Onwards to Uranus and Neptune! |
Onwards to Uranus and Neptune! |
Jan 12 2008, 09:40 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 8-February 04 From: Arabia Terra Member No.: 12 |
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 |
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Jan 13 2008, 11:11 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 146 Joined: 23-August 06 From: Vriezenveen, Netherlands Member No.: 1067 |
I think they should build two spacecraft, and send them both to JS and then one to Uranus and one to Neptune.
Building the spacecraft simultaneously will keep the building and development cost low. Then the time it takes to get to Uranus and Neptune, if breaking is much a problem, then the speed to get there should be lower, at least much slower than New Horizons gets to Pluto. |
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Jan 13 2008, 11:18 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
I think they should build two spacecraft, and send them both to JS and then one to Uranus and one to Neptune. Building the spacecraft simultaneously will keep the building and development cost low. It will not keep the costs low. It will only enable you to get a second, identical spacecraft for less than 2x the cost of one. We're talking flagships here. You don't get two expensive launch vehicles at less than 2x of one to launch them, either. Then the time it takes to get to Uranus and Neptune, if breaking is much a problem, then the speed to get there should be lower, at least much slower than New Horizons gets to Pluto. And you come back to what JRehling is saying that by the time the orbiter gets there, all the scientists will be retired. A minimum energy Hohmann transfer to Uranus/Neptune takes decades and is simply not worth it. What do you do for power? Even RTGs degrade over such long periods and you really want to get a capable and power-hungry instrument suite to orbit (since you're going through all this trouble already). The sad state of affairs is chemical propulsion is just not feasibly up to the task. We need new concepts, there are some feasible ones out there, but they need development. For serious delta-V in outer solar system you simply have to go nuclear (either reactor-based or RTG-electric). -------------------- |
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