Word: moonlets
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Turning its cameras away from the Martian surface. Mariner provided a bonus for scientists at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory: the first closeup pictures of the two tiny moonlets of Mars. Deimos and Phobos. Sharpened and clarified by computers, the photographs finally laid to rest an enticing theory put forth a few years ago by Soviet Astrophysicist I.S. Shklovskii. who said that the apparent behavior of Phobos in orbit meant that it could be hollow. That in turn suggested to Shklovskii that the moonlet might be an artificial satellite, lofted into orbit by a long-extinct Martian civilization. Instead, Mariner...
Taking its TV eyes off the planet for a while, Mariner demonstrated its versatility-and the skill of its terrestrial controllers-by spotting and photographing the outer Martian moonlet, Deimos, from a distance of more than 5,000 miles. Deimos, a tiny chunk of debris only 5½ miles by 7 miles, seemed to be flattened in its northwest quadant, appearing to one JPL observer "like half an apple with a bite taken out of it." It also had unexplained light splotches and other surface features that may show up more clearly when JPL technicians use computers to enhance...
...Deimos (named after the sons of Mars, the Roman god of war) could finally put to rest the imaginative theory of Soviet Astrophysicist I.S. Shklovskii. In an attempt to explain certain peculiarities-now attributed to misinterpretation of data-in the orbit of Phobos. Shklovskii suggested in 1959 that the moonlet might be hollow, possibly a satellite lofted by some long-vanished civilization...
...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...
...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...