[AR] Re: irrational gushing enthusiasm (was Re: Future Exploration...)
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2018 22:13:16 -0500 (EST)
On Sat, 10 Feb 2018, Paul Mueller wrote:
But now it's the whole gamut, from suborbital to interplanetary...
Again, has been for quite a while. It's been possible to buy a Proton
launch commercially for a couple of decades now, and Proton has launched
Mars landers -- in fact, it launched the *first* Mars landers (Mars 2 and
3), as well as the latest (the ExoMars orbiter carrying the Schiaparelli
lander). It was also a candidate to launch Pluto Fast Flyby, which later
morphed into New Horizons.
(And speaking of Falcon Heavy missions, Proton also launched the first
designed-to-be-manned spacecraft to fly around the Moon... although in the
end, Zond never flew manned because Apollo 8 got there first.)
An increment up in payload mass and down in cost, yes, but *not* a
radically new development.
Henry
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