Posted on 01/19/2004 2:24:54 PM PST by demlosers
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:41:07 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
President Bush has set America on a bold new course for exploration and our aging, lethargic space program
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
They said the same thing about the ISS. Now it's an admitted $100 billion mistake. But now we must ditch it and start a $1 trillion mistake.
Takes me back to the first extraterritorial research the federal government funded:
"The United States Exploring Expedition, with six ships, was carried out under the command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (1798-1877). Authorization for the Expedition was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 14, 1836 and the overall cost of the enterprise reached more than $900,000. The Expedition covered some 85,000 miles, carrying out scientific study and collecting in Latin America, Antarctica, the islands of the central Pacific, and the northwestern coast of North America."
Some links: THE LINDA HALL LIBRARY HISTORY OF SCIENCE COLLECTION
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE LIBRARIES
A million dollars in 1836 for a four year trip by six ships to map currents and draw pictures of flora and fauna - wow that young country really thought they were Hot Stuff!
So to substitute he make businesses spend Billions on the Americans for Disabilities Act. Yep, that's my kind of vision.
True
But now we must ditch it and start a $1 trillion mistake.
Not true, had the station been built as Reagan intended, it would not be a $100 Billion waste product. Thank Xlinton and the Rats for that.
Do you happen to know the average temperture at Mercury's poles?
Perhaps you would like to volunteer.
Does Mercury harbor water ice in some of its polar craters?
Radar images of Mercury indicate that the large craters at the planet's poles are highly reflective. The most straightforward explanation is that the reflective material is water ice. Because Mercury's rotation axis is nearly perpendicular to the plane of its orbit around the Sun, the interiors of the polar craters are in permanent shadow and, despite the planet's closeness to the Sun, extremely cold (lower than -300° F). Two of Messenger's instruments will measure whether Mercury's polar craters contain hydrogen, a constituent of water, or whether the reflective material is something else, such as sulfur that over eons has escaped from surface minerals.
OK, So don't go deep into the interior of the craters. Find a transitional zone by the top and run a pipe down to the water.
If we sent a mission to mercury, would we be able to give the spacecraft enough propulsion to return to earth orbit ... perhaps nuclear power?
Why not? If Mars is possible so should Mercury.
It may be closer to the sun but still Mercury is about ½ the mass of Mars with less of an atmosphere so to blast off the surface would require less fuel. It's on average closer to Earth than Mars so you wouldn't have the total distance to and from as you would with Mars. And there is always Venus with can give a boost both going and coming(remember Venus boosted Cassini onto Saturn). And there is Hydrogen in the atmosphere and surface of Mercury so you can make more fuel unlike Mars where you can't make fuel out of Rust.
And speaking of Nuclear propulsion, There is Helium in Mercury's atmosphere and in it's rocks (where there is most likely a lot) and unlike Earth's Helium the much of the Helium on Mercury is probably in the form of He³ which is supposedly a target fuel for (cold?)fusion.
Well, why don't we go back and build the station Reagan intended?
Yeah, but only at night when the sun's not shining.
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