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mithridates
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http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/leonarddavid<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>A potential outward bound destination for astronauts: Phobos and Deimos - the two moons of Mars.<br /><br />NASA is stirring up the exploration pot by co-sponsoring in early November the first international conference on sending robots and humans to Phobos and Deimos.<br /><br />This global gathering of experts will meet at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. They’ll detail new ideas on probing Phobos and Deimos, as well as how to utilize the two moons as a gateway for exploring Mars itself.<br /><br />In the human exploration department, scientists and engineers are to delve into what an expeditionary crew might do on Phobos and Deimos - and how to use those mini-worlds to help in investigating the red planet. Also, what precursor robotic missions that might be needed will be addressed.<br /><br />By the way - Russia is already spearheading a multi-nation project to explore Phobos, dubbed the Phobos-Grunt mission, a sample return effort eyed for 2009.<br /><br />Phobos is the larger of the two moons and is the closest to Mars…so close, in fact, that it stands to be ripped apart by gravitational forces way out in the future.<br /><br />Phobos and Deimos are thought by many scientists to be captured asteroids, perhaps rocky travelers that originated in the outer solar system.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />So how much money/effort would be saved going to a location like Phobos and its escape velocity of a mere 11m/s? It also has an orbital speed of 2 km/s that certainly doesn't hurt on the way back.<br /><br />I see there's another forum here advocating exploding Phobos in order to heat up Mars and decrease the albedo at the same time:<br /><br />http://metaresearch.org/msgboard/topic. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>----- </p><p>http://mithridates.blogspot.com</p> </div>