Exam Answers (for somewhat serious space readers)

Well. The Exam ended about two hours ago, it went well, I think.
Attached here are my exam questions and answers, we had to pick two out of three questions for a total mark of 50 points (he other 50 points come from 4 quizzes held during the core lecture section). Again, this is more of a documentation tool rather then a blog entry, I really hope to spend a few good hours bloging some ideas tomorrow.

Question 1 
Discuss the issues associated with a oneway human Mars mission. (a) How would you design this mission? (b) How would you select the crew? (c) What are the ethical issues? (d) How will you pay for this? and (e) What are the legal and policy issues? (Each is worth 5 points).

Question 2
You and some of your classmates at ISU SSP 14 decide to start a suborbital commercial spaceflight company. Discuss five (5) important issues that you must address in your business plan (each is worth 5 points).
Answer 2
When writing a business plan for a suborbital spaceflight company the important issues that must be addressed include (1) the services that the company will provide, (2) the time frame to become operational, (3) the project’s budget, (4) the technologies that will be used and (5) the project’s overall feasibility.
As we've been told many times during this SSP the only part of a business plan that will be read and examined is the executive summary. And, in my opinion, the first thing that this executive summary should address is what are we planning to do. The summary needs to start with a brief explanation of what services this new project supplies (transport/tourism/science/dual-use), to whom the services are supplied (private people/companies/governments), where they are supplied (globally/locally, where) and in what time intervals (frequency, duration and preparation time). When presenting the services, the business plan should also present what similar (Virgin/Zero2Inf/...) services are provided and prove that the new project will be able to compete with/complement them.
A project schedule estimation should be presented, when will the design and engineering start and finish, when will the testing begin and be completed, when will the project be operational, when will the investment be returned and profit will be made.
The project’s budget is also required, its funding sources the overall estimated cost and the cost for each phase should be discussed. Possible funding options that can be addressed are government support, space angels and competitions or even crowd-sourcing.
The business plan should include the type of technologies that are planned to be used in the project. It should mention if they are existing technologies or novel ideas that need to be developed. Intellectual properties issues (existing and future) are needed to be discussed. Any legal restrictions on the technologies should also be addressed (dual-use\environmental).
The project overall feasibility is also an important part. Although it could sometimes inhibit potential partners/investors, it will identify the weak links in the project chain and address how these issue will be prevented or solved. A discussion on the risks will also present the project proposers as reasonable dreamers and not a bunch of phoney futurists (which weren't educated by Jim Dator).
I must mention that after writing this business plan plan, I see that it is a generic plan for any type of space, technological or novel business idea. Which makes sense, because just like our TPs the ‘how’ (to present) is more or less always the same, just the ‘what’ (is presented) changes.

Question 3
You are working in a New Space company planning to send a robotic mission to the Moon for assessing the feasibility of mining in-situ resources. Discuss: (a) the technical; (b) legal; (c) financial; (d) scientific; and (e) ethical aspects of this project (each is worth 5 points).
Answer 3
When planning a robotic moon mining feasibility mission you should address all project aspects.
The scientific aspects should address the science that is known about the moon mission and what scientific questions the mission requests to answer. A work area should be decided (dark side or facing Earth, in\out creator shade, what materials are in the area) and mission’s environment should be presented (radiation, regolith, topography). The research gathering methods should be designed together with the engineering (remote sensing\drilling\explosions) as well as the research processing methods (mainly onboard robot or back to Earth specimens).
The scientific aspect will provide guidelines for the technological issues of the project. The main design questions that must be answered are type of power source (affected by location of mission and duration of the mission), number and type spacecraft(+robot) stages (one way trip or round trip), type of tools that will be used (for science gathering and technology demonstrating), spacecraft(+robot) required robustness (derived from mission duration, mission environment, redundancy (more than on robot\spacecraft)).
The answers to the science and technological questions will be the basis of the a financial plan. A feasibility mission is not profitable by nature and the first financing issue will be “who’s paying?”. Companies that have an interest in Moon resources might not haste to fund such a high risk-high cost-low profit mission and would seek for financial aid from governments. This project might also be suggested, performed and/or funded by space agencies to present the financial opportunities in Moon mining. Other financial issue are the cost estimates of the project and the possible spinoffs that might be created as business opportunities (maybe even covering some of the costs).
The first legal issue that might arise is the legality of Moon manipulating (mining), on Earth commercial mining is a local scale environmental changer (shaving mountains and producing many tons of waste). If such methods are used on the Moon the legal rights to do so should be addressed. This is also an ethical issue, why does a (usually) commercial Earth interest have the right to alter other environments. Multiple claims for a certain resource on the Moon might lead to legal and political dispute, this, again has ethical aspects that address a possible conflict in space (by robots?!?! scary… Jim Dator is probably there right now with two machine guns). Another legal issue is the legal rights on the new science found in the mission and its accessibility to the whole scientific and mining communities (public knowledge vs. commercial IP). The legality and (in some sense) ethics that deal with Moon mining are addressed by COPOUS’s Moon treaty, it requests that outer-Earth resources would be used wisely for the good of all mankind and without terrestrial political conflicts. The treaty has only been ratified by a small number of countries, none of which are major space players.