[Gunslingr3]

Yes, it will need tax dollars. The technology transfer explosion alone is worth it, not to mention scientific discoveries, national security and a long overdue educational kick in the pants.

How will they know what to spend the tax dollars on?

Please understand, it's not that I don't look forward to man colonizing the moon, I just recognize government bureaucracy is horribly inefficient at applying resources to solve a problem. The free market, guided by the good steward of supply, demand, and profit will get us to the moon with the best technology and least waste.

I want, at a dead minimum, for an equivalent amount of other largesse to be repealed before government funds, taken at the point of a gun, are diverted to fulfill this political goal.

[hopespringseternal]

The free market, guided by the good steward of supply, demand, and profit will get us to the moon with the best technology and least waste.

The free market won't go to the moon and won't take people into space at all until the technology improves by 100 or 1000 times. We couldn't bring gold down from orbit at a profit right now.

No one has come up with a real use for space that the market has any faith in, and is not likely to find one anytime soon. It is the chicken and egg problem of our time. No one wants to invest in cheap access to orbit until they can identify a potential market, but no one has a firm idea what the market will be until the cost is lowered.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

They (financed by us) will get us there, set up some rudimentary facilities, test out some mining operations and then commerce will follow.