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Word: moonlets (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
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Usage:

...state plainly that I do not advocate moving a moonlet of Mars to the Earth. Discussing such a project is not the same as proposing it. There is no scientific obstacle to doing it, as every physics student knows. But neither is there any point to it, unless the benefits outweigh the costs. And to give proper scientific credits: mind-boggling rearrangements of the solar system have been discussed before; e.g., by Fritz Zwicky at Caltech and Freeman Dyson at Princeton. Regardless, the examination of the Martian moonlets in situ should become a scientific objective of the highest priority...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Letters: Mar. 7, 1969 | 3/7/1969 | See Source »

...investigated more thoroughly. The technology of the interplanetary move, which would be man's first rearrangement of the solar system, would be simple, Singer says. An efficient, low-thrust nuclear engine capable of firing for long periods of time could be set up on Deimos to push the moonlet out of its orbit and start it curving toward the earth. The cost would be high, says Singer, but it might well be justified by the discovery of valuable moonlet mineral deposits that could be mined and economically transported back from earth orbit...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Astrophysics: Capturing a Moon and Other Diversions | 2/21/1969 | See Source »

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