“there has to be some value DIRECTLY for what is done (instead of indirectly as in the race to the Moon) that is commensurate with the cost.”

Yes. The “Why?” question reworded.

And there is a peculiar disconnect that has occurred in the US in answering this question.

The only cost/benefit justified project I can find is CAPS, the Comet and Asteroid Protection System, which uses Moon based instruments for impactor detection.

If you have any other answer, then please share it.

Actually in the case of the west, the government did not need to design build and run wagon trains. Settlers were able to afford sending themselves and it was commercially profitable to supply them. This might be a precondition for the settlement of anywhere including the moon.

“Step One” isn’t to reduce the cost. Step One is to explore the Moon, Mars and other bodies robotically to see if they truly do have resources that can be exploited. And since Luna is the closest of those bodies, it is the logical place to start.”

Ah we are doing so now(lunar reconnaissance orbiter, Atrimis, Grail) If anything Apollo led to a “been there and done that” to lunar exploration as no probes post Apollo went to the moon till the 90ies. The probes of the 60ies due to lack of technology and due to the space race are all focused on finding a safe landing spot.

Anyway the trouble with lunar resources is that there is no way to expoit them in a cost efficient manner and this problem is related to launch costs, spacecraft costs and lack of market. Reduce those problems enough and some maverick will prove me wrong but if you need one of the richest countries on earth that spends the most in space to increase space spending further, it is not a good sign about the profitability of said venture.

Commercial to a degree is addressing those issues. Space X and others working toward cheaper lift vehicles. Space X working towards cheaper and reusable spacecraft (Dragon). Bigelow towards affordable habitats in space. Ad ad astra and others toward more efficient in space propulsion. Heck thanks to the Google X prize there are two private missions under development right now.

“Are robotic spacecraft (like Curiosity) not affordable using existing launch vehicles? We have been sending unmanned spacecraft to the Moon, planets and asteroids for 50 years. But now we’re supposed to stop exploring until … what? Because given the normal progression of technology, we will always be developing newer and more cost effective transportation systems.”

The normal progression of technology, as it relates to human spaceflight and exploration, has never ever followed, The private sector commercial firms is what drives the innovations in every form of transportation. The NASA monopoly has retarded the normal progression not advanced it. Anyone that believes the commercial sector would fly the shuttle for thirty years and never see new models or the prices come down is nuts, plain and simple.

Only now, with multiple commercial players, will the Nation start seeing the normal progression of technology.

Affordable is nothing more than a product or service that is priced within your financial means. Which means, you got enough to buy it, doesn’t mean it is a bargin or the best deal/price. Just means you have enough dimes in the piggy bank to pay for it.

Launching Apollo a few times was affordable, but that does not mean it was great deal and politically sustainable. We could afford Apollo we just didn’t have a national consensus on breaking into the piggy bank to keep paying for it.

I prefer the Boy Scout approach: “Be Prepared.”

There is a difference between being prepared and foolishly anticipating…and the supporters of some Chinese lunar base/take over are the later.

What we have in the US today regarding Chinese space intentions (at least for humans) is “this is what I would do if I were them” sort of babble and it comes from people who all along have wanted to do “this” anyway.

It reminds me of the discussion in the 1935-41 period of how the Japanese would fight a Pacific war. The vasst majority of US Naval “opinion” was war gaming one Jutland scenario after another mostly around the Philippines.

In 1936 the actor Chevy Chase’s grandfather wrote a paper for the War College that almost got him tossed out of the navy. He described a fierce four day carrier to carrier battle around the island of either Wake or Midway. It is an amazingly prescient piece that the War College head openly mocked.

What kept Miles Rutherford Browning in the Navy was that his piece got the attention of the “former Naval Person” who had the best seat in the oval office…which was good because a few years later, Miles was on the flag bridge of Big E, advising Ray Spruance. Meanwhile the head of the war college was off on a useless cruise in his Battleship.

Think not what you would do, but what they would do. RGO

An absurd analogy. If aircraft flights had cost hundreds of millions per flight, there never would have been an aircraft industry. But aircraft were affordable from the beginning.

I say, let’s begin the process of exploration and settlement … and let the transportation systems catch up with it.

We’ve already done that, and it is happening. But Congress is determined to keep it expensive, and it will never happen with SLS/Orion. They are unaffordable, and they will not survive the coming collision with fiscal reality.

“So if someone starts telling me what China thinks and that we should be quaking in our boots and hiding under our beds I just smile inscrutably …”

I prefer the Boy Scout approach: “Be Prepared.”

“In addition, it’s not simply future launch vehicles eating NASA’s budget, look at the effort surrounding JWST. Enormous budget and shedule overruns.”

True. And lowering launch costs doesn’t save much when the price tag on the payload soars out of sight. It becomes all the more costly if the payload (e.g., the JWST) fails to work.

I have my fingers crossed for the $2.5 billion Curiosity mission. The ‘sky crane’ landing system will be hailed as a tremendous idea if it works. But if it doesn’t …

Let’s hope for the best. Arrival is just a few weeks away.

sorry those are straw man arguments. no one is suggesting the extremes you are talking about RGO

“If you want the government to do more in space, step one is to reduce the cost of doing so.”

And how much of a reduction will justify the cost of sending robotic explorers to the Moon and planets? Again, who defines what is “affordable”?

“Affordable” by your own definition is what people are willing to pay to do something.

Are robotic spacecraft (like Curiosity) not affordable using existing launch vehicles? We have been sending unmanned spacecraft to the Moon, planets and asteroids for 50 years. But now we’re supposed to stop exploring until … what? Because given the normal progression of technology, we will always be developing newer and more cost effective transportation systems.

Using your logic, perhaps the airline industry should have waited to carry passengers until the 747 was developed since it lowered the seat-mile costs significantly — making air travel more “affordable.” But the industry started with Fokkers and Fords and has spent the past 85 years constantly building better and more efficient aircraft, the latest being the 787.

Today’s “cost efficient” Falcon 9 will be tomorrow’s fuel guzzler. That’s the history of transportation. So maybe we shouldn’t be pinning our hopes for lower cost access to space on SpaceX … maybe we should be waiting for somebody else to build something else better than Falcon, Dragon, etc.

The point is, we could wait forever. It’s as if the early pioneers waited to settle the American West until the interstate highway system was built and they all had SUVs.

I say, let’s begin the process of exploration and settlement … and let the transportation systems catch up with it.

“Step One” isn’t to reduce the cost. Step One is to explore the Moon, Mars and other bodies robotically to see if they truly do have resources that can be exploited. And since Luna is the closest of those bodies, it is the logical place to start.