MESSENGER News Thread, news, updates and discussion Options

[paxdan]

Launched on August 3rd 2004, NASA's MESSENGER will become the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

News and updates are availbale via Johns Hopkins University MESSENGER website and the Kennedy Space Center's MESSENGER website.

There will be an earth flyby in August followed by a couple of swings by Venus and three velocity scrubbing passages past mecury before the craft enters orbit in March 2011.

April 18, 2005 status report from JHU. Extensive JHU FAQs page here.

[dvandorn]

Well, it *may* not happen in the lifetimes of the average members of this forum. But that all depends on the state of advancement of propulsion technology. I've seen some articles on plasma drive concepts that are being championed by, among others, Franklin Chang-Diaz, that could dramatically increase the amount of delta-V capacity a spaceship can drag along with it.

If we can develop bigger, better propulsion systems in the next 20 or 30 years, things that can give you constant acceleration for most of your flight (and not at measely 1/100th G levels, either), then you can tool around the Solar System in months when you used to need to spend years. Months or years when you used to need decades.

It's not like we will *always* be limited to push-real-hard-then-coast-for-years technologies. At least, I'm sincerely hoping not.

-the other Doug