[FPSPACE] heated circumlunar debate

[Robert Law]

 I think prestige  is  driving this and could make it happen  and I hope it happens !  the Russian's face being left behind by both China and the U.S.  it will take the Americans 10 years to be in a position to get back to the moon however the Chinese  could do a cis lunar flight with shenzu with in that period  with a rendezvous and docking planed for shenzou 8 and 9 this could open the door to a cis lunar flight. by docking to an earth departure stage.
 
The Russian's could do this first and put them ahead of both China and the US who will still be stuck in Leo in 2008  it would be a big boost for Russia.
 
Robert

DSFPortree at aol.com wrote:
Keith:

> This debate has sometimes had an unnecessarily acerbic tone of
> voice! 

It's all in good fun - at least for me. Can't speak for anyone else.

Don't worry about the tourist market. If this were about tourism, we'd be 
fiercely debating some other aspect of spaceflight right now, not this 
circumlunar plan, because this circumlunar plan would be going nowhere. No, this is 
about a Russian prestige bid, a national project. The tourism thing is, well, not 
exactly incidental, but not the main thing. So, one needn't worry about the 
illogic of this from a marketing standpoint - though your points are good ones.

David

David S. F. Portree
Science writer & historian
dsfportree at aol.com
Flagstaff Arizona USA

DSFP homepage
http://members.aol.com/dsfportree/dsfp.htm

Romance to Reality: moon & Mars plans
http://rtr.marsinstitute.info
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