As for his amateur status and the $12,000 figure, I doubt that Mr. Tucker would be willing to build all 16 copies of his telescope for free.

Thus it would seem to me that the figure you arrived at for total system cost does not include the salaries of the skilled astronomical instrument engineers needed to construct each instrument.

I also doubt if your inference drawn from your experiences with chemical instrument technicians in the chemical industry is really valid when applied to astronomy. Clearly Mr. Tucker not only built his system, but he also operated it. Your cost figure also fails to include the salaries of the observors.

As for the number of square degrees of sky covered, I don't know if your assumptions underlying your extrapolations of 12 degress per hour to a nightly or to monthly levels are really valid. The system may require darkness only available for an hour per night, and then only on the darkest of nights.

The limiting light sensitivity of the system is stated as 20.5,while the professionals have estimated that a sensitivity of 24 - 24.5 is really needed for an adequate search. Thus it would seem, given the number of potential impactors missed at this lower capability, that the system is seriously flawed as a method of dealing with the hazard on a national basis.

As for the "goofiness" of the Space Frountier foundation, "goofiness" is relative. I suppose you would be amazed to learn how many people actually think that amateur efforts can be an adequate substitute for govnerment funded impactor search programs.

ep