NASA Exploring 8 New Space Expeditions

coondoggie writes "NASA is trying to decide among eight space exploration missions that include further exploring Venus and comet composition as well landing on an asteroid or examining the space around Jupiter. The space agency today began accepting solicitations for these space exploration opportunities and will ultimately pick one of them to begin perusing in 2009 with a launch date targeted at 2018. The solicitations and ultimate expedition are part of NASA's New Frontiers program, which has as its main objective to explore the solar system with medium-class spacecraft missions that will conduct high-quality, focused scientific investigations, NASA said. The first New Frontiers mission was selected in 2003 and will result in the launch of Juno, a Jupiter polar orbiter mission set to blast off in 2011."

Comments

Blimps, please?

[4D6963]

I want to see balloons dropped into the atmosphere of planets. Particularly giant planets. Best pick would probably be Saturn, but I'm sure we could learn interesting about Uranus if we sent a balloon there. And Neptune too, although I'm afraid the winds are a bit too violent there. Jupiter would also be great but I'm afraid the superior "surface" gravity there would make it harder.

I wonder if you could also do that on Venus (too hot maybe?) or Titan.

Oh and to clarify my idea : the balloons/blimps would stay aloft for months on end, going up and down in the atmosphere on command to study different altitudes, drifting off the winds, telling us more about them, performing all the analyses possible, and not just about the atmosphere but also (why not) the magnetic field and whatever else might be interesting. And of course a good colour camera, so we can see what it looks like from there, see the clouds, thunderstorms, the moons through the coloured atmosphere, boreal auroras, and so on.. That would be pretty exciting.