Namely, we said we can't possibly pay people to do this. That's right, free. We said, ok, we'll ask the American technical community to volunteer its effort to put a Columbus anniversary settlement on the Moon. That's how the costs dropped from billions of dollars to a few hundred million. Perhaps the most daring, or depending upon your viewpoint, naive, aspect of Wood's plan is this use of volunteers.
Volunteers are interested in getting the job done.
By contrast, he adds. They're giant paycheck machines, whether it's NASA or the Air Force or the aerospace industry. The longer they run, and the more people they employ, the more money they make. With volunteers, Wood contends forcefully, the motivation for getting the job done quickly and efficiently would be high because they'd be working on their own time. And the motivation for quality would he high because no one would work on the project who was not a candidate to go on the mission.