[Baron Munchausen]

Dust seems to be a major problem on both the Moon and Mars. It makes you wonder just how practical any 'permanent' presence will be on either. With the Moon I guess you can rely on the industrial might of your earth-based infrastructure to send lots of replacement equipment. That will greatly increase the cost of the permanent presence, though.

On Mars the dust might even be chemically corrosive as well as very fine and gritty. I'd be really cautious of trying to land people there until many robotic probes had landed and returned samples for study from various areas. The smart thing to do would be to send manned missions to orbit Mars, only landing with robots -- which could be controlled from orbit with much better precision than the 45 minute delay from Earth-based control.

[ December 05, 2003, 20:18: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]