NASA Chooses Pluto Mission

CheshireCatCO writes: "NASA announced on Thursday that it has selected Alan Stern's Pluto mission proposal, named New Horizons, for phase B study and (hopefully) eventual launch in 2006. Alan is himself one of the top experts on Pluto, and his team consists of many other leaders in the field. It should be a good mission, if only they get the money for it." CNN has a story with some background on the mission. NASA is having a hard time deciding whether the Pluto-Kuiper Express is actually going to launch or not.

Propulsion

[nil5]

It will be really interesting to see what sort of propulsion system they choose to get there, given the extraordinary distance that will have to be covered. I bet they'll choose some sort of ion-drive, or related thing.

Does anyone know how long it will take to reach Pluto? I would think a few years, but of course that's just a guesstimate.

Pluto mission I, II, III, IV, etc

[LazyDawg]

We'll probably only ever get to see the one Pluto Probe get launched in the next 20 years, which is a shame, because redundancy is the best way to reduce cost/benefit ratios in a NASA mission.

The odds for a long duration mission like this to the far reaches of our solar system are pretty slim, and once you make one Pluto Probe it is a lot cheaper to make *many* Pluto Probes.

What do you think the odds are there will be even a Pluto II?

Re:Ice on Charon?

[leucadiadude]

You are right of course for the near term. And I agree with you about Mars.

But what about when we want to get into the van Oort cloud? We'll need water to make cheap rocket fuel as well as for life support systems.....

Re:NASA needs to better allocate its funds

[Scoria]

No benefits, eh?

Programs such as the ISS and the space shuttle give NASA a chance to figure out what to expect on these long term missions (medically with their astronauts and physically with their equipment), not to mention allow them to increase their skills as engineers (we don't want a Mars mission's shuttle to explode somewhere in between).

There are many, many benefits to the space shuttle and ISS.

Re:Ice on Charon?

[isomeme]

There's water ice on Pluto, Charon, and indeed just about all the larger outer-planet moons. Water ice is pretty much ubiquitous on solid objects far enough from stars. It's made of two of the commonest elements, after all.

Pluto mission I is boring enough

[nusuth]

Really, I don't think there is much to see there compared to mars, moons of jupiter and saturn. The only reason to go there when there is so much to learn in the near bodies seems to be the fact that pluto is comparitevly near to sun right now, and it won't be there for the next hundered years (I thought a pluto year is much longer, why should a planet that far go that fast?)

Kuiper belt is a lot more interesting though. NASA is downplaying it possibly because they will fit the craft mainly for pluto-charon system and won't be able to do much about the belt.

The need to launch Pluto-Kuiper Express soon

[vaguelyamused]

The Pluto-Kupier Express needs to be developed and launched soon. There are two main reasons for this: 1) The launch window for setting a trajectory for Pluto that uses Jovian gravity assist lies between 2004-2006. This could signifigantly shorten the time it takes the probe to reach Pluto which could significantly effect the next reason. 2) Pluto is currently heading away from the perihelion in its abort, thus is headed away from the Sun (and Earth). As Pluto heads away from the sun the surface temperature decreases and the atmosphere progressively condenses, freezing to the surface of the planet. Planetary scientist are very anxious to study its atmosphere in a gaseous state, it is predicted to be completetly frozen by 2020. As Pluto takes 248 years to revolve around the sun it will be a LONG time before it's gas again.

Re:The need to launch Pluto-Kuiper Express soon

[CheshireCatCO]

As Pluto heads away from the sun the surface temperature decreases and the atmosphere progressively condenses,

Actually, it seems that we're moving away from this prediction with more current models of Pluto's atmosphere. It does not seem likely that the atmosphere freezing out is a real concern, anymore.

Re:If I had a say ...

[junkgrep]

Just so people know, because some are already getting it wrong, you should emphasize that the point of putting the scope on the far side of the moon is NOT because that side is "dark." It is NOT dark (is the side always facing us always "light"? Nope.). The point is, as you said, to partially screen it from interference coming from from Earth.

In fact, if we did put a scope on the far side of the moon, we'd probably need to build into it some way to block off it's lens and shield all it's sensitive components for when it was in direct sunlight. This would actually probably be the most expensive feature about such a scope: needing to close up for protection so often means a lot of wear and tear over thime.