[meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and meteoriterecovery)

Wed Jun 29 02:37:00 EDT 2011

"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.

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 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.

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Kowalski <damoclid at yahoo.com>
To: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>; 
meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com 
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wed, Jun 29, 2011 12:02 am
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and 
meteoriterecovery)

Sorry if I'm being obtuse.

My terse comment that there are no known earth trojans means simply 
that. We
know of no Earth Trojans at L4 or L5.
I simply can't say if there is or isn't anything there.

Can't say that either is a good place to find lunar material simply 
because we
haven't found a single Trojan. As for a mission to investigate the 
regions? Not
really that interesting to me. Obviously I'm much more excited by the 
OSIRIS-REx
sample return mission to 1999 RQ36 later this decade.     (Plug for LPL 
& UA)

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.

--
Richard Kowalski
Full Moon Photography
IMCA #1081

----- Original Message -----
From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>
To: damoclid at yahoo.com; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Cc:
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 8:34 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and
meteoriterecovery)

Hi Richard,

I think I missed more than that - so what did you mean in the original 
post?
That a mission there would be a good idea to make new discoveries? I 
still don't
get it, then, and am very interested in what you say.

Kindest wishes
Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Kowalski <damoclid at yahoo.com>
To: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>; 
meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 10:59 pm
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and
meteoriterecovery)

Doug, I think you missed a key word in my post, "... known ...".

Cheers

--
Richard Kowalski
Full Moon Photography
IMCA #1081

----- Original Message -----
From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>
To: damoclid at yahoo.com; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Cc:
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 4:30 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and
meteoriterecovery)

Richard K says:

"There are no known Earth Trojans."

Hi Richard,

Come on ol' friend, even 2500 years ago Anaxagoras deduced:

"Under the stars are the Sun and Moon, and also certain bodies which 
revolve
with them, but are invisible to us."

and we've observed enough meteorites to vindicate him!

The "invisible" he was talking about refers to them being too small to 
have
enough light to reflect to be seen. What is the median threshold 
resolution we
are talking about nowadays (in mass or diameter) at that distance?

Perhaps the points are not a pocket full of horses, but Chincoteague 
Ponies,
some used, would be a coupe. Regardless, towing an asteroid back to 
earth wasn't
what I had in mind at all. Look, we've even sent Stardust to play 
tennis with
comets, in hope of getting some micron sized particles, while ignoring 
the
voluminous information guaranteed to be on the shelves of these 
libration
libraries, not in mass, but in rubble and dust, a page at a time and
conveniently located.

Best wishes
Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Kowalski <damoclid at yahoo.com>
To: meteorite list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 5:59 pm
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and
meteoriterecovery)

________________________________
From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>
To: etmeteorites at hotmail.com; Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] trips to the Moon (Moon bases and
meteoriterecovery)

You want to go the the nearer Lagrangian Points in plain space between 
the Earth
and Moon. That is where the most fascinating stuff is to be found, 
written in
unaltered stone the genesis of the Moon and plenty more debris to keep
scientists and collectors busy and overworked for the nex 10,000 years!

There are no known Earth Trojans.

--
Richard Kowalski
Full Moon Photography
IMCA #1081
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