Discussion Under 2005 dollars 730 million Lander for a Moon mission, one that is

[richfororbit]

Hi,

I was reading through an old report, which was published twelve years ago. And it is a little dated now. But I was reading through it, and on page 7 where it states the estimates by NASA as the first cost of return to the moon on one mission as 13 billion in 2005 dollars based off the Apollo moon mission numbers. Of course it then goes on to state an addition five billion would be needed after a first landing in 2013. So lander would of been in construction five years ago.

NASA estimated 63 billion for the first phase. Which was mistake due to the more money needed.

Anyone have any thoughts on a sortie mission to the moon?

 

[N_Molson]

I'd say that NASA's primary objective is Mars for quite a long time, and that developping hardware for another purpose would have streched even more an already razor-thin budget.

Returning humans to the Moon is not a bad thing, but Russia or China can do it, and Mankind's next step in space is clearly the Red Planet.

 

[richfororbit]

I agree in theory, but in practice space probes can handle Mars.

Recently that billionaire wants to help fund Starshot, great. So a space probe(s) to another system within this century, hopefully.

As for the moon, unless there are plenty of billionaires out there that could fund a mission to the moon, a personnel, but probably a non personnel as a test. It seems unlikely that anyone is going to be going anywhere, the Space Launch system is a rocket for the moon.

The problem with people is everyone allows their imagination to go wild concerning personnel space travel, when realistically the Moon is the best location for a mission, albeit a one off return for some science.

I was watching the EVA of Mr Aldrin's mission yesterday, it really put into view the task of sending people to moon, so brief, and costly. And that hasn't change, how could it, it was a while ago, but not to long ago.

 

[richfororbit]

Having read through a analysis report from 2007 about the Space Exploration Initiative. It would just complete nonsense, the white house got it wrong. The Democrats like Al gore were against the whole program, there were other problems with the agency so it was all wrong to implement most of it. And domestic, and Earth bound problems kept bogging down the congress. The white house at the time was just dreaming. I could only imagine an argument with Mr Aldrin.

I know a next head of state can't really implement a lander program for a moon mission just yet since there is no flying rocket, it'd have to be after the early flights see how it goes. If a new government is going to go to the Moon it'll need to be done within the first year of a new Administration.