Onwards to Uranus and Neptune! Options

[SFJCody]

As soon as MESSENGER gets to Mercury, the most poorly explored planets in the solar system will be Uranus and Neptune. Could this lead to a revival of interest in the ice giants and their retinue, in the same way that the existence of New Horizons is perhaps partly due to the Pluto stamp*?







*via Pluto Fast Flyby and later Pluto Kuiper Express

[Greg Hullender]

Does anyone have a link to any of the JSN proposals? I searched several different ways, but always kept getting Voyager material.

I suppose even ion drive doesn't make an orbiter all that much better a proposition. That is, assuming you use conventional means to launch the thing to Jupiter, only depending on the ion drive (and maybe some aerobraking) to slow it down at the end. Even so, it probably still busts the budget for a New Frontiers mission.

Trouble is, I agree it's hard to justify another Neptune flyby.

--Greg