Pluto Plans Progress

akiaki007 writes: "Here is an article on NYTimes (free reg.) that talks about the late discussions about how NASA is going to be spending their money. Looks like the decision to send a craft to Pluto has been made final. January 2006 has been set for the launch date. Pluto's atmosphere is expected to freeze around 2020, so this is the last chance to make any type of observations on the planet we will get until about 2200."

Comments

Re:Travel Time and Technology

[Mt._Honkey]

They made no mention of propulsion at all, however they did say that they expected the trip to take about a decade. That is about right for a conventional rocket like the voyager probes. I too would love to see some new technology used. I am a physics student and am considering working in this field. Ion/plasma propulsion could easily cut down the travel time. However, the technology has not been thoroughly developed, so it would be much more expensive. I say that while it would be worth the cost, it is may be too much of a risk to test a new technology when we will only have this one chance.

Re:And we're going there why?

[Mt._Honkey]

We should spend the money on Pluto now for a couple of reasons. 1) It is the nearest Kuiper-belt like object, and the Kuiper-belt is quite likely the largest and most poorly understood part of our solar system. 2) If we don't act now to launch, rather than wait for cheaper space travel that should come in a few decades, then we will not get the chance to investigate it until 150 years from now or we devise much much much more powerful forms of space propulsion.