Genesis and suborbital flights

DHK,
Fair enough, criticism is necessary, as I earlier mentioned. I was merely suggesting a process of criticism development rather than a single burst.
Regarding 'affording a genesis-style landing', perhaps I shouldn't have used ambiguous language. Genesis smashed, not landed. Perhaps a future operation is too important to allow for the possiblity that it may smash horribly into the earth. I thought the lead-up to this comment made this interpretation fairly clear - as I mentioned, I am well aware of the huge cost difference in methods. As far as I can wade through it, that seems to be your main concern (a very valid one).
As I said, criticism is necessary - but an even more important component is understanding what was proposed. I don't think that either Ekkehard or I proposed anything similar to "hanging a net out the window as it whizzes by". It's easy to criticise rediculous ideas - especially if they are exaggerated or improperly understood.
Probably, though, I'm just too new here to know how to see the tone of your messages and the context of posts on this forum. I'll try to avoid sarcasm and will try to make important points very clear, and you go ahead and slaughter stupid ideas.

Buh? Er ... ok.

Nope, at best you were (as you say) ambiguous. I suppose you meant "afford" in the sense that one cannot "afford" to let something happen, as opposed to the sense that one doesn't have the funds. Pity that we had been using the latter sense throughout the thread.

I was trying to provoke an alternative thesis. You had no specifics whatsoever on how something like the ISS could be used to retrieve something coming in the same way that Genesis did. I have strong doubts that it's possible for several reasons, a lack of sufficient manouverability being on top of that long list. Just tell me how you would propose using the ISS to capture Genesis. Good luck.

The tone of my messages swings wildly between humoured, confused, outraged, sarcastic and sadistic. You get to see the full range in the cafe because I give less of a damn here. I promise not to get jealous if you start slaughtering stupid ideas before I get the chance to. Don't avoid sarcasm, in the absence of a sharp stick to poke dull folk with it's a very useful thing.

People tend not to speak up about things clever, stupid or indifferent because it involves engaging two things they either don't have or don't have much use for. Courage and brains. It leaves the field pretty clear for those of us unafraid to enter the fray.

Keep your gloves up. Otherwise you're doing ok.

DKH

It's still the Cafe and still let's have fun - but I cannot withstand to mix in a technological idea: Genesis was a sample return mission and there wil be at least one sample-return-mission to Mars - several sample return missions in other words. Sounds as if they all together - beginning with Genesis - should have been designed to use one and the same vehicle and engine. That would be reusability and saving investments. They all will have the navigational and other capabilities required then. Genesis would have been just the payload then. But that's no topic for the Cafe I suppose.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Au contraire mon ami. IMO what you're proposing is entirely appropriate for discussion in the cafe.

DKH

You think "freighters" and "modularities" are funny things?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

No no, I was just being perverse. Forget it.

DKH

Allright - just a demonstration of what you told slycker about the tone of your messages. I allways have fun remembering your steroid eating alter ego in Shuttlelabs thread that author has locked recently.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Hello, Dr_Keith_H,

I ceased searching for the mentioned article now - too much other things to do and I have to solve a technical problem connected with making shorter very many file names in oder to make them burnable by Nero.

I didn't find the article yet and I may have been in error when I seemed to remember it.

In principle I would prefer all sample return missions going to the ISS or another station to keep it safe from crashing down like Genesis and to handle it in a more sterile environment than the surface of Earth is.

Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

After significant pause, there is now word that something useful was salvaged from genesis:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7083
(annoying pop-ups, I know, but most useful article formulation that I found)