LRO development Options

[jamescanvin]

Just read this interesting article about LRO

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/28apr_lro.htm

"This is the first in a string of missions," says Gordon Chin, project scientist for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "More robots will follow, about one per year, leading up to manned flight" no later than 2020."

One per Year? Is this just wishful thinking or have any tentitve plans been mentioned for follow up missions after LRO? If the next one is going to be 2009/10 then I guess some desisions about it will have to be made fairly soon.

James

[Phil Stooke]

One final point, often not appreciated. The laser would give a lat-long position (you can't see the spot illuminated by the beam). We still need to know the location relative to local features like craters. Since lunar maps still contain many positional inaccuracies, the laser would still leave us uncertain by several km, but it would narrow the search in images.

Phil