Is Europa really the "highest priority" of the community?, Cleave said it was at LPSC? Options

[mcaplinger]

From Emily's LPSC blog: "Bob Pappalardo would not sit down until he got Cleave to acknowledge that Europa is the consensus highest priority of the planetary science community."

Cleave was obviously poorly prepared for this session, but I don't see that this acknowledgement is either meaningful or particularly accurate. If Europa were the "highest priority" of the PS community as a whole, then one might wonder why we were spending all this money on Mars. I could easily imagine that Europa is the highest priority of the outer planets community, but frankly I was surprised when Europa Orbiter appeared in the '07 budget (presumably the result of some serious lobbying on someone's part.) It was pretty obvious to me then that there would be no money for it, especially in the aftermath of JPL running the old EO project into the ground with cost overruns and engineering upscopes. (And JIMO is best forgotten.)

Don't get me wrong, I would love to be involved with a Europa mission (we did what I think was a good proposal design for EO) but I don't see either the money or the political support being there in the near term. I know it's frustrating, but one has to be realistic, and it might help to avoid the aura of entitlement that I perceive is building in some parts of the community (not referring to you, Bob). Of course, I am just a lowly engineer.

[djellison]

If you're in your 20's - you have Cassini
If you're in your 30's - you had Galileo
If you're in your 40's - you had Voyager
If you're in your 50's - you had Viking

yes yes - lots of overlap and doesnt really sit in those catagories properly, it's a metaphor more than a real survey of the past - but there's nothing for our teenagers - where is their Voyager? Has there been a point in the last 40 years when the next really big mission wasnt at least in the planning stages?

Doug

[gpurcell]

If you're in your 20's - you have Cassini
If you're in your 30's - you had Galileo
If you're in your 40's - you had Voyager
If you're in your 50's - you had Viking

yes yes - lots of overlap and doesnt really sit in those catagories properly, it's a metaphor more than a real survey of the past - but there's nothing for our teenagers - where is their Voyager? Has there been a point in the last 40 years when the next really big mission wasnt at least in the planning stages?

Doug

Well, I'm in my 30s and what I mainly remember is the long, long gap with NOTHING in the 1980s.

[djellison]

long gap with NOTHING in the 1980s.

Galileo WOULD have launched in '86 were it not for the Challenger accident though.

Doug

[tedstryk]

Galileo WOULD have launched in '86 were it not for the Challenger accident though.

Doug

Well, had it not been tied to the shuttle, it would have lauched in '81 or '82. And, had it not been for the "everything goes by shuttle" rule, Magellan would have probably launched sooner too. But, due to bad management, the 80's, save 1989, saw no planetary launches. I would view this differently if Galileo in any way needed the Shuttle for technical reasons, not political/bureaucratic ones.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Well, had it not been tied to the shuttle, it would have lauched in '81 or '82. And, had it not been for the "everything goes by shuttle" rule, Magellan would have probably launched sooner too.

I believe Magellan was only slightly delayed by the Challenger loss. If I remember correctly, its original launch date was ca. 1988. And VOIR was cancelled pre-Challenger loss.