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It's not just budget ,the Voyager program took advantage of a favorable planetary alignment that wouldn't recur for 175 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan
by avar 14y ago
It's not just budget ,the Voyager program took advantage of a favorable planetary alignment that wouldn't recur for 175 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Grand_Tour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Grand_Tour
I have no idea how favorable this was, i.e. whether you could get the same effect today with more propulsion, but it's quite possible that we don't have the technology to do this in any reasonable timeframe today.
- abecedarius 14y agoThey do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons
- nuclear_eclipse 14y ago"New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006" ... "with an estimated arrival date at the Pluto–Charon system of July 14, 2015"
- abecedarius 14y agoYou say that like it's a long time! I think.
- losvedir 14y agoHoly shit! Only 9 years to pluto? That's waaaaayyyy shorter than I would have imagined possible with our current technology.
- 46Bit 14y agoThat alignment was more about favourable planetary alignment than a noticeably faster trip to the edge of the solar system. The Voyagers did pretty well, but if your only aim was getting away from Sol it's not too difficult a target. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Networ....