Ed Wrote: You have often spoken about the common need by both Moon based astronomy as well as manned Mars flight for heavy lift launch vehicles.

This is simply not true, as Moon based man tended NEO astronomy can be done with current medium lift launchers.

Chris writes: It is not true depending on architecture a manned Mars mission can use orbital assembly and thus existing launch systems. This could in the long run be cheaper than a HLV with it's possible development costs and all the political hurdles. It would solve several unaddressed problems in Mars Direct and the NASA Reference mission architecture.

Ed Wrote: It is also true that manned space flight requires more than just launchers, there is an entire technological infrastructure that is required.

Chris writes: Yes this is one of the parallels if done right that exist in either a Moonbase or Mars mission.

Ed wrote: The general public (about 6 out 7) do not want to spend money to send men to Mars right now, however low your imaginary costs. After the next series of Mars probes return their results, even fewer of them will want to spend money on it.

Chris writes: As I've pointed out before you are delusional here. You can't add two different polling answers to come up with your own answer. Besides each time a poll is taken the answer will be different slightly depending on the circumstances surrounding the poll. I'm willing to bet if you ask people: "do you fell safe in American?" to a thousand people on 9/10/01. They would have in the vast majority answered "yes", but on 9/12/01 they would have answered "no", what a difference a couple of days make!

Ed wrote: They do expect NASA to deal with the NEO hazard, and are willing to pay for it.

Chris writes: Wrong they don't care one bit till an rock hits them on the head!

Ed wrote: You can try to avoid this reality by participating in these little circle jerks the Mars Nuts here enjoy so much.

Chris writes: Who is avoiding reality, Ed? You the one imagining others jerking off all the time. Have a sexual problem? We will successed and you will fail. No, Monnbase to spot asteroids is going to built for billions of dollars while as you yourself have pointed out Comets (which by our Moonbase desiger's own words wouldn't spot Comets) are the bigger danger! Besides non of this gets us protection. Detection by itself is usless!

Ed wrote: But that will not change the reality, which is you can either support man tended Moon based NEO detection, or you can watch your manned Mars flight infrastructure disappear.

Is that clear?

Chris writes: Oh yes it's clear. You are desperate and socially dysfunctional is all. You don't insult those who could help you reach your goal and you have constantly insulted us Space fans, Mars fans and Moon fans alike. You are clueless and have no support here or anywhere! I knew the time you called the Mars Society a "Cargo Cult" you didn't have a firm grasp on reality. In college I've studied these cults ethnography in detail and you don't have a clue why they did what they did. You have only picked up on the media's perception of what was the reasoning behind their fake cargo ships , control shacks, airstrips and planes. Cargo Cults have a long history and a great many varied reasons for doing this totems and artifacts. Non of which were to write scientific articles for peer review. Nor was it to figure out how to best design their fake radio shacks to be applied to real radio shacks!