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.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Yeah, before we start sniffling too much about our cruel mistreatment, we really should keep in mind that the situation right now is not even remotely comparable to the genuine desert of the 1980s. We are now in the Second Golden Age of Solar System Exploration -- just a brief look at what's happened or is scheduled to happen this year alone makes that clear. We could, however, be doing even better.

[Bob Shaw]

We are now in the Second Golden Age of Solar System Exploration...

Damn right, Bruce.

Active interplanetary spacecraft currently returning science data, not counting those in orbital storage or science spacecraft in solar orbit:

1. Messenger
2. Venus Express
3. SMART-1
4. Ulysses
5. MGS
6. Mars Odyssey
7. MRO
8. Mars Express
9. Spirit
10. Opportunity
11. New Horizons
12. Cassini
13. Voyager 1
14. Voyager 2
(15. Hayabusa)

Bob Shaw

[tedstryk]

Damn right, Bruce.

Active interplanetary spacecraft currently returning science data, not counting those in orbital storage or science spacecraft in solar orbit:

1. Messenger
2. Venus Express
3. SMART-1
4. Ulysses
5. MGS
6. Mars Odyssey
7. MRO
8. Mars Express
9. Spirit
10. Opportunity
11. New Horizons
12. Cassini
13. Voyager 1
14. Voyager 2
(15. Hayabusa)

Bob Shaw

Good list...you could also add Stardust and Deep Impact in parentheses, given their possible extensions.

[mchan]

Good list...you could also add Stardust and Deep Impact in parentheses, given their possible extensions.

Rosetta is another.

[Bob Shaw]

Rosetta is another.

Aaargh! How could I have, er, you know? Damn.

Bob Shaw

[Tom Tamlyn]

Emily Lakdawalla's latest blog entry has a characteristically thorough and insightful discussion of the debate over outer planets exploration strategies. I would love to see the graphics she refers to, especially the diagram prepared by Torrence Johnson.

I'll take this opportunity to agree with the Cosmic Rocker's comment that "Emily's blog has become _the_ blog to read for the latest summary of planetary news." The level of detail she provides permits "planet spotters" to have a sense of vicarious participation in the business of planetary science that would otherwise be very difficult to achieve. Lots of us are jealous of her job, but it's hard to imagine anyone doing it better.

TTT

[mcaplinger]

Emily Lakdawalla's latest blog entry has a characteristically thorough and insightful discussion of the debate over outer planets exploration strategies.

I wonder if one problem is that both Galileo and Cassini have been very expensive missions. I think the OP community might have been better served by a larger number of somewhat smaller missions. Unfortunately the FBC pendulum has swung far away from smaller missions, and it is hard to build constituencies for them -- big missions tend to force coalitions between groups that otherwise would be competing for the same resources.