People,

Please don't loose track that we are trying to just get 20 kilo or so
of moon rocks to sell to collectors, not mine the moon. While I can
see the value of developing tethers and ion drives for a long term
project (I have a lot of interest in ion and vasmir drives), I don't
believe we have a budjet for any heavy duty R&D ($400~500 million).
Remember the more moon rocks on the market the lower the price will
be. I'm not an accountant or speculator and really have no idea what
the optimum amount of rocks would be for the highest payoff.

I believe in the future will will be mining titanium and helium 3 and
such from the moon, but not until the value of these items grows
enought to offset production and shipping cost, which at the rate
we're going will be a very long time. I don't want to be a cynic, but
space flight,manned and unmanned, in general will never become
affordable until resources in space, moon, etc. can be exploited by
private concerns.

Just my 2 bits.

Terry