Manned landing on Mercury

[Boris_Badenov]

The theoretic makeup of Mercury is mostly heavy metals. If this can be confirmed by robot, mining could be very lucrative. I would think that robots or tele-operation would do most mining though, because the environment would be extremely unforgiving. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#993300"><span class="body"><font size="2" color="#3366ff"><div align="center">. </div><div align="center">Never roll in the mud with a pig. You'll both get dirty & the pig likes it.</div></font></span></font> </div>

 

[superluminal]

Mercury Unveiled<br /><br /> G. Jeffrey Taylor wrote this interestinng article in 1997 entitled Mercury unveiled. <br /><br />According to the article Mercury has abundant refractory elements (elements with a high boiling point) and water ice at both of the poles deposited there by comets that collided in the past.<br /><br />Temperature extremes from 90 to 700 K<br /><br />Possibly, humans could survive an expedition to the poles. <br /><br />Until 1962 it was thought that Mercury's "day" was the same length as its "year" so as to keep that same face to the Sun much as the Moon does to the Earth. But this was shown to be false in 1965 by Doppler radar observations. It is now known that Mercury rotates three times in two of its years. <br />This fact and the high eccentricity of Mercury's orbit would produce very strange effects for an observer on Mercury's surface. At some longitudes the observer would see the Sun rise and then gradually increase in apparent size as it slowly moved toward the zenith. At that point the Sun would stop, briefly reverse course, and stop again before resuming its path toward the horizon and decreasing in apparent size. All the while the stars would be moving three times faster across the sky. Observers at other points on Mercury's surface would see different but equally bizarre motions. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Mercury data <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><br /><strong><font size="3" color="#3366ff">Columbia and Challenger </font></strong></p><p><strong><font size="3" color="#3366ff">Starships of Heroes</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[halman]

Boris1961,<br /><br />Anywhere we go in space, the environment is going to be very unforgiving. There are some places where the environment is too extreme for our technology to handle, such as Venus and Jupiter. A mine shaft which corkscrews down a couple of hundred meters will provide protection from the Sun, ever on Mercury. A shaft like that can be driven in a matter of weeks, creating a space where habitat can be created.<br /><br />Humans will always be needed on site to deal with the unexpected, and telepresence won't work if there are long delays in feedback. Tours on places like Mercury might be shorter than on Mars, but living underground is probably the best option everywhere, even on Earth. So the living conditions will really be the same everywhere, except for gravity. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[alokmohan]

Sun rises twice,sets twice on mercury.Am I correct?