----- Original Message -----
<mercuryclub@... wrote

>> I think we must avoid making summary conclusions about Mercury.


Oh, certainly. There is much we are not sure of. There
exists the possibility of some interesting spins of
reality which would make Mercury somehow much
more important than we can even imagine right now.

Probably that would have to deal with the sun being so
close, and that there exists no more stable place in the
solar system for temperature extremes exactant (?) either
at some locations in the polar regions or just behind the
planet in a geosycronous orbit.

In the first case, it is much better than the moon's polar area as the moon
has an effective 7 % inclination of axis I recall whereas the Mercury tilt
is much less than 1%. This
could be of critical importance, enough so to make it
worthwhile to develop some things on Mercury, like
factories. The moon, being much better explored, is
fairly clear: there are three very good locations, one
being out of the sun only for a few days a month. To merely beam the light
via mirror to the bottom of a nearby
crater (~ 80 Kelvin already, but quite easily shaded to a
much lower temperature). Just how this could be of
use to industry you would have to talk to someone who is
involved in material science.

In the second case, the geosyncronous orbit is fairly small
due to the gravity/ their is no appreciable atmosphere to
bend light, but the orbit is highly eccentric. To give a
rough description, the solar power (insolation) varies
100%, incredible for a planet with no weather, no clouds.
But the only real competition would be from an asteroid
(Aten, sub Earth solar orbit, I recall). There are a few,
Icarus coming within something like 30 million kilometers of the sun. But
they all rotate and their shape is highly
irregular.

And it goes on. I could spend a lot longer and exhaust
the issue to my knowledge/observation, but why do that
(it would also exhaust the patience of almost all, right?)

It is sufficient to say that there are a number of issues. The
solar observatory is a good possibility, but no country and
only a very, very few remote outposts have been
supported just because of an observatory. The mountain
in Chile is a key example, but that would be in a
comparative commuter's Conneticut in comparison to
something on Mercury. If there were nothing else there,
I doubt man would be going to the planet to stay or even
do the preliminary investigations any time in my lifetime
(37 years of age presently).

But if there were anything else on Mercury, the job would
be that much simpler and perhaps even cost effective.
All observatories are based upon a cost effective
formula, though that certainly varies from place to place.

The Hale & Palomar telescope/bases were primarily
grants from Carnegie and a few other big contributors,
and believe me -- the cost was an issue. I have just
been reading a book on the subject.

But if we develop alternative means of sensing, especially
with sub particles like quarks, etc., sometime soon, then
the sun would become far more important in the way
people think.

And while most climatologist think global warming, etc.
exists and that the current trend is (slightly) up, what
you probably mean by weather trouble is the
unpredictable fractal chaos like the "butterfly effect"
for short term weather, stock market fluxations, and
other "Brownian motions" of statistics.

It certainly would be worthwhile to be able to predict better the variable
of solar input. But my observation of
history is that humanity time and time again is penny
wise pound foolish to scientists with profoundly different
and expensive proposals.

Or so goes my devil's advocacy, in order to get some
information spewed out in a foil (making it look good by way of contrast?)
or meandering sort of way.


> It is an interesing idea about the dust, however; could it be calculated
> from the visible reflective light when compared to the Moon? I would
> imagine that there is dust,

That is what the current evidence shows, what current
models by the small core of experts think. But this topic,
as important to my private reasons for being so attached
to Mercury as the subject is, will have to wait for another
time.

"David Semloh"
By the way, I reviewed Perry's homepage. Impressive enough for anyone,
especially for being in high school. I am in the publishing business, I
will remind. Keep it up.