AsterAnts

In response to "Maybe so, but DS1 and NEAR did not soft land," and "Where
have you been? NEAR most definitely DID soft land!" Maybe we are trying to
split hairs here, but I would say that NEAR survived a guided crash on Eros,
which is not a soft landing. It would be revising history to claim that was
a soft landing. It survived to send radio messages, but did not do anything
else (that I know of), as it was not designed to. But this is very
different from then building equipment from copper or calcium, etc. it has
mined, and firing up an ion engine to drive the asteroid around.
And in response to "We've sampled comet material ... We know where the
material originally comes from (supernova remnants, ..." I say, that the
Moon (and Earth, Mars, Jupiter, etc.) had the same origin. So? Some of
this is useful and other not? Having sampled Halley's comet and now
Borrelly, when the results get in ( http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/ ), does not
tell you what any other comet or a particular tiny asteroid is made from
anymore than prospecting in Florida will tell you what is (was) underground
in Pennsylvania or California. What is known about the poles of the Moon is
that there is hydrogen rich material (presumably H2O, but also likely CH4,
and NH3), don't know how deep, it could be kilometers deep. One source (I
don't recall which, but it may come back to me) said there was at least a
trillion tons at each pole in the top meter. The data on no asteroids is
comparable to that on the Moon, and having a little data on a lot of
asteroids hardly compares or makes them known targets.
"If God had wanted us to go the space he would have given us a Moon!"
Kraft Enke (chief rocket scientist on the Atlas rocket, which after 45
years, is still being manufactured and used).
Sincerely, Jay Huebner