More on the Pluto-Kuiper Express

addie writes "Scientific American has a great, extensive article about Pluto and the possibilities of exploring it in the near future. Neat descriptions of Kuiper Belt and what we can learn about solar system birth and growth from the tiny planet."

Comments

Re:tech details from the article...

[PD]

That's true, but solid state tape recorders are starting to be used in missions closer to home.

Hubble Tape deck replaced with solid state recorder in 1997, stores 12 gigabits. Old tape deck stored 1.2 gigabits:
http://www.shuttlepresskit.com/STS-103/ payload52.h tm

The ESA is also tinkering with them:
http://esapub.esrin.esa.it/pff/pffv5n2/maeu sli.htm

NEAR - Near Earth Asteroid Rendesvous - carried a 1.7 gigabit solid state recorder
http://near.jhuapl.edu/spacecraft/

On the other hand, Galileo used a regular tape deck, and had some mechanical problems with it.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/mess38/TAPE.h tm

So, it's true that all missions past Mars have used a tape deck, it's also true that mechanical systems can break down pretty easily. I predict that the success of solid state recorders on several missions is going to lead to these devices being universally used everywhere in the solar system.