From: dwickford@yahoo.com   
      
   On 19/01/2021 11:13, Dave wrote:   
   > On 18/01/2021 17:38, Dave wrote:   
   >> What is the point of going to Mars or the Moon, besides having a look   
   >> around?  One reason I could think of was for archival purposes, in   
   >> case some thing bad happened to the home world (Earth), there could be   
   >> re-establishment of civilization.  It would be nice to come down like   
   >> aliens for afar, enlighten people, and get them rebuilding a few cities.   
   >> There are a lot of species with agricultural and farming use, but not   
   >> sure if actually need to store seeds/embryos, or the genetic data and   
   >> then make them up again with genetic engineering and a restore from   
   >> digital.   
   >>   
   >> Archival generally doesn't make economic sense, and is best provided   
   >> by government.  Non-profit might make promises, but doesn't always   
   >> deliver. e.g. archive.org lost some data permanently a few years ago.   
   >>   
   >> Also it would be nice to have a feature, visible with the naked eye on   
   >> the Moon, that showed a human construction. Should do some figures,   
   >> but maybe needing a basic x50 telescope would make the scheme practical.   
   > This should get hashtag #tagthemoon  The advantage here is that viewing   
   > would be one of those things every right thinking person would want to   
   > do once in their lifetime, causing a global consciousness shift.   
   In terms of achieving this the main thing is to not to have to take   
   paint there.  If you could plough a visible line in the dust with solar   
   powered robots, it is completely practical.  e.g. Assume visual acuity   
   is 3mm at 3meters (tested today).  So if the moon is 400,000 km away,   
   need a line 400 km wide.  Too big, but with a good x50 telescope, this   
   might go down to 8km wide, so if you could find a nice big dusty crater   
   which catches the light in the right way you could definitely make a   
   surface disturbance 8km wide, and maybe a 64x64 image 512km square.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)