era, and any new program proposals will have to take that into account.

  6. The Tinfoil Tricorn says:
    0
    0

    There’s enough wealth and Capitol in America to get to Mars alone as just a private venture. I’d be wary of “investors” pretending to be American while actually being wholly owned by some dark international force. A private corporation aligned with the US Constitution, could set up a “Free” Colony on the moon, outside of US patent and copyright controls. They could research and develop next generation technology without nuisance patents and endless legal battles or environmental impact studies. In many ways doing research and innovation on Mars would save you millions in developing new technology because you could skip the bureaucratic mess, just think no lawyers fees! For now there is no government that can enforce their rules on Mars, they could however on the Moon. If you were to sea launch out of range of missile bases you would establish a Robotic manufacture facility on mars on a shoe string, then launch all the people you can before the UN caught on. Once they found out your intentions to make Mars free, with no parasitical entities doing nothing and expecting pay, they would muster all the weapons of the world at you. Getting there…. you build what I call a comet ship, it’s a ship, totally surrounded by water, probably a few 100,000 gallons. There are a multitude of uses for that much water, including being hydrogen rich, it can also run a steam cycle using radiant heat of the sun and on board systems. The Mars research colony would probably develop EM shielding, since there would be no DOD or private patents blocking them from doing so on Mars. It used to be that if you built something that was patented for your own use you would not get sued, but the recent DCMA laws, basically mean that even if you built it you can’t own it because someone owns the concept, I mean what better excuse to get off this planet.

    • hikingmike says:
      0
      0

      Sounds like a good idea for a trilogy of books/movies. The plot turned a direction I didn’t expect though with the Earth going after Mars. I was thinking after they got everything and everyone to Mars, then without any rule of law over time a brutal warlord society would develop which would be a combination of feudal Japan with futuristic tech and the world of Blade Runner… or something.

      • The Tinfoil Tricorn says:
        0
        0

        Yeah if it’s original enough sounds like a good idea, there’s so many sci-fi books out there I’d hate to get sued over copyright since copyrights are now life plus 70 years. Lets try the virtual copyright method,

        (“I here by copyright the story outline in my original post and this one 6-19-13”) If only it were so easy.

        Can you copyright under a sudoname, as in Ben Franklin’s Silence Dogood letters? Anonymity is so dead anyway.

        The whole reason Earth would attack Mars is because the society would be more free than Earth society, much in the way the British viewed Americans trying to leave the British Empire. Large ego maniacal governments don’t like those who are not living according to rules especially those considered peasants or middle class. Mars colony has to innovate quickly because the propaganda is coming constantly down the line from Earth, threats of attack and retaliation for non payment of UN Treaty fees and international health and human services taxes. Even though nobody on Mars ever signed a treaty, they are considered under it because their governments of Origin did.

        (background)*** Earth government perceives ownership, or debt of every human from birth. From the time you are born on earth you accumulate a debt which you only begin to pay off as you work. The super wealthy had their debts paid off long ago and count receiving the repayment funds through their special interest lobbies around the globe in in the UN.

        ***

        Each day requires a breakthrough on Mars colony just to build the tech needed to prevent stealth gamma ray and conventional H-bomb nuclear missiles from hitting the Red Planet. Mars colony has a difficult time proving that they are under attack, because Earth governments and their associated private corporations own all the Media outlets of any significance and have strategic campaigns to discredit any non compliant individuals. The pose to the public that space detonations and captured AI missiles are just a Hoax and that such technology does not exits, they say that Mars Colony is only trying to make a case against the great and glorious freedoms and services of the Earth governments. The good news is that the foresight of the Mars Colony allowed them to build the Mesh sensor grid placed in the Main asteroid belt it allows them to see everything launched from Earth even the tiniest pebble.

        So really the question now is in the story do I speculate about the Origins of humans being on Mars? That excavations find evidence of a technologically advanced society of Human life, and that frozen DNA has indicated it was in fact Human in the modern sense, yet it’s code indicates that it originated before the narrowing of the Genetic pool on earth some thousands of years ago on Earth. Is human life from further out in the Stars or did it only recently just return to Mars. I’d vote that the Human life on mars made the Dinos extinct intentionally through a few different methods. See I really enjoy all that stuff in Movies and books, but the reality and historically fact based stuff makes this particular story somewhat interesting. We haven’t dug 30ft down on mars yet, let alone 200-300 ft you would expect evidence of a preexisting culture to lay after thousands of years of erosion volcanic activity and potential incomprehensible WMD’s. So it’s well out in the science fiction lore area, where you start cobbling together mythology and science ala the Stargate series. So far when we’ve dug around this planet we find things we don’t expect, even now, so it would seem rather boring and somewhat sad if digging deep on Mars you found nothing additionally LRO didn’t really to a 2ft or less resolution imaging of the Moon, so will we find absolutely unknown footprints on the Moon? For now it remains science fiction, but interestingly making unknowns plausible makes for very entertaining science fiction.

        • hikingmike says:
          0
          0

          Nice!

          …Until the lost colonies of Cobol show up and it becomes a 3-way battle.

          • The Tinfoil Tricorn says:
            0
            0

            Battlestar Galactica was such a let down in both it’s iterations, watching the Original I had such hope when they picked up the signal of the Apollo landings and “accidentally” missed them.

            The show could have taken a whole district 9/ earth final conflict track, instead we got more disco dancing and robo dog adventures. Then in the Reboot- was everyone a Cylon once upon a time or what? It felt a little pinochio, “if only I were a real boy” Then they find what looks to be earth only to be a human Cylon home world, still radio active after a thousand year, even though the halflife of the heaviest elements is something like 70 years. Of course keep in mind the Coconuts in Bikini Atoll are still radioactively toxic even while the land and the water is not. Anyhow the whole plot is that this new earth like planet was destroyed by Cylons in some sort of 100s of centuries long paradox and then it gets into some sort of existential reincarnation of cloned robot souls, my vote for the series was to find earth, arm the planet with their technology and have a final battle that concluded in uploading a patch that put the robots back in line or made them live as another culture on earth. They complete diverged from anything logical and totally destroyed the association to life here and now and where Galactica was in comparison. Instead we close with them setting up in tribal Africa… which really is a whole different plot and story line from the original even if you accept everything else than changed.

            To tie this into reality, the Original show aired as the first Space stations were being built, the American skylab and the Russian’s Mir the thought of people occupying space for long periods of time was becoming a potential reality. Now who knows if you can really tie commercial/ public entertainment culture into space, it seems like many have tried. Perhaps to this end there needs to be a campy asteroid mining show that works on building a laser array to defend the Earth. An international Dramady exploring the issues related to culture and deep space isolation while exploring technology.