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

[nprev]

Uh...say what?! We haven't launched a Galileo follow-up, which would be easy compared to Uranus/Neptune recon mission(s) (to say nothing of orbiters, the technical hurdles of which have been extensively discussed). We are extremely lucky that Voyager 2 did succeed, else I suspect that none of us now living would have ever seen these planets up close in any respect.

Think I know what you mean, but frankly it seems that you're overestimating the impetus for doing such missions. Remember that there was actually a serious proposal floated to turn off Voyager 2 while it was enroute to Uranus as a cost-cutting measure; thank God it didn't happen.

[Gladstoner]

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[centsworth_II]

Considering that New Horizons is on its way to Pluto, I would surely think that recon
missions to Uranus and Neptune would have at least as high a priority.

New Horizons just barely made it as a priority:

"The Bush Administration canceled it twice, NASA claimed its budget couldn't cover it
and Congress earmarked funds to be cut in mid-development; yet the trail-blazing
New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission has survived....

It is a successor to a long line of planned Pluto missions, none of which ever left the
drawing board. New Horizons' immediate predecessor, the Pluto Express, got farther
than most, but in the summer of 2000 NASA canceled mission."
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/pluto/

Not exactly an example of the easy time a Uranus or Neptune mission would
have getting approved and flown, even if those planets had not yet been visited.