Dawn mission approved

Fair comments.

Anyway, like I said, bravo! I heartily welcome the Dawn mission. And
if and when the Hera mission ever materializes, I'll be truly ecstatic.

Ron

"Clements, Robert" Robert.Clements@...
01/02/02 04:49 PM

>
> I think the Dawn mission is a wonderful one, and we will
> learn a lot. What
> I meant by "scraps from the table" is that, relative to other NASA
> expenditures, money spent on minor planet research is very
> minimal (even
> if we include the Dawn mission). What I meant by "even if
> they're not
> exactly what we wanted" was that I would have preferred to fund a
> NEO-oriented mission such as the Hera mission (c.f.,
> http://www.uark.edu/misc/hera/) rather than the Main
> Belt-oriented Dawn
> mission.
>
> But, I think it's wonderful Dawn is going to happen. Bravo!
>
> Ron
> ******

How could NASA fund Hera if it wasn't proposed for funding?

That's right... despite the publicity linked to the mission at the time,
Hera was not actually proposed under the last Discovery AofO, for reasons
arcane & multiplex. Technologocial assessment was likely to be an issue in
this case; & to be fair to NASA, funding for many of the Hera-required
technologies has been forthcoming.

Live in peace
Robert.Clements@...
endeavour2 project http://www.geocities.com/robtclements/endeavour2.html>