Xref: utzoo sci.space.shuttle:635 sci.space:5150
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!oliveb!sun!concertina!fiddler
From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
Message-ID: <48739@sun.uucp>
Date: 7 Apr 88 20:44:54 GMT
References: <47032@sun.uucp> <1290@hubcap.UUCP> <4076@whuts.UUCP> <1335@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 29

In article <1335@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, dep@CAT.CMU.EDU (David Pugh) writes:
> In article <48414@sun.uucp> dunc@sun.UUCP (duncs home) writes:
> >1. You need communications channels back to earth. A radio telescope on
> >the far side of the moon would need relay satellites in lunar orbit for
> >this purpose. ...
> 
> Why do you need a relay satellite? We lay cables across the ocean,
> I can see laying fiber-optic cable using technology from derived
> wire-guided missiles: fire a missile containing 100+km cable, go
> to whereever it lands, splice the cable to a new missle, etc.

Why make work for yourself?

Take a line-of-sight bearing in the direction of your transmitting
statioon that can see Earth.

Place a relay on the horizon at that bearing.

Repeat until you can see the transmitting station.

Use lasers to transmit data from the observatory to the downlink
station (uplink?  I get confused easily.).  No weather to degrade
the laser signal, no kids on tricycles to knock over the relays.

Set up two or three relay paths for redundancy.

Save fiber optics for your lunar cable TV network. (To make it harder
to bootleg programming, of course.)

	seh