Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Please read carefully

cognitive dissonance
E.P. Grondine — (archived)

Hi Ken -

It's pretty pointless to "discuss" much of anything with these "Mars enthusiasts", as their mental functioning is severely impaired - not only do they not read, they don't understand, and they don't remember either...

The problem with free space based facilities is in total comparative costs, servicing, and capabliilties. The Russians proposed using 2 telescopes, one following the Earth along the path of Earth orbit, and one before it - and this might work for asteroids.

But the problem is finding comets and comet fragments on Earth impact course, and not finding asteroids: NASA management's comet impact risk estimates are as bad right now as their foam impact damage estimates were.

It was a comet, not an asteroid, which killed the dinosaurs, and we know this because a free flying fragment of it was recovered from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Unlike asteroids, these comets do not regularly fly by the Earth on human time scales, but instead just come in out of nowhere. Their fragments are relatively "dark". Altogether an observational nightmare.

These problems have all been examined in detail by a group of NASA engineers working down at Langley under Dr Mazanek (who gave evereyone who would listen an early warning on potential damage from the Columbia foam strike), and the bottom line is this: What a Moon based facility gives you is 6 more months to prevent the extinction of mankind, 6 months more than the 18 or so months provided by any other alternative.

How many months warning do you want for a dinosaur killer? How much time would you like those responding to have to deal with it? For the comet fragments, how many hours warning do you want? Enough for people to take shelter, to evacuate the impact area?

ep

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