> >>Go play your games with the moon over a manmade planet.
> >
> >Ok, the first Mars colony. Use Phobos and Deimos for advertizing space. How
> >would they look from it's surface anyways? Unless we happen to discover
> >life there. Oops!
> >
> I think Deimos and Phobos look like bright stars from the surface of
Phobos & Deimos are interesting, because they are supposed to be
carbonaceous chondrite. If it comes to mining, solar density is not
especially rich in Mars orbit, but still better than in the 'belt. I
wonder, whether developing micro-grav/hard-vacuum industrial processes in
ground based laboratories would not be an awful lot of work, in relation
to merely low-grav conditions of Luna? Selena is around the corner, anyway,
even though one must use some rocketry to deccelerate, to arrive in one
piece. The costs of deploying von-Neumann would be negligeable in
relation to developing the processes/shrinking the package... A lot of
work. Any volunteers?
> Mars. Moons as large and near as ours are apparently extremely rare
> (another reason to leave ours alone, from my standpoint). Go elsewhere
> and make some more.
But we need the Moon, to be able to get elsewhere, at all.
> Kennita
P.S. Greg Egan, "Wang's Carpets" in "The best new SF" from Raven. Makes
two, with Permutation City.