🚀 go-pugleaf

Henry's uncharacteristically cranky followup to Paul Dietz's bit on Van
Allen, colonies vs probes etc., leads me to suspect we are treading on
emotional ground here.  Nevertheless at the moment I have to side with
Van Allen so far as the appropriateness of probing, rather than
visiting, the solar system goes.  I propose five phases of human
development in space:

	1. unmanned probes, 
	2. manned visits, 
	3. manned research stations,
	4. semiautomated resource extraction (mining, power, whatever),
	5. full scale "residential" colonization.  

The boundaries of some of these are
subjective and one may evolve into another gradually without anyone
quite noticing.  There are also four "zones" of space for the purposes
of discussing exploration: 

	A. earth orbit (LEO out to GEO);
	B. cislunar including the lunar surface; 
	C. the nearer minor planets including Mars and Venus
	   (and perhaps the asteroid belt), 
	D. Far Away (Jupiter and beyond).

Now it's fair to assess what stage each of these zones is presently in,
and where it makes sense to take each zone in the short term and long
term future.  I will let this posting circulate before presuming to
supply answers of my own; perhaps it can serve as a basis for
discussion.
-- 
Tom Neff                  tneff@well.UUCP
                       or tneff@dasys1.UUCP