re lindbergh and the moon was why not give g jbh uxa cso uiuc edu josh hopkins writes mancus sweetpea jsc nasa gov keith mancus writes cook varmit mdc com layne cook writes 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 of course sorry for the misunderstanding i was referring to the fact that far more aeronautical development took place in the s for much of the s the super abundance of jennies and ox engines held down the industry by many of the obsolete wwi aircraft had been retired and whirlwind had their power weight ratio and reliability up to the point where long distance flights became practical it s important to note that the atlantic was flown not once but three times in lindbergh chamberlin and levine and byrd s america when it s time to railroad you railroad 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 not off the top of my head i ll have to dig out my reference books again however i will say that the most common arrangement in prince henry the navigator s portugal was for the prince to put up part of the money and merchants to put up the rest they profits from the voyage would then be shared 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 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 the problem is that the amount of prize money required to inspire a moon base is much larger than any but a handful of individuals or corporations can even consider putting up the kremer prizes human powered aircraft orteig s prize lord northcliffe s prize for crossing the atlantic won in by alcock and brown were much smaller the technologies required were within the reach of individual inventors and the prize amounts were well within the reach of a large number of wealthy individuals i think that only a gov t could afford to set up a b prize for any purpose whatsoever note that burt rutan suggested that nasp could be built most cheaply by taking out an ad in avweek stating that the first company to build a plane that could take off and fly the profile would be handed b no questions asked keith mancus mancus butch jsc nasa gov n wvr mancus sweetpea jsc nasa gov black powder and alcohol when your states and cities fall when your back s against the wall leslie fish
