Hi Ken –

Thanks for the reply. I am going to cover a part of it now, and part later –

Top problem with the Moon is dust – the only way to handle it is with electrostatic collection, but the open question is whehter this would work. A small experiment is needed for this immediately...

If electrostatic collection of dust can not be made to work, then space telescopes based at other points will have to be used…

“Put it on the equator and you'll see the whole sky, but that's the hardest kind of base to support because of the two-week effect. Put it at the pole and you've got near-continuous power, stable temps, and cryogenic craters, but which half of the sky do you want to see, or do you have to support two bases? “

You’re thinking in terms of a “base”, where what is needed the ability to service the observational facilities wherever they are located on the Moon, viz,

http://www.geocities.com/epgrondine

for the types of vehicles needed and their use.

“Well tough, we can't afford a Moon base right now, and we can't afford a jaunt to Mars. We can afford to have an orbital maneuvering vehicle, we can afford to go out beyond LEO and the cocoon of the Van Allen belts for a trip to EML-1, we can afford a small spectral telescope array to put at EML-1 (designed to be serviced and upgraded), and it can all be done from the ISS, and if our resources are deployed reasonably well, it can be done in the 2010-2015 time frame. That time frame is far closer than we realize, and a lack of focus and direction in our space efforts is squandering our resources and wasting what we've learned.”

Actually, this depends on who the “We” is. The best architecture I could figure out differs from that of Mazanek, as it has foreign participation:

http://www.geocities.com/epgrondine

Better yet, this architecture does not put any one nation in the “critical path”. For example, if need be it could be done by Japan, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, China, and/or others, with absolutely no US participation at all.

“WE CAN AFFORD A SMALL SPECTRAL TELESCOPE ARRAY TO PUT AT EML-1 (DESIGNED TO BE SERVICED AND UPGRADED)”

NASA gets $14,000-15,000 million per year, and spends maybe around $4 million of these millions actually trying to find the next one of these things before it hits us.

“I also note that in the November 2003 issue of Discover magazine Ed Weiler is recognized for his work with the Hubble. He notes that Hubble manages to do science nearly 50% of the time, making it one of the most efficient telescopes ever.”

Cosmologists giving someone who provides them with toys an award. Most of the NEO astronomers would like to give Ed a foot up his… 80-120 hour work weeks, no staff, etc…

“Of course the science community cherry picks its data, and there could be a good deal of resource misallocation in the form of intellectual knowledge versus practical (and likely relevant) knowledge all so that papers can be published on esoteric topics”

BINGO – nuclear physics for defense purposes drove the astronomical budgets, which meant a heavy emphasis on cosmology – and now these folks have control of the budgets. I tend to think of the impact astronomers as being forced to ride at the back of the bus…

“ I do remember the RASC concept from last year, though, and have seen the pretty graphics (I'll bet those cost a pretty penny in cost allocation accounting).”

Nah, in terms of total NASA graphics the cost for these was zip.

“The Baseline Detection Concept for CAPS advocates:

1) High-res telescopes w/advanced detector arrays
2) Coordinated telescope control for NEO surveying and tracking (I assume that means multiple telescopes)
3) rapid spectral imaging for NEO identification and characterization
4) Interferometric techniques to obtain precision orbit determination when required
to this list I would add
A) Rapid slewing ability to acquire sudden objects of interest (i.e. Gamma Ray Bursts or novas)
B) Full spectrum analysis as quickly as possible. “

Your list leaves off Moon based Lidar – the small ones ( the ones most likely to strike next) are so damn small and dark the only way to see them is to “paint them” - and for that you need power

“I would give an EML-1 #s 1, 3, A, and B.”

B? No, your accurate positioning is better for Moon based scopes – and accurate positioning is essential here.

“The authors argue that propulsion system would be required which consumes propellant and introduces disturbances into the system that may take a long time to damp out.

My reply to that is that the Hubble Space Telescope has served us faithfully and well for quite a while now, and look what that goes through. “

Actually, Hubble has very little movement compared with impactor detection telescopes -

“It's far harder to quantify the value that's been returned by the (Hubble) human-tended and upgraded scope.”

It is important to remember that Hubble is human tended – you have to count total life cycle operational costs for the impactor detection system, so that’s another reason for the Moon.

“I believe that we are going to find out some REALLY interesting stuff about these objects once we're free of the spectral blanket of the Earth's atmosphere.”

Like terrestrial planets and/or intelligent communication signals? Yeah, of course you could do all that really well from the Moon – but remember Congress spiked NASA’s SETI budget about 13 years ago and no one seems to be in a rush to restore it

More later...
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