Re: Sale on Continents - going fast!
You have not missed anything. Real astronomers have proposed 8 meter Earth based scopes and adding asteroid detection to space based scopes. EP is not an astronomer. His lack of confidence in space scopes is somewhat perplexing given the large number of them launched over the years and the number of discoveries they have made. The idea that space based scopes would cost more than a man tended Lunar one is preposterous. Hubble cost only a few billion (and for that matter is man tended to some degree). 4 or 5 shuttle flights cost that much.
Regards,
Mark