Re: ....Question? Have They Found a Reason to go 'To the Moon and Mars' Yet???


<Ordover@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1144697397.249839.316650@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1) Put sensor sats around, say, the top ten most interesting (by
whatever criteria) objects in the solar system. Modern sensor sats can
show and and sense a lot of stuff

2) If the sensor sats show anything particularly interesting, again, by
whatever criteria, send rovers down.

3) If the rovers see anything particular interesting by whatever
critieria - me, I'd like to see something walk by the camera - THEN
send a manned mission.

Moving from the general to the specific would always be necessary
anyway - a manned mission can learn a lot about a small area for a lot
of money, so you'll want to pick -just- the right area. I mean,
imagine spending all that money on a manned mission only to find out
the most interesting part of the planet is 250 miles away from the
landing site?

While at first glance this seems reasonable, I'd like to point out that we
don't have much experience with exploring other worlds. The moon has been
the only body in the solar system, besides the earth, that we've explored
with manned missions. So I think it's safe to say that you're going to want
to send manned missions to mars, even if we have not yet decided where the
most interesting places would be for manned exploration.

As for your first two steps, we're already doing both on Mars. I think that
either we're not doing enough of these on the moon, or the moon really isn't
as interesting as Mars. If it's the former, then the unmanned missions are
scouting the wrong destination. If it's the latter, the manned mission
planners are looking at the wrong body for their next destination.

Jeff
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