By Kelvin Gonzalez
A while back, Newt Gingrich had a crazy idea: he wanted to build a moon base. I thought that this would make an interesting topic for discussion, one that will likely last for a couple of postings. A multifaceted discussion, that is, wherein one might discuss the pros and cons of the idea, both as Newt envisioned it and as it actually should be envisioned. This news might be a bit old, but the concepts are still relevant.
The problem for Gingrich starts with his wish to fund 90% of
the base's cost vis-à-vis private industry. Unfortunately, contrary to the
beliefs of many conservatives, private industry can't and, more importantly, won't do everything
under the sun. If one seeks to make profit, don't look to space. Furthermore, one should
never seek private profit at the horizon of knowledge and exploration.
A while back, Newt Gingrich had a crazy idea: he wanted to build a moon base. I thought that this would make an interesting topic for discussion, one that will likely last for a couple of postings. A multifaceted discussion, that is, wherein one might discuss the pros and cons of the idea, both as Newt envisioned it and as it actually should be envisioned. This news might be a bit old, but the concepts are still relevant.
The idea itself was genius, but one huge problem plagued it: Gingrich's version of it was downright idiotic. Gingrich's plan called for
about 90% of the funds to come from private companies. He also wanted to cut
NASA's budget and, on top of that, devote a meager 10% of NASA's newly
butchered budget to this endeavor. Lastly, but certainly not least, Gingrich
planned to use the moon base for “science, tourism, and manufacturing.”
While one might point to the recent
success of SpaceX, a private-sector company, the
truth of the matter remains that SpaceX simply went where many have gone before. SpaceX took a
“bold” voyage to the same place mankind has traversed since October 4th, 1957. However, it's not SpaceX's fault. It's the fault of how private industry works in the
first place: it must
ultimately turn a profit, and it must respond to the shareholders.
Shareholders oft care little for scientific advancement,
exploration, and colonization. They care about profit and expanding the
business – as they logically should. Because of this, what a shareholder would
or would not approve ultimately comes down to a matter of risk. Quantifiable risks, maybe.
A shareholder's responsibility lays in accurately calculating and analyzing the
risks a venture poses, and then determining whether or not they are worth the
cost.
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Space, like any frontier, does not lend itself to this formula.
Calculated risks aren't so easy to ascertain. While we have familiarized
ourselves with Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) enough to be able to calculate such risks,
beyond LEO and maybe Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO) lies a land so
mysterious and unfamiliar to us that we can have no such certainty. Hence the
vast majority of business heads would never even dream of supporting such a venture.
But even those who do so face a huge problem: costs. Huge
costs, too. Conservative projections
estimate the costs at around 100 billion dollars, whereas more realistic ones
place it in the range of $250 to $500 billion. To put this into perspective, the
entirety of the Apollo program totaled roughly $174 billion
dollars.
Where would private businesses draw that kind of funding?
And remember that all of this capital would go toward a venture that may not end
up proving very profitable in the long run, either. Even if many companies spanning various industries teamed together for this endeavor, it would still cost each
company an exorbitant amount. On top of that, it would cost tens of billions
of dollars a year to maintain the base.
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The problems only start there. It'd be a mega
project amongst mega projects. Historically, mega projects dwelling in
exploration, scientific research, and colonization have found their funding in
government coffers. Columbus'
Voyages, the
Manhattan Project, the
Apollo Project, Apollo's Russian Equivalents, Magellan's
Voyage, the Conquest of
the New World, and the LHC
(indeed all of
particle physics), to name but a few. They all depended largely on government
funding.
The reasons why are many and better explained another time, but the point stands: if you wish to fund an exploratory project, especially if it is the first of its kind, you simply cannot depend on private industry.
The reasons why are many and better explained another time, but the point stands: if you wish to fund an exploratory project, especially if it is the first of its kind, you simply cannot depend on private industry.
