Rumours of a manned commercial mission to the moon by 2020

[Blankbeard]

So the hypothetical bank of Luna's primary source of revenue is electronic deposits from earth, fleeing taxes, earning interest tax free. The bank in turn loans money to people/businesses back on earth charging interest, generating profit. But are you suggesting that mined precious metals on the moon, gold, platinum, yttrium etc. would have value even if they weren't shipped back to earth? A sort of cash collateral for the deposits? Can't own land on the moon, but you can "mine" minerals just like the US & Russia did, held in the colonies environs, it would have value, even if it isn't shipped back to earth, backing up the electronic deposits, shoring up the colonies value therefore attracting more investment possibly.

I'm pretty sure if you just run a tax shelter, all of the major countries will bar their banks from doing business with you or with any one who does business with you. You're frozen out. No deposits, no cash flow.

But if you have a significant (and I"m talking a kiloton or more of precious metals) you don't need to solicit deposits. You're free to accept them but your first business is making loans to large corporations and small countries. Those debts (and the promise of future loans) gives you a level of power. It's much more difficult to shut you out because you offer real value. It's not impossible of course. I just think the more valuable you make yourself to others, the more likely you are to survive the early years.

[paperburn1]

Is still all boils down to one thing, LOW COST TO LOW EARTH ORBIT. once we get that everything else is just numbers.

I fully agree. We need that before we can think about anything else. Otherwise whatever else we try is going to be doomed to be a one off stunt that wont result into anything sustainable.

And please note that the combined efforts of the world have only place about 200 tons on the moon. and The total mass returned besides equipment/pilots was 381.69 kilograms or 841.6 pounds. It was delivered in 2196 original samples at a cost for the Apollo program of 24 billion dollars (cirrca 1970s) or 28,500 dollars per pound.
FYI that's about 6 million to haul my but to the moon and back

[williatw]

I'm pretty sure if you just run a tax shelter, all of the major countries will bar their banks from doing business with you or with any one who does business with you. You're frozen out. No deposits, no cash flow.

Suppose initially the Golden Spike Company sets it up to be "tourism" or "exploration" etc., just as they appear to be doing but they accept "investment dollars" from initially fairly select clientele. To the public they are exploring and developing the moon and taking tourist shown on pay-per-view. As a private concern not a stock listed on the NYSE or anything, very limited disclosure about number of shares issued etc., share price appreciation & no. of shares issued is how the "interest" is paid to depositors. Look how long the Cayman Islands have been able to get away with it before the public (and therefore governments) seem to take any significant notice.

[paperburn1]

I'm pretty sure if you just run a tax shelter, all of the major countries will bar their banks from doing business with you or with any one who does business with you. You're frozen out. No deposits, no cash flow.

Suppose initially the Golden Spike Company sets it up to be "tourism" or "exploration" etc., just as they appear to be doing but they accept "investment dollars" from initially fairly select clientele. To the public they are exploring and developing the moon and taking tourist shown on pay-per-view. As a private concern not a stock listed on the NYSE or anything, very limited disclosure about number of shares issued etc., share price appreciation & no. of shares issued is how the "interest" is paid to depositors. Look how long the Cayman Islands have been able to get away with it before the public (and therefore governments) seem to take any significant notice.

For that matter do you even have to have a person on the moon, a solar powered server/web presents is all that would be necessary. Remember corporation are people by law.

[Stubby]

Yeah what a f*cked up series of laws. Corporations are people.
Too bad US corporations can be owned by non US citizens and thus are able to influence your elections through massive financial contributions.
Isn't China your biggest investor?

[kunkmiester]

Campaign contributions are limited by law. Corporations are artificial legal entities and basically all the Supreme Court has said about them is that there's not enough distinction in current law to limit them in speech more than normal persons.

Changing corporate law to allow greater limits on things like corporate speech would probably also limit the limits on liability they get. I don't think that would be a bad thing, but a lot of people think some things just can't happen unless you provide the privileges corporations get in regards to liability and immunity.

[Stubby]

Yes they are for the most part.

but

"Super PACs": The 2010 election marked the rise of a new political committee, dubbed the "super PAC". They are officially known as "independent-expenditure only committees," because they may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but rather must do any political spending independently of the campaigns. Unlike other PACs, there is no legal limit to the funds they can raise from individuals, corporations, unions and other groups, provided they are operated correctly.[25] As of August 23, 2012, 797 super PACS had raised upwards of $349 million, with 60% of that money coming from just 100 donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics[26] Super PACs were made possible by two judicial decisions. First, in January 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that government may not prohibit unions and corporations from making independent expenditure for political purposes. Two months later, in Speechnow.org v. FEC, the Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that contributions to groups that only make independent expenditures could not be limited in the size and source of contributions to the group.[27]

[Blankbeard]

Suppose initially the Golden Spike Company sets it up to be "tourism" or "exploration" etc., just as they appear to be doing but they accept "investment dollars" from initially fairly select clientele. To the public they are exploring and developing the moon and taking tourist shown on pay-per-view. As a private concern not a stock listed on the NYSE or anything, very limited disclosure about number of shares issued etc., share price appreciation & no. of shares issued is how the "interest" is paid to depositors. Look how long the Cayman Islands have been able to get away with it before the public (and therefore governments) seem to take any significant notice.

It's certainly possible. For my personal tastes, I think you're getting dangerously close to saying that you're looking to be a criminal enterprise specializing in tax evasion YMMV. I mean, you're going to want to mine asteroids to get nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur compounds needed for living anyway. You're going to end up with tons of gold, silver, thorium, uranium, platinum, iridium, and all of the other valuable metals. Some of it will go to industry but most of the rest is just going to accumulate. What are you going to do with it? I'd be willing to bet the existing financial system would prefer you not send tons of precious metals into circulation.

paperburn1:
You probably don't but:
1) I think governments are far less likely to accidentally crash a probe into your servers if doing so will kill dozens or hundreds.
2) Automated equipment needs maintenance.
3) I'd really like to see humanity expand beyond earth and this seems like a possible way.

[Blankbeard]

Yeah what a f*cked up series of laws. Corporations are people.
Too bad US corporations can be owned by non US citizens and thus are able to influence your elections through massive financial contributions.
Isn't China your biggest investor?

Corporations have many of the rights of people because they are composed of people. How do you restrict corporate donations without interfering with the free speech rights of the owners? In this case, a corporation acts like a bullhorn in that it collects sounds and allows the owners to be reach audiences they couldn't reach without it but it doesn't change the fact that it is the owners with whom the speech originates.

http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topcontribs.php

Over time, corporations tend to donate to the parties fairly evenly. This doesn't mean that they don't influence elections but it suggests there is less than commonly believed.

The largest holder of federal debt is the US government, followed by American citizens, then China. State government debt is similarly held.

[hanelyp]

Corporations have many of the rights of people because they are composed of people.

Exactly. A corporation is a collective entity. The rights of a corporation derive from the rights of the people on whose behalf the corporation acts. Something like a limited power of attorney for the share holders.

[kunkmiester]

There's a difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. One's legal, the other isn't. Tax shelters are legal when properly used, check your local laws on how you get money to and from the moon legally.

Started a spreadsheet to run numbers on spacecraft masses and times and such, but haven't found good ISP and delta V calculators that work the way I want.

Simple problem, landing a robot on the surface of the moon. Take mass of robot, a bit of arbitrary mass for a carrier, how big of a solid rocket will it take to make a soft landing? Need to reverse engineer equations for that.

[Blankbeard]

There's a difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. One's legal, the other isn't. Tax shelters are legal when properly used, check your local laws on how you get money to and from the moon legally.

I guess that's true. I have to wonder if it will continue to be as the US government increases its hunger for other people's money.

Started a spreadsheet to run numbers on spacecraft masses and times and such, but haven't found good ISP and delta V calculators that work the way I want.

Simple problem, landing a robot on the surface of the moon. Take mass of robot, a bit of arbitrary mass for a carrier, how big of a solid rocket will it take to make a soft landing? Need to reverse engineer equations for that.

Good deal, hope to see it. I've been working from the estimates of people who are trying to create businesses.

Here is Wikipedia's page with a nice chart in the middle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget

And a calculator I found

http://www.strout.net/info/science/delta-v/intro.html

The rocket equation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_equation

And a table of propulsion types

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft ... of_methods

You'll need to calculate Isp from what they give.

Fusion torch and Antimatter rockets generally have an Isp somewhere near "Screw Tsiolkovsky! Let's go to Mars!"

Sorry if you have all of this already.

[kunkmiester]

Not quite to nuclear and antimatter yet. I actually posted a short powerpoint I put on youtube a few months ago, but it was extremely crude. I'm trying to refine the numbers--probably make them a good bit bigger--so I have a better grasp on the mass budget, which is the main driver of cost right now.
viewtopic.php?t=3580&highlight=

Big problem is remembering how to do the math--I want to juggle all aspects of the equations, and the rocket equation for example has a natural log in it, which I don't remember how to reverse so I can make the mass fractions outputs instead of inputs, and in a spreadsheet no less.

This is the best one I've found so far.
http://www.quantumg.net/rocketeq.html
Their math code precludes simply transcribing things however.

[williatw]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft ... of_methods

You'll need to calculate Isp from what they give.

Fusion torch and Antimatter rockets generally have an Isp somewhere near "Screw Tsiolkovsky! Let's go to Mars!"

Sorry if you have all of this already.

What the heck is a "gravitoelectromagnetic toroidal launchers" ?

[Blankbeard]

What the heck is a "gravitoelectromagnetic toroidal launchers" ?

Sorcery, I think. Apparently Gravitoelectromagnetics is a real thing. There's a chance that cleverly rotating masses could produce a corkscrew shaped gravitational field that could propel a spaceship at almost the speed of light. No word on whether a corkscrew shaped gravitational field can open a Klein Bottle and whether said bottle is full of champagne.

Like the Mach Effect, this is based on an interpretation of existing physics, in this case an analogy between gravity and Maxwell's laws. Neither interpretation is really testable which complicates showing the effects exist. Unlike the Mach effect, I'm not aware of anyone who's conducting experiments to show a GEM launcher is workable.