The Titan mission looks so enticing. I can almost smell the hydrocarbons! Why does it have to arrive when I'll be in my forties?

At least there is a good chance you will still be alive

I like it:

"One, if by sea, two, if by air, three, if by orbit."

Thanks for that. If I really have to choose, my vote goes with TSSM. I would like to see both, but a balloon roving Titan for a year? That has to win - Titan is the low-hanging fruit here. If TSSM flies, I hope, a few years later, they can still find funds for a reduced JGO mission - maybe in collaboration with the possible JAXA JMO mission, and a few donated NASA instruments. But, to me, TSSM is a winner here.
I was looking at the PDF (also the earlier OPAG PDF on this mission) and the SEP stage - maybe that could be a mission in it own right? It has its own ion drive, solar panels, and maybe its own hydrazine propellants (jets commonly placed at the tips of the panels) - all it needs is a computer, low gain antennea, and a small camera and its a craft in its own right. With maybe an extra 1kg of electronics its a neat student/uni project for someone. Maybe with a bit more - and usually there is a healthy margin of tolerance on these missions so there might be a few kg of xenon ion-drive propellant left on board - it could make a reasonable big-asteroid flyby mission. The earlier OPAG PDF had the SEP separation quite early on, so retargeting at least seemed possible.. (is even a larger target possible - jovian trojan, or outer satellite flyby??)



Bless ya. Just leave a fwding email address. We'll post the pix on..

I really like the feed-forward aspect of the SEP stage. Once TSSM pays to develop it and build it, it will be much cheaper for other missions to use SEP. I think it would really help bring lots of neat ideas into play for Discovery or New Frontiers that would otherwise be too expensive.

...like the next Titan mission after TSSM?

Absolutely. Titan deserves no less than the full Mars treatment. Bring 'em on!

The OPFM reports are now up at: http://opfm.jpl.nasa.gov/library/

Also, there's more detail on the websites for each concept...

EJSM: http://opfm.jpl.nasa.gov/europajupitersystemmissionejsm/

TSSM: http://opfm.jpl.nasa.gov/titansaturnsystemmissiontssm/

...too bad we can't do both :-(

The reports are both very exciting, from what I've been able to get through so far. I've read the rationale as to why there is no landed element with the JEO, and it is very logical, sensible, and well-argued. But nevertheless, in an irrational way, I do wish there had been some way of attempting it this time; the 300-350kg soft landers studied, admittedly only in a preliminary way, for the ESSP and Icy Moons Lander were exciting (more so than the JGO element, though I know it will do great science - hard to squeeze in to a 300kg lander). And my impression was that Huygens didn't have the benefit of a well understood surface during its design - though then again, it did have a very helpful atmosphere, and landing wasn't the primary goal from memory. Very pleased to see that deletion of the NAC is such a long way down the descope list, given that the absence of metre-scale imaging seems to be one of the reasons why a lander is out of the question for now.

Discussion of the choice of MMRTG c.f. ASRG was also intriguing, and one of the areas where I thought the JEO was really advancing its case as the safer choice. Equally, its readiness to launch at the earlier October 2018 opportunity was put forward with some confidence.

Very much looking forward to hearing the results, I'd love Europa to get up this time, but Titan would hardly be a disappointment,

Roly

We can - just one will have to happen first. Then, when the other target gets it's chance in a decade or two, all the technological improvements mean it'll be an ever better mission

...spoken by one of the youngest members of this forum not that I'm a lot older than you, but still I can't blame those UMSF members who are "Apollo babies" for wishing that both could get done sooner rather than later!

--Emily

Oh - absolutely - I want both of them, yesterday. But it's not as if one getting picked means the other target will never be visited. It's also fair to moan, a bit, about missing a flagship for the '00s (Galileo 80's, Cassini 90's, ??? 00's, New Mission 10's ) and feel that we're in some way owed two. But then we're in the 'It's 2009, where's my flying car' game

I may not have my flying car, and I can't book my tourist trip to the Moon, but at least I do have my information terminal (e.g., the Internet) and I can take a look at the latest pictures straight from Mars whenever I like. That's enough, for now.

Personally, though, anything scheduled to fly after about 2025 is something that I have to realistically estimate I will never see. So I'm hopeful we'll find a way to get to as many places as possible in the next 15 years or so...

-the other Doug

p.s. -- I have to admit, I'm happy to see LRO survive its development pangs and a shifting economic landscape. Why? Because it doesn't take the better part of a decade for it to reach its target...

Yeah... being a Sputnik baby means whichever outer planets mission gets seleted will be it for me as well.

Only solace is that either mission will be spectacular and open brand new wonders..... always sad that Galileo was unable to really map the big moons at a decent resolution.

And we have COROT/KEPLER poised to really give us a census of terrestrial sized worlds in our galaxy..... alot to look forward to, even for us Sputnik spuds.

Craig

New Horizons will fill the gap a little bit