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That is an example of a wrongly thought out strategy. ESA with its Smart-1 probe will likely do a lot better at the close mapping than the LRO will do. ESA already plans for Smart to orbit very close using its constant thrust to allow quite close resolution. Still at first only the Lunar equator can be mapped but it will eventually map the whole Moon and of more interest have a really good look at those permanently dark craters.

Resource identification is extremely hard for us to do with satelites it needs a spectrum of science packages to be able to tell what a material is and its likely makeup. Unlike the Earth where we have explored the surface and can tell what a material is and its appearance to a satellite, through physical interaction, We have not studied the Moon to that degree and are quessing what makes up the body we call our moon. It seems that this probe has to be everything to everybody. In effect a space shuttle type probe that will likely have certain packages that will react badly with others and cost a lot of dollars for a general or poor performance.

When it comes down to it we will have to send rovers to the Moon and with a capability to do a sample return. These rovers will give us the capability to really see the materials we are looking for and to actually tell us what is in those permanently dark craters and zones. With a rover we can actually test what a material is made of and its uses to us for future expansion.

I can see the LRO being cancelled or just put back and back. It is a probe which was to need 70 million $ and now has to make do with 20 million. It was not unlike Smart planned to be a cheap probe it had a really hard mission to do. Smart was truly to try out new technigues and technology this it has done even before reaching the Moon. It will be dificult now to get all that was planned for the LRO and it certainly indicates that this choice means that things have to be given up. And with the comittee stating it was not to be the science part the part of interest to the future expansion to the Moon will now come out a lot significantly weaker.

The problem with Robotic missions to the Moon is that they are just not sexy

If Nasa does not do the groundwork and this requires the use of rovers on the Moon how do they plan to get anything real done on the Moon. I think that they just plan an apollo 2 with lots of flags and even more footprints then call it job done. Then they can turn to the congress and say we need a lot more funding if you want us to do the same for Mars.

Certainly the Big corporations are unlikely to want anything done on the Moon that could be done reasonably cheaply and that would cut into there plans for big cost plus contracts. And it easy to dismiss telerobotics as it does not have any of the usual contractors political support and requires a new approach. And it is unlikely that the common public would really get involved in the idea of machines making our Moon a useful source to increase space capability. where is the excitement in that. It seems Nasa has picked up a bit of its approach from all those theme parks it shares florida with and has decided to give the people an "exciting" experience.

Somewhere down the line this is going to come back and bite them.

The Spanish civil war could easily have been said to have been an example of both ultra left wing and ultra right wing of the political spectrum having its own civil war. Truly only the Italian state under Mussoloini could be fascist they described themselves as such and it was the name of his party. But if we use this Germany which was also Ultra right wing can not be called fascist they called themselves a national socialist party. In there deluded and drug induced mind sets they actually thought they where doing good for the commen German. So we use the term fascist to refer to all very right wing states and as such Germany falls in this description. But so does spain under Franco and guite a few other states that could be mentioned. Franco was a military dictator but he was also far right wing as most such military dictatorships are and using the term loosely his state could be called fascist.

So CobraCommander I have to ask was the american war of independence justified, and you are not to use just the colonists point of view.

I just dont get it, Why must a shuttle derived Shuttle C that lifts a 100 tons to space cause the budget to overun to the tune of a 100 billion. I know cost plus is bad but this is not a pork barrel this is a pork swimming pool.

And how can developing a Lunar lander and cev create this much cost. I really hope this is a case of sums going bad or some person with the axe to grind having a free pop.

It depends on whose point of view that answers the question

The American revolution was not simply fought between the American colonists and the British colonial forces. Many colonists joined up to fight on the British side too as they believed there loyalty was to the home nation. The factors that drove the actual revolution are as complex as they come and there is a lot of history before the actual revolution that bares relevance. Did the colonies actually have to Rebel, well maybe not. We can use the example of the colonies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand as examples of the progression of colonies to independent states. But we also have to remember to the general American colonist there was nothing of this sort of freedom on the horizon only hindsight gives us this. Did the the rather bland arrogance of the British goverment at the time force the issue, maybe.

What is certain is that using the British side as an example that they could have stopped the revolution reasonably easy before it started by simply listening to the colonists. If they had invested an interest into the colonies rather than considering them as a place to get cheap tobbacco and to get rid of unwanted criminals.
From the American side there had always been a stirring of nationhood and antiauthority and this had been semi pushed by some of the people who formed the american colonies upper segments and its learned class. When the revolution did start it was hardly going to stop. Even if the British had won the fact that there had been the attempt at independence was going to ensure that there was a speedy move from being a colony to a nation on its own.

so for your answer CobraCommander I give you yes and No and Yes and No. And I get to smile as im truly not fence sitting either.

Using the UK as an example the need for naval transport has resulted in the creation of the merchant marine arm. This means all British registered vessels are crewed by officers that have Merchant Marine papers and form a very large reserve.

Canada can easily go back to doing the same as im sure that there was a form of this in operation at the end of the second world war. It frankly does not cost too much as it acts more like improved  ship operations training rather than military reserve training.

Dook we wont immediately go for colonisation of Mars we have to send people to do the research first. But when we do decide to start putting colonisation of the planet on our agenda then we have to use something other than the launches from Earth to do the job. It also should be noted that you may call me a Moon firster but I dont plan to Colonise the Moon only use its materials. This frankly makes sense but as to colonisation of the Moon it is not necassary but its materials are.

The terraforming of Mars has been said to take either decades or centuries. How do we plan to do it depends on the people on the ground to be able to work the machines to terraform Mars. This leads to the simple statement. If you want to terraform Mars you have to colonise it first. The more people the faster the terraforming goes. If there are no people how do you plan to terraform mars. Well frankly lets do it the fast way, this involves people making machines to create greenhouse gases and to crack atmosphere out of the soil. It involves the making of a solletta array to direct more light to the planet to heat it up. It may involve the deliberate crashing of Snowballs onto Mars to create atmosphere. This involves people on the ground working and not small scientist groups. When we do have an atmosphere what then we need plantlife and this will require Human intervention on a grand scale.

So Dook sigh all you like if you want Mars you send people and a lot. Anything else will not work. Terraforming is the greatest Engineering challenge we have ever done it will take a lot of work. Of course your way we could wait till Mars warms up but thats cause the Sun had gone to a red giant and we are extinct.

Quote SpaceNut Sep. 20 2004, 07;27

Well it seems they are in real use in the Mines of Australia and they are subject to a conference each year to develop this technology better.

http://www.omnitech.com/company.htm]Omnitech a company specialising in telerobotics

This company has developed telerobotics for the use of the military and industrial sectors.

http://www.cat.csiro.au/cmst/pub/IARP/wshop.html]2000 meeting of the australian robotics for industry group

This is the website for the 2000 Australian robotic industrial robots group and the best one for state of the Industry apparently they seem to have got concerned about Industry secrets going elsewhere as the technology matured so put less detail in.

http://www.araa.asn.au/acra/acra2001/Pa … pdf]Thesis on control of robotic ore transport inside mines

This is a thesis on how operational robot miners inside a mine work.

I hope this helps as it shows these are operating already on Earth so it does not take too much to have this technology transferred to space operations

Mars is the place for a real Human colony, but it is quite a distance.

If we want to colonize then we have to be able to send decent amounts of people and that takes larger colony ships being made in space. And it is just too expensive to do it from Earth.

Frankly we should use the resources of the Moon and Asteroids to make our colonisation of Mars possible.

If America falls back to reinforced bases you will get a situation similar to how Vietnam panned out. American troops in fortified fire bases with the woods surrounded by loose flexible skirmishers. The Vietnames insurgents where supplied by other countries that due to political difficulties could not be touched.

The USA and its allies must help the local goverment to deal with these insurgents and that does not take heavily armed Mobile infantry. This is a job for Armed Police with a very very tough backup. This police has to get in with the Iraqi people and develop webs of informers and make the people feel that the Police are mostly on there side. And when the police find a target then comes the heavies to support. Using helicopters to destroy bradleys which have kids jumping up and down on them will make this fail.

Frankly this is very hard to do, But only by this will it solve the problems in Iraq and only a true political solution will allow the groundwork to be there.

The robots should be telerobotic controlled and not autonomous as we still do not have the skill and technology for that to operate effectively without constant Human tinkering. Telerobotic robots should be built tough and interchangable with the ability to operate on them telerobotically when we have a problem with one. We use telerobotics to operate on People and if we can do that we can have telerobotic mechanics. When we use the robots we will take certain precautions to ensure if a robot fails. One is when surveying or sending robots away from the group we use a buddy system so if one gets stuck or made inoperative then its friend can recover it or call for help to do so.

Time lag between here and the Moon is about 4 seconds which is a minor problem but we will reduce the speeds of the robots to reduce accidents and have really well trained operatives to ensure this problem this does not happen.
Other options are to have collision warning systems that will ensure vehicles do not collide with large and moving objects.

The technology to make these robots is already here it will not take much lead time to develop them. It only requires political will and resources to push this program forward.

It probably should remain in the politics section as it will lead to a period of international linkage in space. As we use the improved communication bands to link up all missions in space a sort of spacenet for all. We will probably use it to communicate between the different countries missions and that requires politics.