Joe Strout wrote:
$0.1B to $1B is not an ungodly amount for placing humans on the moon,
sustaining them a while, and returning them to Earth. It might just be
enough to spur a company to actually do it, but then again, it might not

The big problem with kind of scenario is getting the operating capital
to cover the cost of meeting payroll and bending metal during the
years between start-up and the awarding of the prize.

There's no shortage of companies willing to try, and some of them
might even be capable, but there is a massive shortage of billion
dollar pots of cash sitting around for them to tap into. Prizes work
well for modest goals, like the X-Prize or say 1M resolution pictures
of the moon, but they are not likely to work for larger projects.

Even worse, how many companies can survive burning someone else's
capital to stop short (for whatever reason), or spending the full
billion and losing. This isn't like the internet bubble where a lot
of companies can win big.

(and the company that won the prize, might still lose money in the short
term, though presumably they and their competitors would leverage that
into profitable businesses thereafter, just as is happening with the
X-Prize).

They'd better have a damn good business case from the get-go, or they
won't even get a chance to try. It's the same chicken-and-egg problem
that plagues us in so many ways.

D.
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Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.