Hi Richard,
My plan was to go back to lurking except to give Sterling's emails a
reply which is now my priority. We can renew these further discussion
dimensions another time if you particularly wish. Thanks for sending
you good wishes and reminding me life is grand - I'm sadly severely
under-resourced at the moment and this I tell you in as humble a manner
as possible; it's been so long I've forgotten how relaxed some academic
environments can be. Congratulations since the funding seems to be a
shoe in. Good luck with the BOINC! Go for it. Doug out.
Kindest wishes
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Kowalski <[email protected]>
To: MexicoDoug <[email protected]>;
[email protected]
<[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, Jun 29, 2011 4:19 pm
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and
meteoriterecovery)
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 <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
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 <[email protected]>
To: MexicoDoug <[email protected]>;
[email protected]
<[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, Jun 29, 2011 7:18 am
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and
meteoriterecovery)
----- Original Message -----
From: MexicoDoug <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
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
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