Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Are you off your meds, David? First you question the science utility of
a human return to the moon, where humans can actually explore the
surface to a level of detail that no robot could possibly match,

That is true. And that appeals to Dr. Schmidt and... ?

then
you post this nonsense about sending humans past Venus just so you could

Actually to orbit Venus for a few months, dropping probes, placing satellites
in orbit around it, maybe doing atmospheric sample returns, etc. A Venus orbital
exploration mission would be a great warm-up for a Mars mission.
As you said small steps. We could do all that with a traveling space habitat.
Try to do that with Constellation.

drop probes into its atmosphere - something you could just as easily do
without sending humans (see Pioneer Venus)?

The same can be said for Mars. I think there is a lot more do be done with
robotic probes to Mars as well. I'm not a big fan of MRL either. I think
we're spending too much for too little in return, but that's another discussion.

Venus has an atmosphere that has "global warming" run amok. There might be
some useful science to be done there with Earth application. The moon offers
us... ?

But putting all that aside, my actual point is a space habitat could travel.

I don't see why we need to jump down the gravity well of the moon just to
establish how to do long endurance space living. The ISS is a start. But
then it looks to me like from a policy perspective I don't know what the plan is
after shuttle. A few Orion visits? Then what? We leave it to focus on the
moon? Why?

The space habitat would need to be able to do two things:

1) Be able to be self-sufficient in terms of life support and energy
production.

2) Be able to support orbital operations for ground exploration.
If you park such a thing in lunar orbit, you are only hours away
from lunar rescue (surface to orbit) not 3 days. Landers need ferry
only between lunar surface and orbit, and need not come all the way
from the Earth's surface (every time).

A traveling space habitat would better support exploration of the moon
as well as accomplish exploration of nearby planets Venus and Mars with
one infrastructure investment. We would not have to go to all the expense
of Constellation just to replace it with what would be necessary to do
interplanetary exploration later.

We will not have to abandon the hardware left behind on the moon when
Constellation reaches end-of-life.

It does not over-focus us on the moon to the exclusion of all else.
Assuming there even is any interest in a return to the moon, what
happens when the public looses interest (again) in moon exploits?

I think Constellation is a great project to be conducted by the private
sector, esp. if we discover something on the moon worth mining, or a
moon-base in support of building SPS's. At least that's some form of
engineering I can understand. I don't see what a moon base long term
provides us in terms of important science outside of geology (maybe).
Dr. Schmidt aside, the Earth seems a far more interesting geologically
speaking, as does Io.

A space habitat could be built in LEO, travel out to the moon or elsewhere
and then return to LEO, where it would remain accessible even after a US
moon program is abandoned. We could park it near the ISS. In fact the ISS
would serve as a good construction site for the traveling habitat.

The space habitat need only support a crew of the size needed to accomplish
a mission. Maybe 6 people. I'm not talking about an O'Neill space colony.
Something far, far smaller. But it would share the goal of self-sufficiency.

A space habitat would teach us how to ween ourselves from 'mission control'.
From LEO the risk of doing this "education" is minimized.

Human exploration of our nearby planetary neighbors has not been done.
The novelty factor is important in the minds' eye of the public. The public
does not "get" Apollo 2.0.

In a way, it doesn't really matter if I'm right or wrong. The science seems
to dictate that a traveling space habitat approach will be the only way to
do manned exploration of Mars. It will be necessary to get there, and if its
not to be a one-way trip, it will be necessary to have in order to get back.

If we don't get it, our great-grandchildren will.

Dave