The Moon’s $100+ Billion Price Tag

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Here’s the latest on our return to the moon:

The rocket and capsule that NASA is proposing to return astronauts to the moon would fly just twice in the next 10 years and cost as much as $38 billion, according to internal NASA documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel….That timeline and price tag could pose serious problems for supporters of the new spacecraft, which is being built from recycled parts of the shuttle and the now-defunct Constellation moon program. It effectively means that it will take the U.S. manned-space program more than 50 years — if ever — to duplicate its 1969 landing on the moon.

That is certain to infuriate NASA supporters in Congress….blah blah blah.

Well, hell, is this really a shocker? There are reasons to think that a moon program today should cost less than the original: we know a lot more about building rockets, we have better design technology, we have far better computers and access to lighter-weight components, and so forth. Still, that only provides a modest benefit, and in the end you still have to put together a massive program to build a brand new space vehicle pretty much from scratch. CBO estimated years ago that the Apollo program cost $100 billion in current dollars just for the R&D and management alone, and another $70 billion to build the dozen or so launchers and lunar modules. Given that, why should anyone be surprised that $38 billion is a shoestring budget that will barely fund two flyby missions?

The truth is that a new moon program will probably cost something on the order of $100 billion or more. Personally, I don’t think it’s a good use of money, but your mileage may vary on that score. Whatever you happen to think of it, though, that’s how much you need to count on spending if you want a real program. There’s no point in continually being shocked when it turns out that NASA can’t really do much of anything for less than half of what it actually needs.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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