Al Fin has a fine commentary on the commercial prize driven approach to reaching the moon. This is a $30 million prize for the first to place a robot on the moon.
Al Fin states:
Successful private enterprises, permanently located in space and on lunar and Martian surfaces and beyond, are crucial first steps to the emergence of humanity from its planetary womb. It is no accident that internet and computer entrepreneurs such as Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, the Google team, and Paul Allen, along with billionaires Richard Branson and Robert Bigelow, are behind several projects to achieve private space enterprise.
Excess wealth always looks for future enterprises which may become the next big thing. It is this drive for new enterprise which is needed in order to expand the possibilities for humans on Earth and beyond. But that is exactly the kind of ambition and enterprise which the Obama regime has worked hard to shut down and prevent.
We are at a crossroads. One choice leads downward to perpetual totalitarian statism and near-ubiquitous poverty. The other choice leads to a limitless expansion and unlimited possibilities. You must choose.
This is well said. I remember my days at MIT Instrumentation Lab when we were doing the moon landing work in the mid to late 60s, there were massive numbers of people, some working quite hard and others, great masses of others, pushing paper. The overhead in any Government controlled project is incredible, just look at DoD.
Yet the entrepreneur, motivated by what is a tip in NASA terms, has more potential than any large organization. This will be an interesting project to follow.
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