re: What Do You Mean By Earth Bound?
Ken wrote:
Most of the big orbital scopes you read about in the papers are not targeted for near-Sun work. They're Deep Space. Okay, but I'm a lot less interested in deep space than I am the layout of our local neighborhood. It really doesn't make sense to waste these magnificent tools on the study of nearby objects, so where does it make sense to put the kind of instruments that will take a long slow look at things nearby? How about the Moon? It's nearby, access will be convenient to a Moonbase, parts can be resupplied fairly readily, it can be expertly calibrated on site, and myriad other potential benefits.
Chris writes: There is no compelling reasons to setup a set of optical telescopes on the Moon as you your self pointed out SOHO has found comets and a good set of orbital scopes would serve better than a set of Lunar based scopes for several reasons.
First, the dust issue.
Second, we have currently no bases there.
Third, they wouldn't be near the bases and would require servicing making them possibly more expensive to operated than orbital scopes.
Fourth, the Moon itself is in the way of the surveying instruments making more than one a requirement foretimely completion of the task.
Dust will be a non issue at some point as we engineer around the problems caused by it and there will hopefully be bases on the Moon someday. But, I don't think we should wait for such things before starting a survey of small objects. Space based system could cover the whole sky in the time it would take to set up a single lunar base. I suspect they would also be cheaper to make and maintain.