> Okay, so Apple and Microsoft and Google probably could bankroll a modern Apollo program. You're assuming the entire cost needs to be bankrolled by a single e

> Okay, so Apple and Microsoft and Google probably could bankroll a modern Apollo program. You're assuming the entire cost needs to be bankrolled by a single entity or company. No such assumption needs to be made. > There is no such monetization story for the moon. North America was less interesting to European monarchies of the 16th and 17th centuries than South America, because they didn't think they'd find any gold there. Never mind the millions of acres of fertile land, or the opportunity to build a platform that would allow millions of people to create new wealth with the right incentives. Confusing the concepts of wealth and money, they turned down the opportunity of acquiring wealth because it didn't look like money. I think you are making a similar mistake. It's not a personal criticism per se: just like it would have been perfectly normal to assume kings and queens were right not to be interested in North America at the time, it's perfectly normal to assume big corporations would be right not to be interested in the moon today.