Talk:Why Moderate Sized Rockets Are Better

I have referred to my concept of Lunar development as "reasonable" in the article, and as "rational" in other places. This means little without the basis for deciding what is reasonable. I take profitability as my basis for deciding. By investment standards profit from Luna is so risky and removed into the future as to make money spent on development no investment at all. The same standards can be used to evaluate development decisions regardless. One merely imagines a very low rate of return for an investment that does not mature for a very long time and is very risky, and then does the best possible within those limitations. One plans for various contingencies. Every thing I know about lunar development indicates to me that if people follow through persistently the environvent of lunar investments will change in the distant (perhaps fifty years) future. There will be a high rate of return and secure knowledge of performance. Making decissions based on profitability leaves some chance of failure; but the Apollo on steroids strategy leaves little chance for success unless your goal is leaving a few footprints on Mars and proving once and for all time that space exploration is just too expensive to have any practical benefits.--Farred 17:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

• Why did I call investment on Luna "risky" if everything I know points to future high returns on investment? Does not long time to maturity cover the entire set of adverse conditions? It is not what I know that indicates risk in lunar investments. It is my ignorance. The total of human knowledge about Luna is much greater than my own, but the total of human ignorance about Luna, as a fraction of my own ignorance, approaches unity. So there is a vast area out of which the risk of failure arises. Also, there is no guarantee that the individual person, corporation or nation that invests in lunar development will reap the profit. There is no guarantee that others will follow through with investments made today to the point that a profit is ever achieved.
• Those who care for nothing but the amount left in their retirement accounts at death, those who feel faint at the thought of risk and those who think humanity utterly incapable of sustained efforts of more than twenty years should have nothing to do with lunar investment. Those who think that the spark that caused man to irrigate the Babylonian empire and build cathedrals is still operating and still admirable should consider the effort of lunar development worthy of itself whether they can live to taste the fruit or not.--Farred 15:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I had a feeling an article like this would be created at one point. I won't comment on the "launcher size argument", but I have a problem with asking for the cancellation of the Ares V. The Ares program has it's own problems, most not attributable to launcher size. Ares I has become a big problem, not Ares V. Constellation might just cancel itself- it certainly does not need a bunch of space advocates to worry about it. Also, one must not regard NASA as our only path back to the Moon...

T.Neo 18:33, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Who should invest in lunar development? Individuals, organizations, corporations, and governments who have resources that they can afford to loose and who want to help create a prosperous and secure future for humanity. It is not yet time to get shares in development corporations that might in the future be worth enormous sums to your heirs. Governments will get around to laying the international legal groundwork for such corporations eventually. Perhaps without any delay to development work caused by waiting for such legal groundwork. More knowledge is needed about just how lunar development might proceed so negotiators know something about what they are negotiating. Governments will also want to assure the ability to inspect lunar developments to insure that they are militarily harmless.
• Why should we invest in lunar development? It has been mentioned elsewhere that lunar materials could be used for space based solar power and orbiting space ports. Besides this a space based civilization could possibly avoid disaster by climate change of the run away greenhouse or run away ice age types that have been suggested by various sources. (Which of these catastrophes Earth's chaotic climate will throw at us is still in doubt, and may depend upon what we do on Earth.) Just as industrial capabilities of some nations on Earth have doubled and doubled again within the last couple of millennia, capabilities of a space based civilization would be expected to double repeatedly, with a much higher upper limit to the possible capabilities to be attained. Shading Earth from the sun as it starts to enter its red giant phase and even moving Earth farther from the sun are well within the capabilities that could be attained. Man will never attain any of the grand capabilities without taking the first step of industrializing either Luna or Mars. The second step will get us the pair.
• Unfortunately avoiding the possibility of military self destruction will not be available for quite some time (not until people build colony ships to send to other stars). As people gain more space based capabilities, we will realize new and more powerful ways to kill ourselves. We will simply need to continue to talk to each other and convince ourselves not to kill each other.--Farred 16:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)