LRO development Options

[jamescanvin]

Just read this interesting article about LRO

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/28apr_lro.htm

"This is the first in a string of missions," says Gordon Chin, project scientist for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "More robots will follow, about one per year, leading up to manned flight" no later than 2020."

One per Year? Is this just wishful thinking or have any tentitve plans been mentioned for follow up missions after LRO? If the next one is going to be 2009/10 then I guess some desisions about it will have to be made fairly soon.

James

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

NASA has made it clear that it will land at a polar site to check out the ice deposits -- but the initial grotesquely ambitious plan to land a huge spacecraft based in many respects on the planned CEV lunar lander at the permanently illuminated edge of a crater, and then drive a rover down for dozens of km across the permanently dark interior of the crater to look for ice, has been quietly dumped in the last few months. The plan now is to send down a relatively small lander directly into the darkened area -- and then either dispatch a rover for local studies, or actually have the entire lander use its remaining fuel to hop from place to place on the suface for that surface.

I'm working off memories; it would take me a while to dig up the references, and frankly I don't feel like doing it tonight.