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The next mission is supposed to be sample return. I agree that mars has been over explored to the detriment of all other planets, especially the outer ones.
by Fatnino 3y ago
The next mission is supposed to be sample return.
I agree that mars has been over explored to the detriment of all other planets, especially the outer ones.
- raxxorraxor 3y agoNo planet you can land on, so that leaves the moons and pluto and the cost is much higher. Not the little extra fuel and hardware requirements, but the mission time alone... Venus is extremely dense and hot that it melts all the equipment pretty quickly, Mercury is hard to reach. Probably very hot too on the very long and sunny days and the nights are too cold. It also require the most fuel to visit without space brakes.
- Fatnino 3y agoI'm talking about a big headline mission to survey everything in the vicinity of the outer 2 smaller gas giants. Think Cassini or Galileo (too bad about that antena). Sure these missions take a long time. Means we have to start today so our kids can see the results. All 4 gas giants have plenty of moons with places to land. But I'm not even talking that far out in the future. I just want a suite of scientific instruments in a wide orbit around a gas giant surveying every moon they can get near. Grvity assist slingshot opportunities to get to the outer giants don't come along every decade and yet when one does come up the proposed mission opportunity and it's budget gets instead allocated to yet another damn mars rover.