Yeah, Joe2700, I concur with you about Gump and the LunaCorp scheme exactly -

Their original scheme had the Moon, an amusement park, and people willing to take a chance to get an opportunity to drive a rover - too much capital expense, too little market -

at the time, the internet was not available for distribution of images from the Moon or Mars - which is the way to go now - nor was the internet available for general data transfer

That said, at that time, if instead of building an amusement park, LunaCorp had proposed using existing science museums, and what large image projectors were available at the time, then the whole thing could have been in the black - especially given the low costs due to the depressed ruble - by transfering the "show" from museum to museum - pay your $5 buck admission (1992 or so), and be the first to see a new part of another planet -

no doubt Mars is more interesting, concur 100% there - hell, I'd rather look at Mars myself than the Moon, which looks like plaster of paris, and I'm with the Lunar Underground - the only hitch is the long travel time, which ties up your capital for a longer period - carrying costs - another problem with Mars at that time was simply demonstrating the concept, which is why it might have made sense to use the Moon first - 4 days instead of umpteen months - this was long before Pathfinder -

I think the lowest price, Russian raw launch and rover, costs are about $43 million now, and then there's antenna time and servers and distribution lines - the question right now is how long the general public demand for images from the Mars Exploration Rovers holds - JPL's images are free, so its rough to get a demand - and insurance, or the right kind of agreement, etc., and the right person to set it up and negotiate -

It's too bad Anderson didn't fall in with Gump - like I said, credit where credit is due, and I blame Tumlinson for wasting everyone's cash -

I suppose if the numbers still work, maybe someday some visionary will come along and pull it off - perhaps it will end up being one of the established amusement parks after all, or perhaps it wil be via the net -

once again, thanks for being so civil - I am really tired right now, and prone to mistakes -

ep