fr1t2 said:
We think that gently dropping the payload just prior to landing would be more cost effective, in that the decent vehicle would get a bit of a slingshot back into lunar orbit to await it's next mission, and the payload would remain relatively unharmed.
What slingshot? Certainly not the Oberth effect. You have to kill almost all of your velocity to make that landing soft, and that kills the Oberth effect. Certainly not a gravity slingshot, either. The same applies to gravity slingshots.
Regarding the payload remaining relatively unharmed, cut both the bottom and top off of a steel food can. If you stand the can upright, you can stand on it. That's the strength of columns at work. If you lay the can sideways, it doesn't take much weight at all to crush it. That's the weakness of open-ended cylinders to radial stresses at work. I'm assuming that that is essentially your payload. Those spent second/third stages in low Earth orbit were subject to strong axial stresses, some hoop stress, but very little radial stress. The strength of columns plays very nicely with these kinds of stresses. Unless you kill almost all of the horizontal velocity, you soft landing will most likely result in a crushed payload.
The nation states ARE the investors, as well as the clients. Spreading the cost over a wider base so no one bears the cost alone.
Now you're getting into politics.
I think you need to rethink your idea.
The key players, the US and Russia, they won't want to play with you. They've both seen too many companies with grandiose ideas start and fail. They do occasionally fund them, but in small dribs and drabs. You need massive amounts of funding for your dream to take hold. Massive amounts of funding typically go to NASA's or Roscosmos' overly expensive large aerospace contractors. The American and Russian politicians who fund those space agencies very much like this arrangement. ESA -- they won't want to play with you, either. They prefer to use their overly expensive large European aerospace contractors. The EU politicians who fund ESA like this kind of arrangement just as much as do their American and Russian counterparts. The two up-and-coming nations in space exploration, China and India, both have huge amounts of national pride. Unless you're from China or India, they won't want to play with you, either. (Also keep in mind that the Chinese invented bureaucracy thousands of years ago.) That doesn't leave you with much.
This may be the hardest part. Getting them all to think globally without prejudice for their fellow space farers.
I am getting the idea that you are young dreamers who don't know much about business, politics, engineering, and maybe not even orbital mechanics. It's good to be a dreamer when you're young. But you need to channel that against reality. You need huge amounts of backing for what you propose.
If you really want to do something like this, think along the lines of Elon Musk. Make a small fortune somewhere (not space). Then turn that small fortune into a huge fortune somewhere else (again, not space). You won't need that huge fortune for your personal needs; a medium-sized one will suffice just fine. You can turn that huge fortune into a medium-sized one by starting your own NewSpace startup. Maybe, just maybe, you'll turn that medium-sized fortune you have left into a gargantuan one.
Learn about business and politics along the way; Musk certainly did. His business acumen has resulted in teams of fantastically qualified people at SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and SolarCity. He plays politicians as if they are finely-tuned instruments and he is the conductor. (Note well: I am not deriding Musk. Not at all. He is extremely savvy, extremely forward-looking, and extremely smart.)
