Future Mercury Missions Options

[Paolo]

apparently Russia has started thinking about a Mercury landing mission beyond preliminary feasibility studies.
http://www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=10857
Such a mission would nicely fill a niche left empty by other space agencies, but from the similar US Decadal survey study, it is not going to be a cheap one!

[Art Martin]

My son and I were talking about future missions to Mercury the other day and both of us agreed that perhaps a mission should be targeted to an area right on the horizon of the Mercury day since it's rotation is locked as it is. Have some base just beyond the heat and radiation of the sun but with the ability for a rover to place solar panels on the other side of that safe area and delve into the sunlit side for research. Without an atmosphere, the temp differential should be quite large right at that terminator spot and you wouldn't have to travel far into the shade (especially if you found a crater or tube to go into) to give you tons of shielding from the high radiation. It would be a similar plan to Lunar polar missions. What do we know about the "dark side" of Mercury?