re lindbergh and the moon was why not give g mancus sweetpea jsc nasa gov keith mancus writes cook varmit mdc com layne cook writes all of this talk about a commercial space race i e g to the first year moon base is intriguing similar prizes have influenced aerospace development before the k orteig prize helped lindbergh sell his spirit of saint louis venture to his financial backers but i strongly suspect that his saint louis backers had the foresight to realize that much more was at stake than could it work with the moon who are the far sighted financial backers of today the commercial uses of a transportation system between already settled and civilized areas are obvious spaceflight is not in this position the correct analogy is not with aviation of the s but the long transocean voyages of the age of discovery lindbergh s flight took place in not the thirties it didn t require gov t to fund these as long as something was known about the potential for profit at the destination in practice some were gov t funded some were private could you give examples of privately funded ones but there was no way that any wise investor would spend a large amount of money on a very risky investment with no idea of the possible payoff your logic certainly applies to standard investment strategies however the concept of a prize for a difficult goal is done for different reasons i suspect i m not aware that mr orteig received any significant economic benefit from lindbergh s flight modern analogies such as the prize for a human powered helicopter face similar arguments there is little economic benefit in such a thing the advantage comes in the new approaches developed and the fact that a prize will frequently generate far more work than the equivalent amount of direct investment would a person who puts up x billion for a moon base is much more likely to do it because they want to see it done than because they expect to make money off the deal josh hopkins jbh uxa cso uiuc edu find a way or make one attributed to hannibal
