USA Today (Oberg): “Think outside moon-Mars box: Maybe visit asteroid”

"Mike Combs" wrote in message ...
"Hop David" wrote

JimO wrote:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...14-oberg_x.htm

By James Oberg

I want USA Today to publish this on their front page.

Hear, hear. What I'm about to say is heresy in much of the space advocacy
community, but I think asteroids have more to do with our future in space
than does Mars.

My choice of destinations would be:

1. NEOs
2. Moon
a distant
3. Mars

1. or 2. should give us space access and the capability to manage
Asteroid threats - and to go to Mars with real purpose.
3. Will give us uninterrupted live coverage of a couple of guys on a
strange landscape.


--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We should ask, critically and with appeal to the numbers, whether the
best site for a growing advancing industrial society is Earth, the
Moon, Mars, some other planet, or somewhere else entirely.
Surprisingly, the answer will be inescapable - the best site is
"somewhere else entirely."

Gerard O'Neill - "The High Frontier"

"JimO" wrote in message ...
USA Today (Oberg): ?Think outside moon-Mars box: Maybe visit asteroid?

How about "Think outside NASA-BoeMart box" ?

-kert

In article ,
"Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx wrote:

"JimO" wrote in message
...
USA Today (Oberg): "Think outside moon-Mars box: Maybe visit asteroid"

Asteroid? That'll never happen. A moon has much more clout than some rock
flying through space, even if it's more challenging. It's a psychological
kind of thing.

"The White House plan, detailed in internal documents, also
mentions the possibility of sending humans to asteroids or
moons of Jupiter."
--http://www.space.com/news/bush_science_040114.html

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

Stephen Souter wrote:
"The White House plan, detailed in internal documents, also
mentions the possibility of sending humans to asteroids or moons of
Jupiter."
--http://www.space.com/news/bush_science_040114.html

Europa! By robot or by manned mission, we really need to find out if
anything lives in that sea.

--
Tony Sivori

In article ,
Tony Sivori wrote:

Stephen Souter wrote:
"The White House plan, detailed in internal documents, also
mentions the possibility of sending humans to asteroids or moons of
Jupiter."
--http://www.space.com/news/bush_science_040114.html

Europa! By robot or by manned mission, we really need to find out if
anything lives in that sea.

Probably not Europa (unless they could burrow in under the ice). At
least at first. Or Io or Ganymede. But Callisto, as I understand it, is
far enough outside the Jovian radiation belts for humans to survive; and
it could be used as a forward base.

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

Stephen Souter wrote:

In article ,
Tony Sivori wrote:


Stephen Souter wrote:

"The White House plan, detailed in internal documents, also
mentions the possibility of sending humans to asteroids or moons of
Jupiter."
--http://www.space.com/news/bush_science_040114.html

Europa! By robot or by manned mission, we really need to find out if
anything lives in that sea.


Probably not Europa (unless they could burrow in under the ice). At
least at first. Or Io or Ganymede. But Callisto, as I understand it, is
far enough outside the Jovian radiation belts for humans to survive; and
it could be used as a forward base.


IF you can get an unmanned probe to Europa...and find even primitive
life...it justifies NASA's mission. If you find weird cool multicellular
lifeforms not existant on earth(Europan jellyfish style animals,etc)
....you can write your own check.

"stephen voss" wrote

IF you can get an unmanned probe to Europa...and find even primitive
life...it justifies NASA's mission. If you find weird cool multicellular
lifeforms not existant on earth(Europan jellyfish style animals,etc)
...you can write your own check.

I think there's been a **sponge** photographed on Mars by Spirit. Looks a
bit dangerous, too:

http://www.hal-pc.org/~jsb/Marsponge.jpg

Jon

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:05:22 -0600, Jon Berndt wrote:



I think there's been a **sponge** photographed on Mars by Spirit. Looks a
bit dangerous, too:

http://www.hal-pc.org/~jsb/Marsponge.jpg

Jon

Dangerous? I would have thought insane was a better adjective.

:-)

"Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx wrote in message .. .
"JimO" wrote in message
...
USA Today (Oberg): "Think outside moon-Mars box: Maybe visit asteroid"

Asteroid? That'll never happen. A moon has much more clout than some rock
flying through space, even if it's more challenging. It's a psychological
kind of thing.

If we have to deflect a planet killing asteroid, a lot is not known
about the physical composition of those dudes.
A mission to one of those guys would gain us a lot of knowledge ,
might cost less, (sure less delta v), and be a great precursor for
moving on to the Moon and Mars.

(Kaido Kert) wrote in message . com...
"JimO" wrote in message ...
USA Today (Oberg): ?Think outside moon-Mars box: Maybe visit asteroid?

How about "Think outside NASA-BoeMart box" ?

-kert

I totally and absolutely agree, that we should be applying
interplanetary communications, as in to/from Venus. Then onto
establishing the LSE-CM/ISS.

Unfortunately, this following rant isn't "Onion" class fiction, nor is
it MSNBC certified for prime time, though it's perhaps our best ever
science future, or at the very least it's offering a whole lot more
truth and honesty of worthy substance than you'll discover elsewhere.
At least I don't have to impose any "so what's the difference" nor
skew my morals as based upon the sorts of toilet "high standards and
accountability" as those of our resident warlord.

"Moon Dirt isn't just Moon Dirt, it's absolutely Everything Dirt"

Even though water might become a nice sort of lunar attribute to
discover, but it's the moon dirt that's invaluable for the survival of
humanity, as well as for the future of survivable space explorations.

The one absolute thing we can do efficiently from Earth, on behalf of
the moon, is exporting of water to the moon. With few individuals
needed on the surface or within the LSE-CM/ISS, water is not a
problem, especially with Earth's global warming ongoing and entirely
unchecked and only getting itself worse off, thus we've got way too
much water. Exporting it as slush hydrogen and/or h2o2 is simply an
alternative, whereas accommodating plain old h2o can be cheaply
delivered via robotic landers with absolutely no fear of losing
another astronaut nor chancing any contamination of the moon should
something go terribly wrong.

I have absolutely no doubts that once upon a time Mars had a
sufficient atmosphere, and surface water, thereby a warmer and
radiation protected environment, possibly even long enough to have
sustained either natural evolution and/or of some well intended
terraforming on behalf of establishing some life similar to human.

Unfortunately, there are certain limits to which life and of it's
DNA/RNA as we know it can coexist within the confines of what Mars has
had to offer for the past few thousand years, and certainly things are
not getting any better. Whereas Venus still offers a survivable
atmospheric buffer zone that's also loaded with all sorts of natural
energy opportunities.

The more the Mars core cools itself off, the worse becomes any
opportunity for that planet to revive itself, short of receiving a
massive infusion of artificial energy, such as what 1000 terawatts per
year as derived from our lunar He3 might have to offer.

The moon may have never sustained life, but it may have provided
itself as a truly long-range capable transporter and/or transponder of
life, even of life as we know it.

Some good readings: SADDAM HUSSEIN and The SAND PIRATES
http://mittymax.com/Archive/0085-Sad...andPirates.htm

The latest insults to this Mars/Moon injury:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-moon-02.htm

Some other recent updates:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-gwb-moon.htm

http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-interplanetary.htm

http://guthvenus.tripod.com/moon-04.htm