Who will build the moon base?

What companies, organizations, and university research groups are
currently working on developing technology for supporting human
activities on the moon or Mars? Which of these do you think will be
contributing towards the new space effort?

What hardware on ISS has worked well and could be used on the moon,
and what has caused lots of trouble and will be redesigned or
replaced?

My reasons for asking are purely selfish. I used to be in aerospace,
but after a couple years at NASA working in mission control for
Station I decided the Station program and aerospace weren't for me, so
I became a teacher. But the Columbia accident caused me to do a lot
of sole searching, and about a month ago I came to the decision that I
wanted to get back into the space exploration business, specifically
researching and designing equipment for bases on the moon or Mars.
When I came to this decision I assumed that it wouldn't be a job with
any NASA program, because a month ago I thought they wouldn't be
touching that stuff for a very long time. I figured I'd try to get a
job with some university research group working on applicable
technology.

But now that it looks like NASA might actually be returning to the
moon, I might actually get to work on hardware that will fly in my
lifetime! So what companies or research groups are active in this
area? Which ones are gung ho and actually get stuff done? Of course
the aerospace giants will probably get the contracts. Which divisions
of those companies are the best?

I have an image of what it must be like to work at Skunkworks or
Scaled Composites. I imagine that when you work at those places you
don't spend time in pointless meetings, or arguing with some other
department to send you some report. Instead you spend your time
actually designing and building stuff. That is the kind of atmosphere
I want to work in, but I want to work on moon/Mars bases.

Any suggestions where I should look?

Thanks.

(RocketScientistForHire) :

I have an image of what it must be like to work at Skunkworks or
Scaled Composites. I imagine that when you work at those places you
don't spend time in pointless meetings, or arguing with some other
department to send you some report. Instead you spend your time
actually designing and building stuff. That is the kind of atmosphere
I want to work in, but I want to work on moon/Mars bases.

That version of Skunkworks does not exist anymore, the beancounters have
taken over.

And the NASA departments are all going to be fighting over getting thier
share of the money, you can forget finding departments where everyone is
working towards a common goal, everyone will be fighting to get themselves
ahead.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

In article ,
RocketScientistForHire wrote:
...I imagine that when you work at those places you
don't spend time in pointless meetings, or arguing with some other
department to send you some report. Instead you spend your time
actually designing and building stuff. That is the kind of atmosphere
I want to work in, but I want to work on moon/Mars bases.

Unfortunately, the Moon/Mars stuff is mostly going to go to the giant
companies, and you will not find that sort of atmosphere much in evidence
there. You'll find it mostly in small-to-medium companies... which are
not "qualified suppliers" for big NASA contracts, even if some of them
would actually probably be better choices than the aerospace dinosaurs.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

(RocketScientistForHire) wrote in message . com...

cut


Any suggestions where I should look?

Thanks.

Try Russia or Europe, they are far more likely to build a moonbase
than NASA within the next fifteen years, and the probability of that
is not very high. NASA's transformation into a state of total self
delusion is complete, they actually think they have vision now!
Nothing has changed.

There are no desperate situations, there are only desperate people -
trust me i know.

Zzed wrote:
(RocketScientistForHire) wrote in message . com...

cut


Any suggestions where I should look?

Thanks.

Try Russia or Europe, they are far more likely to build a moonbase
than NASA within the next fifteen years, and the probability of that
is not very high. NASA's transformation into a state of total self
delusion is complete, they actually think they have vision now!
Nothing has changed.


ESA and Russia have no hurry or reason to build a base in the next 15 years.
The short to mid-term smart thing is to put all money in better launchers
and better constant-thrust propulsion. Its really hard to give a good case
for manned modules that can take you to Moon (or even further away).


--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Sander Vesik wrote in message ...
Zzed wrote:
(RocketScientistForHire) wrote in message . com...

cut


Any suggestions where I should look?

Thanks.

Try Russia or Europe, they are far more likely to build a moonbase
than NASA within the next fifteen years, and the probability of that
is not very high. NASA's transformation into a state of total self
delusion is complete, they actually think they have vision now!
Nothing has changed.


ESA and Russia have no hurry or reason to build a base in the next 15 years.
The short to mid-term smart thing is to put all money in better launchers
and better constant-thrust propulsion. Its really hard to give a good case
for manned modules that can take you to Moon (or even further away).

agreed. however there is a chance that Europe (eg Frnce and Germany)
will want to find a focus and a way to challenge US dominance. using
russian experience and hardware as a cheap levage, a moon base project
may just happen. stay online.