I saw this question yesterday and hadn't the time to get to it.. sorry.
I'm in agreement with Kim. My feelings about planetary moons are, they "Belong" to the planet's energies, things we can't feel as strongly because they will ALWAYS be in conjunction with that planet, no matter how far out their orbit is.
I have thought a lot about this too especially with Jupiters moons discovered back in 79 early 80s.. and how many there actually were!
The point I feel is that this proves to me how strong the magnetic fields of these planets are, and shows how they relate in our solar system. The fact is true these moons can be much larger than our own planet, which seems to say to me, these planets are an influence on us even if astronomers say its only minor.
Radio telescopes can "hear" these planets, however alot of the signal of the moons are always blocked by the electromagnetic energies extruded by the planets.
Saturn has a very strong pull in fact.
Neptune and Uranus, were once thought of as cold planets too, but in fact cold atmospheres can also produce a exponential amounts of energy, this was unheard of before these probes came about.
They were thought to be in theory too far to have any energy which was influenced by solar winds, but these solar winds reach out far beyond what we thought, and this energy is used by planets to produce their "weather" not to mention their radio signal...
Lucky our atmosphere becomes more polarized by the ionized particals of the sun's activity otherwise our planet would look like Mars, stripped of its atmosphere by the solar wind... (the theory is that some how that planet lost its magnetic field and thus the solar winds eroded away its atmosphere..and thus even the surface of that planet)
The study of asteroids is interesting not only because of the symbolic nature of the naming of asteroids, (just as the planets) but that they too have orbits that influence our lives, some for good or for bad, (thinking about the killer asteroid theories out there now) They may be small in comparison, but some of the larger asteroids are quite large and they (the named asteroids) have a somewhat stable, predictable orbit; yes there are many out there too.
I don't want to dissmiss the idea of using planetary moons; but I do feel that if we used them, they would have to be a minor measurment of how strong the planet it orbits is at that time.. for example, we can not experience a full "Titan" on Saturn, but if we lived on Saturn, imagine how it might feel, and how it would influence the weather... that kind of thing. These moons are part of the pull and are pulled by the planet, in some cases, like Jupiter's Io, it's so pulled, it's almost ripped apart on a daily basis.
Its all about energy though. To hold an orbit around the sun, you need to have enough magnetic energy to do so I imagine.. We once again always end up pointing to the sun though.
Sorry about this long essay, maybe inaccurate, but my auntie studied physics and astrophysics, and I got exposed to the radio telescope as a kid.
Take care,
svenskasfinx
P.S. don't be afraid to challange my thoughts about this, because I'm not entirely certain and things do change.. there are alot of new theories out there.
