[FPSPACE] The Planet Mercury is getting attention on an international scale

[Larry Klaes]

Headline:  Mercury
Byline:  Peter N. Spotts
Date: 01/18/2001

Mercury, the Rodney Dangerfield of planets, is finally getting respect.

For some 25 years, the tiny planet could light a fire under only a 
handful of solar-system scientists. After Mariner 10's three fly-bys in 
the mid-1970s, many astronomers dismissed the planet as too boring - 
too much like Earth's moon to be worth the price of an orbiter. 

Now, however, Mercury's stock is rising. Last fall, the European Space 
Agency approved an ambitious 2009 mission - a pair of orbiters and a 
surface probe - to study the first rock from the sun. The United States 
is building a Mercury orbiter for launch in 2004. And Japan hopes to 
launch its own Mercury mission in 2005.

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