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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Aug 16 2009, 02:13 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
I think a 5-fold to 10-fold reduction in launch costs would result in more twin-probe or multi-probe missions. It costs maybe half-again more to produce two new probes than a single probe (if you take the MER project as an example). A third probe adds quite a bit less to your costs, as does a fourth, etc.
So -- if you can design four probes that are nearly identical (with perhaps some variation in their scientific payloads) and launch them to the same destination for the same cost as what you'd pay today for a single flagship mission, you can get a potential for a lot more bang for your buck. I can envision flying a really solid NetLander mission to Mars this way, or sending a flotilla of four to six Jupiter-system probes, each with its own unique program to execute, and each perhaps half as capable as a flagship probe. You're still talking flagship mission funding, of course, and so only looking at seeing such multi-probe missions once a decade or so. Even so, in the meantime, you'd at least be able to spend a little more on Discovery-class mission spacecraft and a little less on their launch costs. In other words, reduction in launch costs is always a good thing, but I think it'll have more of an impact on flagship-class planning than on intermediate-class missions. -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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