Hi Raoul -

I have spent the past several days catching up on current events, as I have been quite distant from them for the last 2 months. Within the next few days I hope to stop looking at current events and to return there.

It is clear that the need for planetary protection against asteroid and comet impact is going to provide the basis for a new demand for space launches. This is already seen through the NASA comet and asteroid probes - funds spent so far amount to several hundreds of millions of dollars - in total the amount has to be someplace between $600,000,000 - $800,000,000, with launcher costs around half that.

The detailed physical analysis formed by Dr Mazanek and his team at NASA Langely has shown that man tended Moon based systems provide the best way of dealing with this hazard. The question is whether the hazard is severe enough to justify the expense. My estimate, based on events of the recent past, is that it is.

The only questions are when this will become obvious. Either the Cassini datasets will provide the basis for that, delivery by 2007, analysis by 2008, or a small impact will - remember these occur at rate of about 1 every 100 years.

I don't know if the US will be able to take the lead in the protection effort, or if it will be Russia with Europe and Japan, or if it will be China around 2030 or so.

The Shawnee have an interesting view of "current events". They observe that the United States has been around for only 228 years or so, and note that it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

ep