(SNES) Hotels Travel to Mars

[Albireo54@aol.com]

Hi Les and everyone,

Here's some interesting news out of Purdue University:

<<February 5, 2002  -  Former astronaut Aldrin, Purdue engineers planning 
Mars hotels.

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, is leading a team of 
researchers, including engineers at Purdue, to design a new class of 
spacecraft that would serve as orbiting hotels perpetually cruising between 
Earth and Mars. The "cycler" spacecraft would constantly ferry people and 
materials between the two planets, enabling earthlings to explore, 
commercially develop and eventually colonize the Red Planet.>>

I found this concept especially intriguing, Les, in light of your previous 
comments to the group about unusual objects that are actually in orbit around 
the Sun - like our Moon. It seems that a series of these "ferries" would be 
placed in continuous solar orbit, using the complex gravitational forces of 
Earth and Mars to bring them periodically to a close approach of both 
planets. Whizzing by at about 13,000 mph, they would be met by space "taxis" 
which would shuttle travelers to and from the planets' surfaces. 

Buzz Aldrin was always considered to be a bit "eccentric," though clearly 
brilliant. Perhaps this plan he and others are developing will actually work. 
Of course, to what end - and who will fund it - remains to be seen!

You can read the whole article in Purdue News at:

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/020205.Longuski.Aldrin.html

See you soon,
Doug
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