Flame — HabitableZone

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EP's Man tended obsession
Doug Ellison — (archived)

Eddie - you're clearly obsessed about putting a man tended observatory on the moon for searching for potentially haz. objects.

Now - not once have you actually given a reason why

a) such a facility should be on the moon

b) why it must be man tended.

You've specified that a lunar TPF is what you base the principle on, but you've failed to explain why. Finding planets around distant stars is a different game to finding local objects. You're asking for a toffee hammer when you need a wrecking ball.

For finding feint local objects - you need three things. A huge mirror, a huge FOV and a huge CCD.

None of those require being on the moon. Infact - in terms of financial return - it would be far FAR better to have multiple scopes on the ground here on earth - than in orbit or on the moon.

I can, perhaps, see a case for putting such a facility in an earth trailing orbit to allow for near full sky observations without the seasonal restrictions of earth and the atmospheric churning. But remember - we dont need fine resolving power - we need a big, fat photon bucket.

You criticise many for being Mars nuts ( with no real reason imho ) - but you're guilty of being a Moon nut and for the life of me cant figure out why.

Doug

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