--Besides the dust, you have to look at rocket exhaust – but at least on the Moon, you have the Moon itself for a “sink”, whereas at EML the only “sink” available would be the telescopes themselves, and THEIR OPTICS. Normal electrostatic charging by sunlight and normal solar wind charging virtually ensures that both would get fouled at EML. On the Moon, we can set up an electrostatic dust control system.--

My thinking was that the solar wind may actually help in that regard, blowing away the leaked gasses. I don't know, we don't really have a whole lot of experience out past LEO and the cocoon of the magnetosphere and Van Allen belts. Besides, at a crewed station you can send someone out with a big giant Lens Pen to clean off any optics. An instrument can be unbolted, brought inside, properly discharged, sensors cleaned, and then reinstalled outside.

As I think you and I both agree on, machines keep humans around to fix them when they break.

--Great summary, Ken, but you have to add into this mess the particularly vicious tactics some of the “Mars Enthusiasts” have used over the last several years.--

Well, I think their numbers have stabilised a bit. There was a quick run up in membership after Pathfinder amongst the most interested, but eventually the audience becomes too broad too increase numbers too much without diluting the message. Some have compared some Mars enthusiasts to fervored extremists. A bit of a stretch, but the word fervor does capture some of the essence of it.

I think a certain fear of the mission not happening before the public loses enough interest for funding to whither away has driven some of their tactics.

The policy of Mars uber alles alienates constituencies that may provide cash flows. Sort of like what you're doing with deep space astronomers. One gets the feeling that any consensus is fine so long as it's the Mars consensus. Everything's fine so long as you focus. Don't worry, we're smart, we'll tell you what to think. Just don't look behind that curtain, unorthodox thinking isn't good for you.

--Nice thing about man tended Moon based facilities is that the other countries on this "globe" of ours can pick up their share of the cost--

Abso-freakin'-lutely. I've always thought of this globally. Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are all curious about solar power and its capability to spot beam power to a large number of locations, i.e. lots and lots of islands.

A recent Economist article estimated that one result of OPEC's policies over the years have resulted in a $7.0Tn artificial transfer of wealth to oil producing countries.

They've got a lot of capital invested around the world. They know the grim fact that while we may now have more "proven" reserves than ever before, we've picked all the low-hanging fruit, and it will be increasingly expensive, both energy and money-wise, to extract it.

It behooves those oil-producing countries, in the name of their childrens' legacy, to ensure that the infrastructure is put in place to replace oil.

If we'd known 150 years ago of the incredible trillions that would have to be invested in the oil economy, our forefathers would have freaked out and likely never undertaken it; there's no way they could have imagined the incredible wealth that that accrued thereto. Except for Jules Verne.

--Yeah, with 25% of power coming from nuclear plants that are ending their lifetimes, and no one able to co-ordinate the needed improvements in transmission lines - and the trucking industry stopping high speed piggy back service, and the airlines working against high speed inter city rail, and the rising price of gas leading to insufficient funding of bridge repair, and on one wanting more highways next to them, (look at the mess with the Potomac River bridges) but at the same time everyone demanding adequate roads.--

Yeah, but we all know there's an answer.

--Expected fatilities due to starvation through climatic collapse via cometary dust loading could be set minmally at about 1,000,000,000 people. Expected fatalities due to impact mega-tsunami could be set at around 70,000,000 people. The units in this estimates here are "people".--

Yeah, but what we were talking about was the odds of something actually arriving and smacking us. We can make guesstimates, but in the end they're guesses, even if educated ones. We've done some preliminary research, I think that preliminary research says "Yes, this is definitely something worth paying more attention to".

--Hubble has required what, 5 trips, 5 shuttle launches, just for that simple system? What is needed for impactor detection is high precision rapid pointing, large CCDs, large power supplies, large computational capabilities, high bandwidth communications – too much for EML--

Yes, but it was a really good learning experience for us. I don't believe that it was a wasted capital investment. I've seen the payoff when I see the sparkle in a kid's eye when I give them a Hubble print. You've responded to my reference to the Discover article, you know what kind of workhorse the Hubble has been for the astronomical community, especially with regards to popularizing astronomical concepts.

>Now, if you design a vehicle that has a 6 km/s dV capability you can:
-get to GEO and back (LEO) from ISS
-service most MEO and HEO orbits (some LEO?)
-get to EML-1 and back.
-get from EML-1 to GEO and back
-get to the Moon's surface and back
-get to Mars (or anywhere else in deep space)
If you have fuel stockpiled/available at each of ISS, EML-1, and the Moon you only need 4 km/s dV capability to do all of the above.<

--This is what Mazanek called for his Moon based mission architecture – but I still like my architecture better.--

Well, I think the issue really is to start thinking in terms of capabilities instead of requirements. The Mars mission is designing to minimum dV requirements to save on fuel. It's not a question of what the craft is capable of, but rather what's the least we can give it to get us there. What you'll end up with is a vehicle that's really only good for going to Mars and back.

When you think in terms of capabilities, you can address multiple missions with the same vehicle. Rather than producing lots of different vehicles you're producing lots of the same vehicle. Economies of scale. Definitely a good thing.

--The big questions are water at the Moon’s poles, and then whether either cryogenic H/O or peroxide/alcohol fuel cycles offer advantages without constraints,
Otherwise, the cheap way to go is with hypergolics.--

Hey, I'm fine with an Al/O rocket engine. I know there's been some research in that regard. Whatever gives us the dV

>The planet hunters will probably be some of the easiest to sell on Lunar facilities.<

--Considering that the Congress killed NASA SETI moneys several years ago, I would not bring it up as a consideration.--

I mean the folks that are using the scopes right now to look for planets around other stars. Not the SETI folks, but the ones that look at the wobbles and red/blue-shifting in spectrum to try to figure out if there're planets traveling around it. A nice stable atmosphere-free platform like the Moon should be just right for their purposes.

<<Periodicity >Well, I'm figuring that they're going to have to actually go out and date real samples<

--This dating can be done robobtically, but right NOW we need to increase NASA crater counting money, for Chapman and group in Arizona – if they can’t do it fast alone, MIT, Princeton, or Carnegie Mellon AI image analyst teams should be brought in, perhaps via the net supporting all current NASA crater counting efforts--

A slight increase perhaps, but you know how I feel about statistical methods. Good, but I want ground truth.

--The cross counting for the different solar system bodies will allow the “planetary accretion” (impact) rate to be determined right fast--

Yeah, but that can come much later. I'm concerned primarily with the environment history of cislunar space. The rest can come later.

--Final point. If we could get NASA to sell one day exclusive data (image) rights for the 2 Mars Exploration Rovers to either NBC, CNN, Fox, ABC, or CBS (Viacom) media conglomerates, plus maybe limited overseas media conglomerates.--

I seriously doubt such a thing will ever happen. The better play is to auction off space for a camera on the next round of Mars ground probes. It would be a good thing if such a thing did happen, because at least the business and investment community would get a benchmark to value that sort of thing. It may turn out that a CD of sounds recorded on Mars could be a huge bestseller (file under "ambient new age").

Cheers,
Ken