nukes versus oxygen.

>
> A manned lunar or asteroidal water mineing mission would be cost
> equivelant to a manned Mars shot. Ballpark costs are going to be in
> the tens of billions of dollars... minimum.

Estimates I've seen for a 3-4 man Moon mission with current launch
capabilities and technology (including Delta-IV, Shuttle, and/or Soyuz
launches) are about $2 billion. Both the Artemis project (a few years
back) and a recent NASA Johnson plan came up with pretty similar
numbers. Now we'd probably really want to do something more substantial
than just land some people for a few days, but that's the rough base
price. Tens of billions is a significant over-estimate, though I'm sure
NASA could find a way to spend that much if that was the budget...

Arthur Smith (apsmith@...