Making Money on the Moon for Today’s Businessmen
“When we talk about commerce on the moon, it’s not just contracts where the government buys services. We’re also talking about businesses selling to each other and also to consumers,” said Paul Eckert, an international and commercial strategist with the Boeing Company in Arlington, Virginia, who is focused on space commerce. He too sees an opportunity to extend the global economy beyond Earth.
NASA feels that a for-profit moon business is highly critical to space business of any caliber, and according to the NASA and business experts, this space business has begun before ever arriving on the planet. Spaceships, moon metals, energy resources, space games, advertising to sell, and many other opportunities are going on from the beginning of the get-go. Lately, space hotels and commercial space rides have begun to be sold before our astronauts ever land on the moon or on Mars.
According to National Geographic, in 2006, more than 180 entrepreneurs, business leaders, governmental officials, and space scientists attended a NASA-sponsored meeting in Washington, D.C., to talk about how to go about future space missions to both the moon and Mars. These missions were previously outlined in President George Bush’s “Vision for U.S. Space Exploration”.
At the present time, commercial use of the moon’s surface material [called regolith], is considered by Eckert to be one of the most promising opportunities, according to National Geographic. The reason that regolith is so promising is that it contains easily extractable oxygen and hydrogen, which can be used to manufacture rocket fuel. Also, if enough water ice is found, that also is a commodity where even more hydrogen and oxygen can be obtained. If rocket fuel can be produced on the moon, instead of on Earth, it could be supplied to fueling stations that orbit the Earth, lowering the cost of space exploration.
Presently, the most expensive part of any mission is the fuel involved to launch the already-fuel-laden spacecraft above the Earth’s gravity. Fuel in space would heavily decrease this expense and the weight of the fuel on-board the ship. The weight that originally was used to carry fuel can be transferred over to more passengers, supplies, material, and other forms of cargo. Plus, the trips back home to Earth will cost less so more trips can be made back and forth.
Exciting days are upon us, if we can keep the greed and corruption out of the picture, and work together as a team. But what I have to say is this—if it can be done on the moon or Mars, why cannot we do the same here on Earth? Hmmmm?
This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Mission Objectives, Public Relations, Space Agency News, Technical Concerns, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
