[meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and meteoriterecovery)

From: Richard Kowalski <damoclid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:19:19 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <1309378759.4023.YahooMailNeo_at_web113618.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

One last comment.

Doug in your second paragraph you ask why this has to be a competition. I didn't know it was. I never realized my comment about there being no known earth trojans would be anything other than a statement of that fact and certainly not become the start of some perceived competition.


If you are working on such a mission to the L point regions, I'm unaware of said mission so please forgive my ignorance.


I fail to understand how a mission to a region where we have zero targets to investigate is better than one with a logical, known target, but that is just me. I'm sure I am ignorant of many possible spacecraft missions.


I'd be interested in hearing how this proposed spacecraft is expected to find the material you want to collect and then how it would go about collecting it??

Do you have a idea of the timeline to construct and fly?

And to do this for 80 million 2011 dollars?

Please continue.

?
Actually there is almost no stress here other than the fire threat and the rains are arriving in southern Arizona. Personal and work are going gangbusters. Hope the same for you.

Back to building my BOINC cluster.

Cheers

--
Richard Kowalski
Full Moon Photography
IMCA #1081
----- Original Message -----
> From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>
> To: damoclid at yahoo.com; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Cc: 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 11:04 AM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and meteoriterecovery)
> 
> Hi Richard and thanks for the defense from the heart (to the choir of course). 
> Like I said, If I could sign the $800,000,000 funding check (which would equate 
> in one measure to $14.1 million per gram of material returned), I would do it in 
> a heartbeat because it is another program I'd like to defend.
> 
> I understand your points, I'm just a little fuzzy on why this has to be such 
> a competition due to the relative mission costs and completely different 
> objectives. The libration point mission I propose which you want to call 
> "street sweeping" could probably be had for a tenth the cost of the 
> relatively inexpensive program you have so much pride, OSIRIS-Rex, so I 
> wouldn't even put them in the same class. And they aren't: O-R is a 
> "New Frontiers" project with a higher price tag which beat out a fight 
> with a sample return mission to the far side of the Moon, while the libration 
> mission would be part of the low budget "Discovery" program projects, 
> and likely one of the cheapest ones at that. A libration mission doesn't 
> even need to completely escape Earth's gravitational field - it's only 
> about 200,000 miles which is tantalizing to me as I look at the same number on 
> my truck's odometer.
> 
> I guess things are tense around there so please don't take the 'pet 
> project' comment in a dismissive light at the early morning hour you wrote 
> the reply, much less find some way to personalize it to a career which is a 
> ridiculous thing to do when discussing the relative benefits of two missions. We 
> all have pet projects that are driven by our passions, professional interests 
> and just a gut feeling. A pet project is the one endearing to you. Forgive me if 
> we all have different perspectives - but are on the same team. If we didn't 
> champion our projects to earn the support or respect for them from others, the 
> world would be a a much poorer place for it.
> 
> Regarding the funding, we can all related to that - you know how most 
> professional meteorite hunter feels with every big mission they take on; in a 
> far worse support situation than in a University jockeying for funding. I 
> don't mind your being dismissive to equate meteorite/meteoroid/tiny body 
> hunting in space to "street sweeping" rather than coming up with some 
> fancy named project as I asked for a Meteoroid Exploration Traveler to L's, 
> like Athena-MEt-L for studying the birth of the Earth-Moon system which may have 
> been created when Earth was cracked open with a hammer like Zeus' head was 
> by Hephestus birthing Athena, thunderbolt in hand ... But it would be nice to 
> get a little more respect for it than street sweeping,.. though cute, for some 
> it has its connotations that would make it a terrible marketing strategy and be 
> instantly dismissed!
> 
> Speaking of the value of returning pristine meteoric material to Earth, any more 
> exciting news from the Stardust analyses lately?
> 
> Kindest wishes
> Doug
> 
> PS I think I'll go back to lurking after hopefully responding to 
> Sterling's perspectives at some point
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Kowalski <damoclid at yahoo.com>
> To: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com 
> <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Wed, Jun 29, 2011 7:18 am
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and 
> meteoriterecovery)
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> 
>>  From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>
>>  To: damoclid at yahoo.com; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>>  Cc:
>>  Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 11:37 PM
>>  Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and
> meteoriterecovery)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>  "1999 RQ36 is a carbonaceous Potentially Hazardous Asteroid with a 
> diameter
>>  of
>>  about 350 meters in diameter that has a 1 in 1,800 chance of earth 
> imapct in
>>  2182. I find that mission much more tantalizing than exploring the 
> Lagrangian
>>  points to do some street sweeping."
>> 
>>  Oh, grief, another thing to defend, I better call a shrink. Good luck 
> with
> that
>>  pet project, I'd sign off on it if I could ... But, a near-earth 171 
> years
>>  into the future 99.94% probability that the statistics will fade away 
> and be
>>  forgotten vs. collide with Earth is something I'm willing to be 
> complacent
>>  about if I were forced into the position to choose one and only one 
> program.
> But
>>  the Discovery program thankfully isn't so restricting for those who
>>  understand how to build a budget to explore the heretofore unexplored.
> 
> I guess I see this from a different perspective.
> 
> Finding potential impactors decades or centuries out is what I do for a living.
> We not only want but we desire the longest lead time possible The longer the
> lead time before impact, the more time we have to study an impactor and come up
> with the best plan for mitigation. The longer the lead time also allows for the
> minimum of energy input require to deflect the impactor.
> 
> Thank you for so dismissively calling my career and the associated programs of
> planetary defense a "pet project".
> 
> 1999 RQ36 was chosen as OSIRIS-Rex's target for a number of reasons. The 
> current
> impact threat probably had little bearing on the selection. The mission has been
> selected and we are awaiting the signing of the contracts in the next few weeks.
> Sorry if being awarded this gigabuck program, the biggest ever at UA, and
> continuation of a long history of LPL's solar system exploration is the 
> source
> of a little pride in me.
> 
> The thing about Potentially Hazardous Asteroids, like 1999 RQ36, is that they
> will one day in the distant future almost certainly impact the earth. It may be
> millions of years from now, but I for one would like to know a bit more about
> this class of asteroids.
> 
> 
>> 
>>  In reading your opinion, I really did get a good chuckle, though. 
> That
> activity
>>  of "street sweeping" you fondly refer to is the reason for the
>>  existence of this list! What you basically have in each of them is a
>>  gravitational well that meteoroids can fall into. This is pristine 
> meteoric
>>  material - and I don't mean Antarctic style, I mean reach out and 
> touch a
>>  meteoroid in the ideal case. Sure in some circles the Near Earth 
> Asteroid
> impact
>>  hazard is like having to dot your i's and cross your t's, but if I 
> were
>>  to go hunting meteoric material anywhere in this Solar System you 
> know my
> vote.
>>  Even if material can't stay there for the long haul due to various
>>  perturbations we might dream up, that really isn't so bad. Even a 
> blink of
>>  an eye such as one million-years accumulation of perfectly fresh 
> material in
>>  quantities greater than we find in the happiest hunting grounds on 
> Earth would
> 
>>  be interesting.
> 
> I guess I don't see the point of a mission that has to explore millions of 
> cubic
> kilometers for some objects that should be there, but of which we have not found
> a single object.
> 
> If I want to bring back the most science for the buck, I'd go to the most
> interesting known NEO; One that has potential for spawning 5 - 20 meter
> meteoroids that can drop meteorites on earth, spend about a year studying and
> surveying it and then finally landing, retrieve samples and the return to earth.
> To me that's the best way to return pristine meteoritic material to the 
> earth.
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>>  I should comment that I did not mean to infer specifically that the 
> points
> were
>>  overwhelmingly endowed with Lunar material. I think it would be 
> similar to the
> 
>>  meteorite type distribution we find on Earth for falls, just pristine 
> and not
> a
>>  single meteorwrong to be found.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In my opinion, if you want lunar, go to the moon and bring back as many tons as
> you can haul.
> 
> 
>> 
>>  Designing the collection device is something I could really "dig" 
> as 
> I
>>  bet could most hunters, tinkerers and geologists. I mean, you visit 
> one
> asteroid
>>  and you learn about one asteroid. You work this one out and your 
> quest is to
> get
>>  the Rosetta Stones to all of our meteorite classes and likely some 
> enrichment
> in
>>  local 'geoselenological' history. The dirt behind the refrigerator!
>>  I'm proud to be a card-carrying street sweeper! Motion to change the 
> name
>>  from "street sweeping" to meteorite collecting on steroids (not
>>  a-steroids).. Actually I'm not sure if these objects are meteoroids 
> or even
>>  should be called meteorites. They've clearly fallen into a 
> gravitational
>>  well and they do not have independent orbits .... micro-satellites is 
> a
>>  tacky-sounding term for me. if for no other reason than to get the 
> IAU all
> huffy
>>  about what we can't call them, I say the mission is well worth it! ;-)
>> 
>>  Kindest wishes
>>  Doug
> 
> What you describe is exactly why I call this street sweeping. Sure some gems can
> be in there but mostly you'll get a lot of mixed up junk with no context 
> about
> where it came from, just like the sand and debris that accumulates on quiet
> parts of the road.
> 
> Now to honor my word to return to semi-lurker status
> 
> Cheers
> 
> --
> Richard Kowalski
> Full Moon Photography
> IMCA #1081
>

Received on Wed 29 Jun 2011 04:19:19 PM PDT