REM@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (Robert Elton Maas) (02/08/86)
K> Date: Tue, 4 Feb 86 23:08:13 EST K> From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> K> Traditionally, the discoverer has the right to name his discovery. K> Look at the names of the features on the back side of Earth's moon. But a little more discretion is done for planets and moons and stars than is done for mere craters. K> The five previously known moons of Uranus (Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, K> Titania, and Oberon) are named for characters in Shakespeare. Since prior moons of Uranus are named after Shakespeare characters, perhaps continue that pattern? R> Do we want to start naming moons after real humans of the nation that R> discovered them? K> Why not? We are running out of mythological names. Most of them K> (including the whole Hindu pantheon) have been used up on asteroids. Despite Voyager discovering many more moons of outer planets, there are still an order of magnitude fewer moons than asteroids, so we could think carefully about moons while still naming asteroids more casually. K> Some asteroids now have such pseudo-mythological names as K> Rockefelleria (for Nelson Rockefeller) and Geographica (for the K> National Geographic Society). That's getting awful silly. Better we should go the telephone books of the major cities of the world and name asteroids after the most common names. K> Another possibility is for the government to auction the right of K> naming each moon, and each mountain and each crater on each moon, to K> the highest bidder. Good idea for asteroids and craters, if the IAU will permit it. There are frauds going around whereby private companies who have no right to any star discovery are selling gullible people a star named after them, but I think it would be reasonable for Palomar to auction rights to name any star that first appeared on their survey plates and for USA and USSR to auction rights to name any crater they discovered on Moon (Luna) or Calisto et al. What would IAU likely decide if this proposition were put to them? (Palomar could fund itself and several other observatories if the idea caught on, perhaps saving Mt. Wilson from budgetary extincton; USA could balance the budget maybe; USSR could become capitalistic and stop hating us so much, compete with trade like Japan instead of via cold war). R> Why not name three more after Grissom/Chaffe/White ... K> Good idea. By the way, so far no USA astronaut has ever died in space. G/C/W died on ground and the recent 7 died about 10 miles up, very far from space (50 or 100 miles up and beyond). So it seems fair to put all ten of them in same name boat. K> Was the Arpanet site OBERON named after the moon, or after the K> Shakespeare character? I don't know. Where is it located? Maybe ask Postmaster@OBERON?