[meteorite-list] Could Venus Watch For Earth-Bound Asteroids?

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 19:54:29 -0600
Message-ID: <011d01c76380$3591cda0$c622e146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Martin!

    The cost of a series production item includes
on the cost of development and depends on how
many copies you have made. Based on the current
planned production of F-22 Raptors, the cost is
$380 to $390 million apiece. Had the originally
planned number of planes been built the cost would
have been about $130 million each.

    However, it's never that simple. The follow-on
F-35 Lightning II will use much of the technology
developed for the F-22, but the F-35 will have a
much lower cost per plane than the F-22 could ever
have. Without that technological development, the
cost of the F-35 would be much greater.

    The B-2 Spirit, built in the numbers presently
contemplated, will cost $2,200 million per copy!
Again, and to an even greater degree, the cost of
developing the technology in the first is staggering.

    The actual material and man-hour manufacturing
cost of building one B-2 bomber is about $120 million,
one heck of a bargain. Conceived of in the 1970's,
developed in the 1980's, then completely re-designed
to change it from a high altitude penetrating bomber to
a low altitude penetrating bomber (will you make up
your mind?), it was first displayed about the instant
the Cold War sublimated

    Instead of the 136 that were planned, even without
a Cold War, we decided to settle for 75 and more
recently our Defender and Decider, Mr. Bush, decided
that twenty were plenty, which raises the cost/plane to
about $2.2 billion a bump. It is now said to be "fully
operational," but I cannot find out exactly how many
planes have been built. (Why are you following me
and where is your warrant?)

    However, you may live to see more B-2's or at least
B-2-lookalikes, as the design engineer in charge of the
propulsion system was arrested on October 2005 for
selling classified information to China and possibly
other countries as well. Those B-2 copies would cost
considerably less, I imagine, and have a different in-flight
menu.

    So, one B-2 equals TWO space telescopes, but
it takes about three F-22's to pay for one space telescope.
Of course, IF the B-2 could fly to and destroy an incoming
asteroid, it would be worth $22 billion, or $22 trillion ---
name your price.


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Altmann" <altmann at meteorite-martin.de>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 6:31 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Could Venus Watch For Earth-Bound Asteroids?


"But the space telescope is estimated to cost $1.1 billion for 15 years of
operation"

Hmm, what does cost a F-22 and a B2 Spirit?


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Ron
Baalke
Gesendet: Freitag, 9. M?rz 2007 22:50
An: Meteorite Mailing List
Betreff: [meteorite-list] Could Venus Watch For Earth-Bound Asteroids?


http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11356-could-venus-watch-for-earthbou
nd-asteroids.html

Could Venus watch for Earth-bound asteroids?
David L Chandler
New Scientist
09 March 2007

A dedicated space-based telescope is needed to achieve a congressionally
mandated goal of discovering 90% of all near-Earth asteroids down to a
size of 140 metres by the year 2020, says a report NASA sent to the US
Congress on Thursday. Asteroids of that size are large enough to destroy
a major city or region if they strike the planet - but NASA says it does
not have the money to pay for the project.

The study says Venus is the best place for the telescope. That is
because space rocks within Earth's orbit - where Venus lies - are most
likely to be lost in the Sun's glare, potentially catching astronomers
off guard. The telescope could be placed either behind or ahead of Venus
in its orbit by about 60? - the stable Lagrange points, known as L4 or
L5, where the gravity of the Sun and Venus are in balance.

"There are quite a few [objects] that are interior to Earth's orbit,"
NASA's Lindley Johnson told New Scientist. "Those are really hard to
detect [from Earth]; the opportunities to see them are very limited."

>From the orbit of Venus, however, "you're always looking away from the
Sun, always looking out", he says. "And, of course, you can observe 24
hours a day - you don't have to worry about night and day." Even from
Earth orbit, a telescope's view of any given part of the sky is blocked
about half the time by the Earth itself.

In addition, because Venus orbits the Sun in about two-thirds the time
the Earth does, a telescope in that orbit would catch up with any
near-Earth asteroids in their orbits more frequently than Earth does,
offering more opportunities for discovery. "You're able to sample that
population more rapidly in the same amount of time," Johnson says.

Missed deadline

An infrared telescope would be more effective than one that studies
visible light, because asteroids reflect sunlight more strongly at
infrared wavelengths. The background sky is also much less bright in the
infrared, providing better contrast for discovering even small, faint
asteroids.

With the Venus-orbit IR telescope, NASA could exceed its goal by three
years, finding 90% of the most dangerous space rocks by 2017. But the
space telescope is estimated to cost $1.1 billion for 15 years of
operation, and NASA says there is currently no money in its budget to
pursue any of the search proposals it studied.

That means it would take until at least 2026 to achieve its goal - and
that is assuming a large telescope in Chile called the LSST (Large
Synoptic Survey Telescope) is completed. But the LSST, which would be
funded through the National Science Foundation, itself has not had final
approval (see Unique wide-field telescope will make 'sky movies'
<http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn9200-unique-widefield-telescope-wil
l-make-sky-movies.html>).
Without the LSST, as well, the goal would slip beyond 2030.

Former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart says NASA's analysis was a
good examination of the options, and showed that "the space option ...
is most effective" in dealing with the danger of an unexpected impact.

But Schweickart says NASA failed to deliver on an additional analysis
that Congress had asked for, which included an examination of the
relative merits of different proposals for deflecting an asteroid found
to be on a collision course with Earth. "[NASA] did nothing, they
declined to respond. That's pretty disappointing," Schweickart told New
Scientist.
Received on Sat 10 Mar 2007 08:54:29 PM PST