On 10 Feb, 18:42, "Guy Fawkes"
wrote:
"Hop David" schreef in ...

Alex Terrell wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6324923.stm

I suppose this will worry the case for Mars activists. If this goes
ahead, people might think Phobos is a more useful piece of real estate
than Mars.

James Oberg has an article in this month's issue of Astronomy Magazine on
the Russian Fobos Grunt mission.

I would be very pleased to see both Phobos missions come to pass.

I, for one, wouldn't. It distracts from the real goal: landing a craft on
Mars and getting (part of) it back into orbit again, which would be a
prerequisite for landing humans on Mars. There's very little usefull science
to be gotten from Phobos (and Deimos) as they're merely two big captured
astroids.

Though since asteroids are far more useful long term than just another
planet, perhaps Phobos is more interesting than Mars.

Besides which, for any serious settlement of Mars, Phobos will be
essential. Also, learning how to land on Phobos and extracting water
would be much more valuable than learning how to suck up Martian CO2.