Crowdfund a mission to put a monolith on the moon

Re:Crowdfund a mission to put a monolith on the moon by presidentender on Monday January 03, 2011 @07:48PM (#2065321)

It can't possibly cost that much to calculate a trajectory and send a giant single-stage rocket, can it? If we remove the monolith erection requirement, I think this gets much cheaper.

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Re:Crowdfund a mission to put a monolith on the moon by mdolon on Monday January 03, 2011 @08:07PM (#2065387)

I'd guess that the cost is not just in the rocket itself, but rather the team, research, tests/trials, fuel and logistics of the entire operation. Getting to space is one thing, getting to the moon is an entirely different ball game.

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Re:Crowdfund a mission to put a monolith on the moon by presidentender on Tuesday January 04, 2011 @10:42AM (#2067298)

My thought is that we can piggyback on Nasa's earlier work on fuels, and since our goal is just to hit a big gravity well (not at a specific point) our mathematical model for trajectory just has to include the earth and the moon.

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Re:Crowdfund a mission to put a monolith on the moon by wazoox on Tuesday January 04, 2011 @03:45PM (#2068397)

A single stage rocket can't possibly reach the moon. There's a reason why big rockets have 3 stages (actually more like 4 stages for the Saturn V).

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