"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 04:18:48 GMT, "Mike Thomas" wrote:

Why don't they get their act together and send a craft there. Ceres has
been
around since the 60's at least in the
the anals of solar system astronomy. They screw around with comets and
such
but they don't send anything to the largest asteroid
known!! I remember seeing a representation of the size of ceres as a kid
in
the 60's and immediately was amazed by it.

While I'm all for sending missions to every interesting body in the
Solar System, I would hardly characterize missions to comets as
"screwing around". Arguably we have much more to learn from comets than
we do from asteroids. We already have asteroidal material, and we are
pretty sure that their formation mechanisms are not unlike the
terrestrial planets. Comets, on the other hand, have the potential of
providing information about the formation of the Solar System that can't
be obtained from any other source.


For a supposed "astromonomer" you sure have a horse blinder attitude