Why Didn't Voyager Visit Pluto?

Flash Modin writes: NASA built the twin Voyager spacecraft for a rare planetary alignment that put Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune within reach at once. Originally, Voyager 1 was programmed to see Pluto in 1986, but managers targeted Saturn's planet-like moon Titan instead. That choice made Pluto impossible by vaulting Voyager 1 from the orbital plane. Interestingly, Voyager 2, which couldn't reach Pluto, made the case for New Horizons by revealing Neptune's moon Triton as a kidnapped Pluto. "I'm very glad that they chose not to go to Pluto in 1986," says New Horizons head Alan Stern. "We'll do a better job at Pluto with modern instruments than they would have, and they did a much better job at Saturn..."

Comments

I'm not saying it was aliens

[known_coward_69]

but there is a secret alien base on Pluto

Because titan has ice, pluto isn't even a planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Titan has the possibility of extraterrestrial life, the finding of which would mark one of the biggest discoveries in the history of the human race and end all doubts that we are alone in the universe.
Pluto is a cold rock on the outskirts of the solar system.
Which one would you rather investigate?

What don't I like about this headline?

[wonkey_monkey]

Why Didn't Voyager Visit Pluto?

Why is this asked as a question, when the summary does in fact have the answer? Why not just headline it thus:

Why Voyager didn't visit Pluto

Then I'd be less likely to mistake it for another speculative piece of guff from a professional blog writer, which we already have plenty of.

The real reason

[gvanbelle]

I had the opportunity to ask Ed Stone, the JPL Director & Voyager scientist, this question. His rather glib answer was, "well, Titan was 3 hours away, and Pluto was 3 years away - and I had to make payroll." I think the broader answer is that JPL assumed they'd get another mission funded if they simply skipped it (and they almost did).

Re:Carl Sagan thought Titan was more important

[mbone]

How do you think these decisions are made? Carl Sagan was involved with basically every NASA planetary mission (including Apollo) from 1960 through Voyager and Viking. He proposed that Titan might have a lot of hydrocarbons (it does) a thick atmosphere (it does), haze (check) and maybe a biosphere (the jury is still out). (He did propose a strong greenhouse for Titan, and struck out there. The surface is not as balmy as he hoped.) As far as I can remember, no one was proposing a biosphere for Pluto (we didn't even know Pluto had a moon at that point). The decision to do a Titan close approach was rational, and (while it certainly wasn't his decision alone) his advocacy for it carried a lot of weight.

Re:Because titan has ice, pluto isn't even a plane

[mister_playboy]

Technically the Pluto-Charon system is not a primary with a satellite, but a double system. The center of mass of the system is not within either body, but in the space between them. .

As I love to point out, the problem with this definition is that it also applies to the Sun-Jupiter system.