Ken wrote: Un des peu des voix civiles dans cette discussion. C'est toujours un plaisir a discuter (au lieu de disputer) avec toi!

Chris writes: Yeah, you respect him because you agree with Raoul! Civil, huh! You try being civil to people who call you a circle jerks and a Mars nuts!

Ken wrote: There's nothing wrong with ESL-1 and 2 for asteroid detection, in fact it's probably a really good idea to have those locations covered as part of a network. By the same token, MSL-2 (Mars-Sun) would probably be a great spot for an asteroid belt watcher. We could even start getting good enough data to start trying to determine families and back-track to earlier, potentially larger objects (and determine whether there's periodicity in the break-up of those earlier objects, setting forth a timeframe of cosmic danger to the Solar System). Oooh, and a JSL-2 craft could watch the Kuiper Belt and Oort clouds for long-period comets (plus its on a low-energy trajectory from EML-1). and, and (see, this is why managers have to ride roughshod on engineers and scientists)

Chris writes: The Lagrange points are superior to the Moon for all kinds of reasons not least of which is the lack of a dust problem or the easy of resupply or the field of view or easy comms with Earth (L1)...

Ken wrote: -Going there is part of NASA's NExT plan (although the NExT plan couldn't figure out any really compelling reasons for going there, which is why it languishes in file cabinets)

Chris writes: Well they used NEO detection as one of the selling point for NExT.

Ken wrote: <<The >The Moon offers a wealth of industrial and scientific opportunities which are far too casually dismissed by, well, pretty much everyone. I'm not even going to get started 'cause there's not enough bandwidth for that spiel. But it does offer a lot more near- and medium-term utility for Earth than does Mars.

Chris writes: No, it does not. Without an infrastructure nothing in space offers anything of valve to Earth, period!

Ken writes: I often ask myself "Why do we spend soooo much money on terrestrial infrastructure for second-hand solar power?" The ONLY energy we get that is not is nuclear and geothermal. Everything else is a result of the Sun's energy, from wind and rain (for hydrothermal), to archaeophotosynthesis for petrochemicals and coal. So why don't we just go to the source and get free and unlimited solar energy en directe? Sure it will require a good bit of infrastructure, but think of the untold trillions that have been sunk over the last 150 years or so, worldwide, into the infrastructure that requires and operates on the internal combustion of fossil fuels.

Chris writes: Look at who has the money in the world and who is POTUS. Then get back to us on why we use oil.

Ken wrote: But the Moon offers vast resources that don't require us to tear apart our own planet, and will be effectively free after an infrastructure develops and scale is ramped up. Plus on the Moon there's just enough gravity to make the initial assembly of components easy, and also the benefit of vacuum for cold welding.

Chris writes: ...and plenty of dust and 14 days of dark a "day".

Ken wrote: From a strategic standpoint, once you get your power generation capabilities into space, they're much harder to tamper with, at least in the near-term.

Chris writes: and so much less likely to be repaired if you have launcher problems.

Ken wrote: My concern is that if the Chinese get to the Moon first they'll grab the prime real estate at the South Pole. While they can't claim sovereignty, by the same treaty once they have a base there it CANNOT be interfered with. First come, first served (The Chinese know this, too).

Chris writes: Ken it isn't going to happen. The Chinese have a very different agenda than you seem to think they have. They wanted to join a club. Not start a interplanetary war!

Ken wrote: <<Mars>
You know who I'd hate to be? The Captain that has to tell his crew on a Mars-bound voyage that oops, telemetry indicates the robotic factory that's been alone and untended on Mars for the last couple of years making our return fuel blew a gasket/got punctured by a micrometeoroid/wasn't serviced post-launch/whatever, and now all of our fuel is happily re-integrating into the rare Martian atmosphere. So our first job is to fix it and, well, it looks like we're going to be there a while.

Now that would really be a bummer.

Chris writes: Yes, well I think they would use the second operational unit placed 180 degrees from the first one.

You know who I would hate to be? The guy that tells the families of the tragedy on the Moon. When the gas all leaked out while they were asleep...and all the alarms failed to go off and the...oh wait that is some stupid Hollywood plot...

Ken wrote: My concern really, though, is an aerobraking maneuver (the crux of all the Martian dV arguments) with an object as large as one envisioned for a Mars mission. It's one thing to do it with a teensy, tiny little three-man capsule, quite another with a large lander. It could probably be done (I'd want a couple of dry runs first), but I just imagine that sort of thing giving senior management many, many gray hairs, because we certainly don't have a perfect record in that regard.

Chris writes: We don't have a prefect record in almost anything related to spaceflight. Each Apollo had a minor or major problem. But there would be several launches of automated equipment to Mars before any manned mission would even be started. And I think you exaggerated the fears. I've talked to a few folks in the business of modeling Mars' atmosphere and the big worry over all this is building a better model of it. This will happen long before we send any large equipment using areobraking.

Ken wrote: And again, what does it offer with regards to Earth-related benefits? If it's going to be a pain getting infrastructure to the Moon, it's certainly going to be a real pain getting it to Mars, and take a lot longer, too.

Chris writes: Depends on what you mean by benefits. The benefits I seek from Mars are a cultural gestalt not monetary. Maybe it is time to face a possible unpleasant truth. We are in an age of discovery and exploration with space not an age of commerce. Last time I checked...Amundsen didn't build a railroad to the south pole and nobody is complaining about it.

Ken wrote: Should we go there? Absolutely! I firmly believe the greater the variety and diversity of human culture the better. Thing is, a culture will also develop on the Moon. Perhaps not as "good" a culture as the one that will develop on Mars, but extant nonetheless. The Martian Culture argument doesn't hold water either.

Chris writes: Martian Culture? Are you talking about beer and yogurt?

Ken wrote: <<Search >
Of what utility will finding life on Mars be? I've never heard a compelling answer, and it seems like quite an expensive endeavour to satisfy curiosity.

Chris writes: I don't think you have listened then. Martian life if different from our answers some question and add tons more. If it is the same as ours ditto. It is important as evolution was or learning the Earth orbits the Sun. You didn't spend much time in biology?

Ken wrote: Personally, I have no doubt that life exists out there in some way, shape or form. If terrestrial bacteria can survive on the Moon then for crying out loud it makes sense that it's out there. My question is: "Why are we in such a hurry to find it RIGHT NOW?"

Chris writes: It isn't at all apparent that life is out there and the "hurry" is at best 20 years away...

Ken wrote: As I said, I'm waiting for the first pre-Solar System fossil. Now that will be really cool - far cooler than anything that could be found on Mars. Anything else will just confirm what I've long suspected, so why do we have to find out as quickly as possible?

Chris writes: If you think this fossil you look for is more important than finding current life on Mars or Europa or some place extra Earth...I would call you a bit clueless.

Ken wrote: I'd love to go to Mars, I'd just rather do it sensibly, as part of a long-term strategy to bring the benefits of and mitigate the dangers from space to Earth. That, at least, is something that I hope we could all agree on. To conquer the Solar System, in the words of Enjie Luan (from his verbal remarks to the SGF at UNISPACE III, that phrase is not in the printed copy that was handed out).

Chris writes: And I would love to go to the Moon just not on false pretenses and with no chance of making it be a permanent return. The odds against a large impactor hitting the Earth in the next 100 years is so great as to make lotto look like a good bet! I wouldn't pin hopes on the same star Ed does. No congress or sane POTUS will buy the poke without looking for the pig in it.