Can lunar exploration be driven by private enterpirse?

[Matt Everingham]

I am working on some lunar projects currently, and I find the possibility of lunar exploration driven by private enterprise to be very motivating. Rather than large government programs driving activity, what products and services can private enterprise produce in the near term to build an economy around lunar exploration? Entertainment and tourism seem likely possibilities for early phases, as they could possibly avoid property rights issues while creating an infrastructure for other lunar operations. The currently existing prizes seem to fit into these categories. What else? Is there anybody out there currently working on this?

[Alfred Differ]

I would turn it around a bit. Instead of focusing on what products and services can be produced, the question for entrepreneurs is 'What business problems can be solved' via private enterprise on the Moon.

For your original question you have all the infrastructure possibilities from providing power, oxygen, to pressurized volumes. For the other question, you have one potential customer (when NASA gets back that is) who tends to NOT think in terms of private enterprise. In other words, I don't see any business problems that need solving up there, so we are likely to remain in a per contract situation for lunar exploration in the foreseeable future.

I have no doubt that private enterprise can operate on the Moon. What I doubt is whether there would be funding for it absent the existence of business problems to solve.

[Matt Everingham]

These are great points, thanks for responding. I guess my motivation for the original post was something along the lines of "How do we kickstart private lunar activity independently of government contracts?"

I think the question of business problems (I am an engineer...so thanks for going easy on me...) to be solved using lunar activity is something that could provide a useful litmus test for viability and possibly scalability or even just plain old relevance.

Given this direction, it seems to me that space based energy production would be the most obvious space application that could potentially solve a large number of business problems. My understanding is that this would take a very large initial investment to make it viable, leading me to ask what near term piece of the space puzzle can be solved that would enable early adopters to help fill in the capital needed?

[Kevin Myrick]

I once worked in the IT division of a major corporation. We had buttons we wore for a while that said "I solve business problems." This was an attempt on the part of our management and our business partners to remind us of our purpose in the organization. That is not the only purpose or the primary definition of an entrepreneur. Here are a few, just as a reminder: A risk-taker willing to try new things typically by creating new businesses (can be product, service, technology or market-driven) ; a person who has the ability to recognise Opportunities of benefit to an enterprise, and the will and capacity to undertake appropriate innovative action while accepting the associated risks; An innovator of business enterprise who recognizes opportunities to introduce a new product, a new process or an improved organization.
I have been told that a new business venture finds something people want and finds a way to provide it while making a profit. Sometines we create the market, find a way to convince enough people that they want something, then provide it for them (at a profit).

Lunar entrepreneurial ventures are dependent on establishing a space based market, creating an expansion of human activity and enterprise into space and onto the moon. The problem for us is how to drive that expansion. The biggest space based business opportunity will probably be solar power satellites. Providing resources to build these satellites from earth based materials is not going to happen because of the cost of getting those materials to GEO. The moon is a potential source for the required materials, and it will be less expensive to get the materials to GEO from the moon than from the earth. Lunar exploration based on finding, processing and delivering materials to build solar power satellites may be the answer to this groups question. The levels of risk are high, but I think the economy and the infrastructure created in the process of this enterprise will enable the expansion of human operations in cislunar space and on the moon.

[Matt Everingham]

Thanks for the reply. I am arriving at the conclusion that a road map leading towards a "big" capability like manufacturing power generation systems on the lunar surface would be a useful tool. The real trick will be to devise it so that the intermediary steps reduce the risk at future points in the road map and are also viable individually. Is this possible? I don't know, but it seems worth looking into. I think the good news is that with the current flurry of lunar focused activity, some of that risk is going to be reduced anyway.

[Richard D. Dell Jr.]

Lunar Entrepreneurship can only be driven by companies that recognize that investors need space entrepreneurs to go for the low-hanging fruit- technologies that help us reach the moon and can be licensed to provide ROI in three to four years, not seven to nine.

The targets include:

- lunar mining rights for He3 and rare minerals
- science outposts
- tourist stays for one week visits
- supporting NASA imperatives in developing bases and outposts
- technology licensing and IP infrastructure services
- sales of data to government and private enterprise

Cheers

Richard Dell
richard at avrc.com
www.teamstellar.org

[Matt Everingham]

Thanks for your reply. This is certainly a round set of targets. My mind always goes back to the drill bit that Howard Hughes senior invented...which in turn leads me to think about what the equivalent enabler for lunar exploration might be.