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Money ?
I have looked a few different ideas for rising money to fund a manned mar missions. In addition to looking at these ideas I also checked out previous post on the topic of money and here's what I discoverd.
1. Space Settlement Initiative : Selling land on mars to rise money for missions.
Problems : No legal basis to support it. No one owns mars or the moon for that matter so how can you sell land. You don't own it. I know that there are companies selling spots on the moon and are making some money. But that's dumb. To me ownership mean you actually can go out and touch it. I know someone could say something about stocks or bonds. But you have the paper that proves you own it and most important that paper has legal grounds.
2. Nonprofits/ Nonprofit Funds/Mars Funds/Mar Prize (Similar to the X-Prize.
Great Ideas. But we're talking about trying to rise a ton of money.
3. Selling bonds. Someone brought up this idea a while back. I read the post and got the feeling (I could be wrong. Sorry in advance but thats my feeling.) people didn't think that would work for the following the reasons:
1. The investor would have to wait for years before ever seeing a return if there was one.
2. Legal trouble involved in trying to sell bonds.
3. You would end up paying a ton of interest to the person and therefore never have any money for the mission.
I liked the bond idea and think that it could work if someone tried something like this:
1. Issue short-term (5-10 year bonds)
2. Have small bond amts. ($100,$500,$1000,$5000,$10,000,$1,000,000)
3. Make them callable after two maybe three years.
4. Since the bonds would most like be unsecured use a bond sinking fund.
5. Like I said in #4 it is most likely the bonds would be unsecure so in addition to the bond sinking fund put half the money into investments (Stocks, Savings Bonds, other corporate bonds, physical assets like land) and let the investors know about this, that we know that they might be worry about investing in us and that we are taking measures to ensure that they get their money back. Besides providing security for the investor, the investments can also provide us with another source of income. Interest, Dividends, Rent,etc.
6. Limit the number of bonds that certain investors can buy. Regular people can only buy up to maybe $20,000, Small Businesses mayne $20,000 to $50,000. You get the idea.
4. Public company that sells stock on the stock market.
5. Private company using private placements. Selling bonds or stocks.
These were my observations, what do you guys think?
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The chances that the private sector will begin the exploration of Mars, at least without some form of government incentive, range from very slim to zero. There would be nothing going on in space right now at all if it were not for government initiatives in the USSR and more importantly the US. Zubrin observes in Entering Space, "...the core notion that the final frontier can be opened on the basis of entrepreneurial business plans is wrong...it won't, at least not by itself." This is a sound judgement in my view.
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I agree but it has start somewhere. The government (ours, someone elses) or an government agency such as NASA isn't in my view isn't going to start a project like this. It is going to take a private business who in turn can get the government to work with them, then maybe we will have a chance for a real manned mission.
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How about: A government-sponsored competitive program, with the private enterprise team fixed-price, and the (NASA, perhaps?) team cost-plus. The first to complete their Mars spacecraft in orbit and take it around the Moon and back, wins the competition ... and financing to take themselves to Mars. Imagine, e.g. Russian-based technology commercial team vs. NASA-based technology government team, and a five-year time-limit; winner take all! Alternatively: Private vs. Military. (The motivation is what counts ... money just greases the skids.)
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1. Space Settlement Initiative : Selling land on mars to raise money for missions.
Nah lets leave this to organizations like the international star registy. Seedy.
2. Nonprofits/ Nonprofit Funds/Mars Funds/Mar Prize (Similar to the X-Prize).
Nobody has the resources to go anyway and the risks are to great to expect anyone to try even if the prize was great.
3. Selling bonds.
Selling bonds is still generating debt. The time value of money you know?
There is a fourth way. Allow sponsored parts. Like Goodyear tires on a rover, and a coke a cola ad actually filmed on the surface of mars....ect...
That could net billions of dollars, which in turn would pay for a substantial portion of the costs. Particularly if the mission was permanent....see this post....here
MARS MOD - Founder and Mission Director
[img]http://marsmod.com/images/head_nasa2.gif[/img]
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