I had the idle musing of a space exploration fund.
How it would work is you have some investment fund created, probably by donations. For example, "Lunar Colonization Fund".
What the fund would do is have the investment pot, and "prize" pot. The prize pot being added to on an annual/semi annual basis.
So, say the fund was wildly successful with $100 million invested at 5% return for $5 million in cash flow. That $5 million is then put into the prize pot, with very simple rules: the amount of the prize pot is divided based on kg of material landed on the moon.
So, if one group landed a 300 kg lander and a second landed a 4,000 kg lander, out of the $5 million prize the prize per kg would thus be $1,100 dollars, or $400k for the small lander and $4.4 million for the large lander.
If there is nothing launched at the site, then some portion is reinvested in the fund and the rest rolled over into next years prize. So, if there was no claims to the prize, $3 million might be reinvested and $2 million rolled into the prize, increasing next years prize to $7 million.
If someone actually colonizes long term, say spends 1 year on the moon, the fund can award some fixed amount, say $100,000 in assets to the colonists per year. So, if there were a 100 individuals living on the moon for a full year, there would be a $10 million dollar per year, exhausting the fund in 10 years, but transferring assets to the lunar people to maintain their colony as they see fit.
An idea I had that seemed so obvious, I can easily see this already existing and I just haven't heard about it.
interestingengineering.com
www.space.com
