Pres Bush said that a Lunar base will help any mars mission because the moon's lower gravity will make it cheaper to launch a spacecraft.
Is it me or the Merkin that's missing something here? Surely, unless you build your rocket ship, Barney Rubble style, out of moonrocks you'd have to lug your space ship parts up from Earth anyway.
But not the fuel, which could be made from the water on the moon.
And you could use the same power source you use to split the water to run a refinery to turn your moon rocks into metals.
And even if you can't do either, it might be cheaper to lug lots of bits of spacecraft and fuel up from Earth in smaller loads before putting them together in a big spacecraft that only has to get off the Moon.
I suspect the whole Moon/Mars announcement is also to serve as a useful launch pad for the Bush re-election (or "re-electifisation" as the Dead Ringers team would probably render it!) campaign. Or am I just being cynical?
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But what do Nasa know. ;-)
Depends. "Known knowns" or "known unknowns"? ;-)
David E. Belcher
I'm sure if they could land a dog on Mars, as they obviously have, they could put a man on Mars, easily!
[email hidden] (MartinM) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:
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My Grandad said at the time of Apollo XI it was all a fix. 35 years later has anyone actually got a picture of the basey bit of the Moduley thing in the Mare Tranquilitatis? and yet they can tell you what size the craters on Pluto are.
