Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to The flaw in that argument

re: The flaw in that argument

"NEOs (all of them) are in a Solar orbit and not exactly the same as Earth's solar orbit."

Or said differently if they are in Earth's solar orbit, they will be moons of the Earth [in some kind of resonance orbit] or they would have somehow been moved in this orbit recently and will only stay in the orbit for a short duration [decades or hundreds of years into until such time as Earth's gravity throws it out of Earth orbit or it hits the Moon or Earth]. Resonance orbit such as:
"The near-Earth asteroid 3753 Cruithne is now known to be a companion, and an unusual one, of the Earth. This asteroid shares the Earth's orbit, its motion "choreographed" in such a way as to remain stable and avoid colliding with our planet."
http://www.astro.uwo.ca/~wiegert/3753/3753.html
There could, of course, be others:
"(2003 Jan 23) There is now one more near-Earth asteroid known to be in a resonant states similar to that of Cruithne, asteroid 2002 AA29. There are also at least three others; we are currently in the process of preparing these results for publishing. Look for more information on these new asteroids soon."
Same reference.

So, these would probably be very low in terms of delta-v from Earth- but one still does have the problem of them spending a lot of time at a large distances from Earth.

"The closest NEO will take months to reach and get back from and the time it will take will considerably increase the spacecraft's mass, making the Moon much more easily accessible."

Also in terms of market, with the Moon, one can sell some of your product locally. This gets to one aspect of the Moon being a destination. One goes to the Moon to make rocket fuel- you can use that rocket fuel for your purposes, but you also sell that rocket fuel at the lunar surface to other parties which are doing something else on the Lunar surface [such as bringing tourists there].
The Moon also sits at a hub in terms of travel to other parts of the Solar system from and to Earth. Both in the sense of more conventional means of travel using the Moon as gravity slingshot and in sense of the L-points and interplanetary superhighway:

"The Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN)[1] is a collection of gravitationally determined pathways through the solar system that require very little energy for an object to follow."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network

The Interplanetary Superhighway will probably be more significant for cargo type transport [moving millions of tons of something].

"The point is: the Moon leaves a choice about how long and how much a Moonbound spacecraft can accomplish. That freedom is far narrower once we leave the Earth-Moon system for NEOs."

Yes that true. Or one could also say that time is money- even for NASA.

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