Onwards to Uranus and Neptune! |
Onwards to Uranus and Neptune! |
Jan 12 2008, 09:40 PM
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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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Feb 14 2008, 04:20 AM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8789 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Again, this is why I wish that there was a 'library' of outer-planet launch opportunities. Seems like trajectory calcs only happen when there is a viable mission proposal like NH in the pipeline; might have the cause & effect relationship backwards here.
If we knew that there were favorable launch opportunities for Uranus & Neptune (even with inner-system gravitational assists) in, say, the late 2020s, then draft mission proposals could start development now. With that much lead time, it's even conceivable that Frontier-class missions would be feasible given assumed technology advances. -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Feb 14 2008, 05:27 AM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 600 Joined: 26-August 05 Member No.: 476 |
[removed in-line quote]
There may or may not be such a library, but there are usually a couple or more papers each year at the AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics conference that discuss trajectories for future missions to places all over the solar system. Probably >95% of these come to naught but some folks are having fun cranking out the plots. Not sure what is gained by a stretched development cycle. There is the risk that product of earlier development efforts be obsolete or difficult to support when launch date comes around. |
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