SpaceX announce Falcon Heavy. It's been expected for some time — it's been on their road map for a few years — but it's worth repeating: man-rated and with a payload of 53 tons to Low Earth Orbit, Falcon Heavy has the largest payload of any space launcher since Energiya and the Saturn V [*], and it's dirty-cheap by EELV standards at $80M-120M per launch. Moreover, it can't easily be dismissed as vapourware because it's an evolutionary development of a real, flying launch vehicle (Falcon 9) — a Falcon 9 core with two extra first stages strapped to the sides as boosters (and some fancy cross-stage plumbing to run the central core motors off fuel bled from the strap-ons, so that at BECO the central stage still carries a full fuel load). With the giant Iridium NEXT contract SpaceX have landed (the largest commercial launch contract in history), not to mention the ISS resupply contract, SpaceX looks likely to have the cash flow to build and fly this thing.

It occurs to me that, while Falcon Heavy doesn't have the payload to do a direct manned Moon mission via Lunar-orbit rendezvous (as in Apollo), it'd probably suffice for Earth orbit rendezvous missions: one launch for the Lunar Lander, one launch for the Earth Departure Stage, and one launch for the crew capsule (possibly an evolved Dragon capsule).

Cost? $120M each for two Falcon Heavy launches. $80M for a Falcon 9/Dragon launch. Cost of an uprated Dragon able to accommodate two astronauts for two weeks. Cost of a Lunar Surface Excursion Module. Cost of an Earth Departure Stage to boost the LEM/Dragon combo up to trans-Lunar injection.

If this were NASA, you'd need to get a bigger calculator to show all the digits on the budget. But given SpaceX's track record, I think by 2016 they'll be able to plan and run a moon mission on a budget of under US $1Bn — possibly under US $600M.

Note that these days the budget for a big Hollywood blockbuster — Avatar, for instance — can push over the $0.3Bn mark. It's hard to say what the media rights to the second! ever! manned Moon program! would be, but it's hard to see them going for much less than a major blockbuster movie. I think it unlikely that the expedition could be run entirely on the media rights, but they should certainly make a double-digit percentage contribution to the budget. Add the opportunity to tout for the science budget of some major agencies (by carrying lunar orbiter packages as payload, perhaps?) and it might be possible to raise $250-500M towards the costs of a $600-1000M expedition.

Is Elon Musk planning on being the 13th man on the moon?



[*] The Space Shuttle, with payload, outweighs the payload capacity of Falcon Heavy — but the Shuttle payload itself is much smaller. Besides, the Shuttle is an inelegant turkey designed by a committee and it's going to die. So there.