Much like the rest of your statements.

“If you mean government acting to open up industry to the private sector, then yes.”

Already done. The launch vehicle and spacecraft industry exists, the mining industry exists. There is nothing to “open up”. And any argument you have would be similar to what NASA is doing with CRS and commercial crew to ISS.

ISS is no different than a lunar base. A money pit. The “resources” on the moon are no good to anyone on earth.

“Seriously, this aversion to NASA actually performing work that actually takes a chance on returning the returning the taxpayer’s overall investment in the agency is downright ridiculous.”

So NASA is supposed to turn into a profit center now?

Are you proposing to Congress that government agencies should start competing with the private sector? Or is it just NASA and the Moon?

Why not have the Department of the Interior start mining the middle of the Pacific for rare earth nodules? At least we know that there is a market for that, whereas there is no market for water on the Moon.

I just don’t get why the government should set up and run an operation that competes with the private sector.

Yes, that is why there are taxes.

Am I supposed to read this as something other than non-sequitur?

What you are proposing amounts to a state run industry.

If you mean government acting to open up industry to the private sector, then yes.

Wrong again, Govt is to provide services like basic research that don’t provide a immediate return on investment.

So government exists to lose money?

Now you are getting it. Where there is a chance for a return, let the market run it.

Let’s let them do it where there’s no chance for return as well. I wouldn’t mind more money in my pocket.

“Let commercial entities do everything else while we’re at it.”
Now you are getting it. Where there is a chance for a return, let the market run it.

Still not a justification for the US govt to fund a lunar base.

If it isn’t, then there’s no justification for anything NASA has ever done or will ever do.

Let commercial entities get it.

Let commercial entities do everything else while we’re at it. Seriously, this aversion to NASA actually performing work that actually takes a chance on returning the returning the taxpayer’s overall investment in the agency is downright ridiculous.

Still not a justification for the US govt to fund a lunar base.

Let commercial entities get it.

Come on.

Give NASA $25 billion/year for a decade (adjusted for inflation annually) direct them to establish a base on the moon in a decade, get out of the way and leave them alone to do it. If NASA fails to accomplish its assigned task in ten years, dissolve the agency.

How about I take $12 billion out of their 2010 HSF budget project and they get 15 years to execute?

A funding a moon base is just as much a folly as funding missions for cosmologists, climatologists and space stations.

Really? Moon is 10^20 kg of stuff just waiting to be stripped. Did those six whiz kids buzzing about the Earth figure out a way to mine empty space yet? Has Hawking figured out how to build a toaster powered by the cosmic microwave background? Will determining the Nth decimal precision of GR’s predictions cure cancer? Is Earth Venus yet?

Come on.

Also, it is not in NASA’s charter.

NASA doesn’t have a charter, twin slabs of stone handed from on High, or a Big Book of Pirate Law. She has legal authority granted annually determining what she may withdraw from the Treasury for what reason.