New Mars Forums

The Euros have had some fair ideas and some bad ideas when it comes to space plans
but I think this latest idea to move an asteroid is a great idea and very useful for the task they claim it to be intended for. Of course there will be some who will claim this is all euro-babble because of course those french-fries are in EU land and must be doing something wrong, and as always you'll get the die hard Bush space-plan supporters, they will distract topics and take from the jist of posts by trying argue issues like red commie China trying to bomb taiwan and make claims on those hidden invisible  WMDs, they will give their support to plan-Bush even if it means for good old George getting out his old antique trebuchet catapult and sending good people off to mars in his great martian vision...goodness knows where all this cost cutting is going to end up  :;):
The fact is the Euros aren't just going to send up two expensive craft slam one into an Asteroid and hopefully the otherone sees what happens and finally proves Newton was right..apples do fall on the ground

One area of this project is to check on a mission response time, if you think about the chain of events between detecting a hazardous object and doing something about it, there is one area that we can see how fast we will be able to react and do somethings about it. Rather than waiting for the sapce rock to come within range and in a last minute desperate act to save humanity we launch the world's entire nuclear arsenal and cross our fingers.
But the Euros aren't too keen on just hitting one asteroid with a O'Neil style slam-dunk and claim the won something else like the superbowl. The Euros won't be game set and match by wrecking the probes in one big slam, when the mission arrives at the target asteroid it will begin a seven-month campaign of observation and physical characterisation of the near earth Asteroid and also during which it will land penetrators and seismometers on the asteroid’s surface to understand its internal structure and the workings within the asteroid's body. We are now at a stage where we must push discovery and if an object is found we must also increase reaction time as it is very important, sometimes in a scene like this it will be the only possible way to carry out these tasks. So it is very important to investigate whether missions dedicated to these objectives can be envisaged in the near future, or how can we deal with something like this, maybe either as a “hitch-hiker” instrument on a already planned mission or as a dedicated spacecraft. As for the end of the mission and the grand finale, ending as many of the NASA ranger probes smashing into the surface of another object the good old Hidalgo will produce some interesting results "Whether the probe hits the asteroid, or the asteroid hits the probe, it's going to be hard on the probe" this is a humours way of looking at it but also a neat idea, in the final stage of the mission using a  probe impact is a pretty good approximation of a bomb, while we want to know what some of these space rocks are really like on the inside and how hard or brittle the might be, I know a number of people who worked in studies like petrology and straitgraphy and had an interest in astromy and always wondered about the true nature of these space-rocks, the internal structure of the asteroid during an impact will be observed at the event as well as excavating some of the interior for Sancho to record.

I might not have said nice things about some ESA missions before, but I think this plan is a great idea.

yes there seem to be some big problems in the bush space plan some say there could be a number of flaws, but can you trust Kerry about what he said, he might just be wanting votes also

just have to wait, who knows what the future will bring. It's time to get things right

cool scope
There are tonnes of good photos taken with regular cam and CCDs using scopes to capture the planets, I've seen some good details on websites
Have you tried to do any Astro-imaging yet Cindy ?

I was very happy when NASA launched this mission and the joint ESA/NASA mission has done very well for itself.
The ESA Ulysses archive is accessible via the World Wide Web at URL: http://helio.estec.esa.nl/ulysses/archi … es/archive

sounds like a good mission

space weather is a cool website 

it sounds serious
finance and manned missions are big questions now
I hope NASA can sort out its problems

here's another artistic photo of Planets including Mars from an observer on another website

http://www.thespacesite.com/community/u … ges/48.jpg

I think it' a great idea for a mission, I look forward to reading more

There is a lot on this issue on the net radio and stuff

Hey man I don't often think much of those euro ways and their european this-and-that mentality and :rant: don't get me started on French fries   , but I think this European plan  is still a very good idea.

The world is changing, there has been a new world order, a change in world economics, many Economic in Asia have grown and in Europe there is a formation of new borders.

the Russian and Soviets once had strong influence, but now their power is gone but many of the Russian degins and space craft and ideas will always be good and will always be there in the beackground for a while

Right now the US is in trouble, bogged down with unsteady political issues, the costs of re-building and security in Iraq plus there are those financial scandals like world com . Many NASA projects are been looked at hard and much is now 'grounded' how the heck we're going to Mars while all this is going on...is Bush just doing an election stunt. I think it's good to have a back up plan and smart  ..
..Shoemaker-Levy 9 and some of our recent near misses have been a wake up call. There's no point in saying 'if one of these space rocks comes we'll just take out our all ICBMs, give the Chinese, British and Russians a howler so they can lend a hand and
just Nuke it with everything we got

This is why I think the ESA idea is wise
no point in asking what the Bush plan was, he might say smoke 'em out of their holes !
either that or we'll be calling Bruce willis and the armageddon   crew

I like the ESA idea, you could see possible spin off missions and projects
such as Bringing an Asteroid or Comet to an Earth-Moon L4 orbit and use it as a source of Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminum, and Iron. These materials could be used getting vital materials in a Martian base or Lunar colony, or various rare Ores and steels could be extracted from an orbiting station like the ISS. I look forward to reading more on this mission in the future 

sounds good, very important announcement on the black hole riddle about to be released