Cannot they just pay for passage on a Chinese moon liner? /s
I guess I’ll get slammed for saying this. But this whole plan will be funded by borrowed money. And there will most probably be no return on that money. it’s not like the moon is filled with oil.
And if you want to develop new technology, do it right here on earth. No need to test it on the moon.
So yeah, this might be a good place to trim the federal budget.
Ping.
Will the astronauts be stranded there when the New Green Deal comes?
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*ping*
I wonder what they were thinking when they came up with that name not realizing the initials. Liberals.
The real value of Luna is enormous. Primary constituents are iron, aluminum, titanium, and silica.
Those materials can be used to create habitats, factories, mining/smelting equipment, etc.
Using a mag lev train track, you can launch payloads into Lunar escape orbits, perhaps to L5. Basically, an electric railroad that reaches 3 km/sec.
Using those materials you can build rotating space habitats a la O’Neill that could house billions of workers.
The near Earth asteroids have all the other elements needed for a space based civilization such as water and carbon compounds.
The only barrier to colonizing/industrializing space is financial. To get a space based civilization to the point of independence will cost trillions...but we can do it.
The financial benefits are orders of magnitude larger than the investment. There is an entire Solar System of raw materials out there waiting for us.
Ad astra
But does industry need NASA?
The Chinese crewed mission will be in the 2030s, so NASA’s time table better not slip or there will be landing fees payable in Yuan Renminbi.
Big inflatable dome
Three Winnebagos
Done.
Where’s my check?
Trump said he’d have this done by the end of his administration (and many here believed him).
And of by the way, if NASA doesn’t get there until 2028, the Dutch probably will have got there two years before them.