Lunar settlement foundation

08/21/05 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

In Building a foundation for space settlement Sam Dinkin discusses space as 'charity' as a way of building up funds needed to build some of the lunar infrastructure and eventually build a lunar colony. As the former Chairman of the Board for the The Artemis Society I'd like to provide some insight into how this might be done and some of the pitfalls.

Much of Sam's article is spent describing the available amounts of charitable giving by US citizens. The problem with using that as a starting point is the same one that investors loath to hear: “The market for X is estimated at $12 billion, all we need is 1% of that and we will generate $120 million”. The problem is you have to deliver on those donations. People will put up with crap from products they purchase but charities are constantly having to prove that the majority of their donations are going directly to the intended outcome.

As I discovered with the Artemis Project, any endeavor like this has a huge “chicken and egg” problem: in order to receive those charitable donations you need to show significant and continuing progress, but in order to show that progress you need very large amounts of cash in hand to prime that pump. If you can start out with a large enough sum to create a perception that the effort actually does something then the donations will come in and you can continue that effort. But without it you are continually struggling with a credibility problem that you simply cannot overcome.

Other things I've learned:

• You can not rely on volunteer labor. You need professionals and paid contractors doing the labor. Volunteers are good for small projects and very distributed tasks but an all volunteer space program would never get a foot off the ground.
• You need to start small. The first ‘mission’ cannot be so hard that you will never get there. The Artemis Reference Mission set such a high expectation that it created both a giggle factor and almost guaranteed failure.
• Marketing must be directed outside the ‘typical’ community. Our community may be energized but we are generally not a wealthy crowd. At the earliest opportunity the marketing campaign must be as widely and as globally advertised as possible. There is more money available outside the US than inside it for something like this.
• It must be very visibly branded. People who will donate money to something like this will want that fact advertised very widely. That means swhag for them to boast that they were involved and media coverage of any missions so the donor gets a very public feedback loop.

Some reading this may think I'm calling the Artemis Project a failure. I actually don't think that. I think it has had some problems but these could be overcome with not to much work. It would need to be reorganized. The existing model of member companies donating revenue into a cash 'stockpile' that is run by a private 'parent' company (TLRC) with no visibility assumes a level of trust that simply doesn't exist. It also had little to no participation by anyone that had business experience. But the basic idea behind ASI is almost exactly what Sam is suggesting. Whether or not it can be fixed and used is a separate discussion.

But does any of the above discussion solve that chicken and egg problem? No. But here's something that might: NASA's schedule puts the first returning NASA employee on the moon in 2018 and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launches in 2008. Its more than possible to beat NASA back to the moon in both cases. My suggestion is to create a foundation who's initial task is simply to put a small rover on the moon with a simple video camera. Yes its similar to several of Luna Corp's suggested missions but the main difference is timing. My contention is that after Burt's successes and NASA's recent problems with Shuttle the climate has changed sufficiently that donations toward a cheap mission could do the trick.

At RTTM Rex Ridenoure, CEO of Ecliptic, issued a challenge to beat NASA back as a way of ensuring that the policy and perception gains made with Burt's flight continue outward into cislunar space. I suggest we take up that challenge using a non-profit foundation along the lines of what Sam is suggesting. If you want to discuss the idea then throw some of your thoughts at the wiki page or join me on #space to discuss it.