NASA Mulls Missions To Neptune and Uranus, Using the Space Launch System

MarkWhittington writes: According to a story in Astronomy Magazine, NASA is contemplating sending flagship sized space probes to the so-called "ice giants" of Uranus and Neptune. These probes would orbit the two outer planets, similar to how Galileo orbited Jupiter and how Cassini currently orbits Saturn. The only time NASA has previously had a close encounter with either of these worlds was when Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986 and then Neptune in 1989. Each of these missions would happen after the Europa Clipper, a flagship-class mission scheduled for the mid-2020s.

Comments

Re:Flagship-sized probe to Uranus?

[Rei]

Herschel, its discoverer, wanted to name it "George". ;)

Really, Uranus was a naming mistake - in keeping with the names of the other planets, it should have been named Caelus.

Re:Ehh

[Rei]

Flagship is a technical term. NASA missions are divided into categories: Discovery, New Frontiers, Explorer, and Flagship. Flagship are the most expensive, and most infrequently launched. Flagship missions cost over a billion dollars, usually $2-3B. Because they're so expensive and infrequently launched, one expects a huge scientific return out of them - for example, although Cassini-Huygens cost $3.26B, it's returned such a treasure trove of data and incredible discoveries about the Saturn system that I doubt anyone would say it's not worth it. Is Mars 2020 going to return anything that worthwhile? Not even close. The sort of scientific territory it's exploring is far too well tread already; it's exploring small details, not huge unanswered questions. The Uranus or Neptune probes may or may not prove to be worth their price tag, but at least they stand a better chance. I know a lot of people for example itching to find out more about Triton after Voyager's tease, which was conducted with 1970s tech.