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Design News ^ | 10/9/12 | Ann R. Thryft, Senior Technical Editor, Materials & Assembly

[GraceG]

It will cost a LOT, in the billions and Private Industry should pay for it and in exchange they should get property rights for lunar real estate as well as reaping any future rewards from it TAX free!

I say we send construction robots there first and start building stuff first before even sending any humans, the moon is close enough you can control robots easily enough without that much communications lag. Humans cost a lot more to keep alive than robots. So if your construction bots can build the whole settlement before even sending the first permanent humans there you save a TON of money.

Also asteroid mining could be more practical early on as you may be able to robotically mine and asteroid for precious metals like platinum and gold before the moon because the moon is sorely lacking in those metals.

[SolidRedState]

This is a “thanks for the ping”, ping. :)

[Dead Corpse]

Good answer...

[null and void]

LOL there will never be a "self sufficient" moon base in the foreseeable future. There isn't any benefit to one that is anywhere near the cost. Or to put it another way there isn't anything there that you couldn't get here for about a million times less money.

³Helium.

[from occupied ga]

3Helium.

Science fiction

[null and void]

So were geosynchronous communications satellites.

[from occupied ga]

It will cost a LOT, in the billions

considering that the apollo project brought back 842 lb for $170,000,000,000 (in today's dollars) The cost for a moonbase would be in the trillions. The entire US GDP is $15.9 trillion.

Private Industry should pay for it and in exchange they should get property rights for lunar real estate

I have to grant you plenty of chutzpah. You want to force a fortune out of the private sector and pay them off in totally worthless "Lunar real estate"

Private industry MUST make a profit to survive. There is NOTHING on the moon that's worth the cost of getting it. I'll do the math for you. a pound of moon rocks - intrinsically the same value as a pound of rock you pick up anywhere - cost $202,000,000 (2010 dollars)to acquire. I'll sell you a pound of rocks with the same elements in them for $10.00 and make a $9.90 profit.

construction robots there first and start building stuff

science fiction

asteroid mining

science fiction. FR space kadets never do the math. They confuse science fiction with fact (like the 3He crowd) and generally don't want to hear that their space dreams are never going to materialize because of the vast expense and miniscule return

[from occupied ga]

This comment is supposed to mean something? get back to me when there is an actual value to 3He. UNTIL THEN 3He value is science fiction. I'm not holding my breath.

I enjoy reading SF, but I don't confuse it with reality