Space Forum / Space Policy / January 2004

I've recently been reading about the Minuteman ICBM
system.  More than 2400 of these missiles were built
over the years.  As many as 1000 at a time stood watch
in underground silos, fitted with thermonuke warheads.  

I just heard on CNN that China has announced it plans to land a
human on the moon by 2020.
I don't like China but I think this is great news.  Now the U.S.
will be under pressure to compete with the Chinese and return

Ar last, the new Age of Discovery bgeins.
I proposed the name for the first lunar settlement should be Georgetown.
--
Mark R. Whittington

NASA may have a problem on its hands, dealing with the folks
who see faces and whatnot in Mars images.  
Look at the following image, made by the MER-A descent camera.
"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-images/jan-04-2004/captions/image-3.html"

   /Making Space Happen: Private Space Ventures and the Visionaries
    Behind Them/
    by Paula Berinstein (& Fiorella Terenzi, according to Amazon, but I
    don't see her mentioned elsewhere), 2002.

I am doing a report on the space program and I'm looking for some good
"history of the future" space information.  I have found 1969's Space
Task Group report (Mars by 1981!), and also this image:
http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/Intro/img002.gif

From what I've read and heard about the MERs, they will stop working after a
few months only because Mars dust will cover top of the solar panels.  If
this is the case, why didn't the MERs include a little automated air blower?
It seems like a simple solution.  Does any ...

It's on topic.  Really.
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/lileks010804.html

How did Arianespace manage a profit?  
To find out, search for "EGAS" within the following link:
"http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/Pr_10_2003_i_EN.html"
- Ed Kyle

Are any of the parts painted?  If so it seems a be pointless on a
planet that has paint stripping dust.

Something puzzles me about the landing of Spirit... it was dropped from
about 10 meters, and I've seen a number of reports that it may have bounced
for a kilometer before coming to a stop.
This implies Spirit's tranverse velocity was large - maybe a couple hundred

The author of this article supposes that Howard Dean has inadvertently made
Bush's space policy initiative more salable.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/79/1
Interesting theory, though it doesn't take into account Dean's enormous

I'm getting tired of the widely-repeated claim that it is impractical to
grow crops under artificial light (particularly if your power source is
solar).  It just doesn't make sense, for two reasons.  First, if your
solar power plant is in orbit where it receives sunlight 24/7, ...

As I understand it, Bush's speech on a return to the Moon was
cancelled due to it being really, really, the wrong time to announce a
huge new spending program with unclear goals.  Anyone have more
details than I do?

I am surprised at the cloak of secrecy that has fallen over the
Orbital Space Plane program - its the biggest new start for NASA since
ISS, and there is virtually zero info about OSP anywhere.  NASA is
giving out information in small dollops, and does not address the key