News Of The Moon AND BEYOND ·

Moon Advocates On NASA 'Prize' Scheme: "Ridiculous"

Plan to award private aerospace developers for successes derided as "just another bureaucratic joke"

LUNAR JOURNAL STAFF

NEW YORK / 23 JUNE / -- A plan by NASA, the United States' space agency, to pay prize money to private aerospace developers for their accomplishments has drawn immediate derision from an international space advocacy group.

"The first thought I had when I heard this was that it had to be just another bureaucratic joke," said David Ferrell Jackson, director of the Lunar Republic Society. "It was too ridiculous to be true."

According to a report from Reuters, the NASA prizes might include $200 million for the first private, piloted mission to orbit Earth and up to $30 million for the attainment of goals such as a soft lunar landing or bringing back a piece of an asteroid.

"It's unbelievable," Jackson said. "I can just imagine a group of NASA bureaucrats sitting around the meeting table, loading up on taxpayer-supported Krispy Kremes and grande lattes, trying to come up with their next brilliant plan for wasting more taxpayer dollars when one of them leaps up and says, 'I've got it! How about paying $200 million to a private company if they can build something that's already been built: a spacecraft that can orbit Earth?'

"The United States has schools that can't afford to pay teachers," Jackson said. "It has highways that are falling apart. It has working people who can't afford health care for their families. And these idiots want to give away money? It's just another bureaucratic joke, and it boggles the mind."

Jackson said that NASA already has accomplished everything it proposes to reward with prize money.

"NASA should not be giving away money for commercial aerospace companies to reinvent the wheel," Jackson said. "We were orbiting Earth 40 years ago. We were on the Moon 35 years ago. NASA has already used taxpayer funds to develop all of the facilities and space vehicles necessary. Why not make the facilities, equipment and technology available to the private companies and charge them for it — make it a revenue-earning enterprise, rather than wasting taxpayer funds to reward businesses for attaining goals that have already been reached?"

Michael Lembeck of NASA told Reuters that prizes would go to private ventures for milestones such as "the first soft landing on the Moon, or for returning a piece of an asteroid to Earth." Lembeck said in a telephone interview that there was even discussion of offering "a couple hundred million dollars for the first private orbital flight."

"We have to take on the roles that are more risky, that require a large capital investment to achieve the goals," Lembeck said. A human mission to the Moon might be one such venture, he said.

The New York-based Lunar Republic Society, founded in 1999, is advocating a privately funded program to return to the Moon by the end of this decade. The plan is being subsidized through contributions, an endowment fund, and a plan which offers lunar land claims to the public in order to raise more than $3 billion needed to accomplish the mission.

The Society's program incorporates currently available technologies — including launch vehicles from India and facilities in Russia — as the starting point for human-based exploration, settlement and development of the Moon, including a permanently occupied base for scientific research, civilian tourism, and as a stop-over point for journeys to Mars and beyond.

NASA has a budget of $16.2 billion for the current fiscal year. Among other things, the budget must cover the return to flight for the space shuttle fleet, grounded since the 2003 Columbia disaster, as well as continuing construction on the International Space Station and an assortment of other scientific projects.

This report was compiled by Lunar Journal from staff and wire service reports.

RECENT HEADLINES:

· Moon Advocates: First Private Space Flight "Not Enough"

· Moon Over Ohio: Residents Claimed Lunar Ownership In 1966

· Advocacy Group Says Bush Space Plan ‘Doomed From The Start’

· Fugitive Lunar Embassy Operator Arrested

MORE LUNAR JOURNAL HEADLINES