[X] My Assistant

[Guest_vjkane2000_*]

I found the following teaser lead-in on Aerospace Daily's web site (you have to subscribe to get the whole thing, and I don't have that kind of money!):

Mars Scout Program To Seek More Money For 2011 Mission

Aerospace Daily & Defense Report 08/22/2005
NASA's Mars Scout program is seeking more money in its fiscal 2007 budget request to allow for the per-mission cost cap to be raised from its original level of $325 million to a level above $400 million. "I've recognized that that is an inadequate amount of money to get a reasonable-risk mission to Mars," Mars Exploration Program Director Doug McCuistion told The DAILY. "It's just not as cheap as flying low-Earth orbit stuff. And therefore I intend to increase the cap over what it was."

[dvandorn]

Now, there's an idea -- a Mars orbiter with a synthetic aperature radar, a really *huge* fat data pipe back to Earth, and a big gas tank for orbital maneuvering. Put it into a Molniya-type orbit around Mars (very high apoares, very low periares) with the high point over the MSL landing site. Do really good SAR work on the low point of the orbit and use the thing as a relay for MSL during its long climb and fall to/from its high point.

Use the really big gas tank to change its line of nodes on occasion, to change the area where the periares occurs and maximize the usefulness of the SAR. After all, you can shift the low point of such an orbit quite a bit and still keep it high in the sky over nearly half of the planet, most of the time.

Oh, and postpone MSL from 2009 to 2011, and then you have the proper telecom relay *and* good SAR capability at Mars.

-the other Doug