The fact that it's 2021, we can build fully autonomous vehicles, and we're not sending them to every interesting spot in the solar system is one of the many frustrations that together fill up my day. news.arizona.edu/story/methane-…
It cost less than $1B to launch and operate New Horizons to Pluto. Cassini cost $3B. Artemis (launching space dads to the moon) is going to cost at least $85B minimum. For that budget we could search for life on Titan, Europa, Enceladus, Ganymede, and a half dozen other places
People who aren't space nerds may not realize how little is in the pipeline. There is basically nothing going past Mars, and launch windows are closing. I wish one of our billionaires would become obsessed with Jovian moons instead of sending his sagging body to float overhead
Every time we send a probe to the outer solar system it revolutionizes our understanding of planetary science, sparks intense public interest, and creates new fields of study. But we insist on spending a hundred times the money to send humans into low earth orbit instead.
The fact that the public sees a manned mission to Mars as the distant next step in space exploration represents a failure to communicate all the discoveries we've made everywhere in the Solar System someone managed to send a camera. So many desktop backgrounds still to be found!
It's also important to communicate that the only realistic profile for a 2030's Mars landing (a "boots and flags" mission with no long stay) has negligible scientific value except in the narrow and tautological field of learning to keep large primates alive for two years in space
Everyone has a vision for the first mission to Mars, but no one has a credible plan for a fourth or fifth mission. It's like we're determined to cosplay the entire Apollo program, including the part where the program is axed, 50 years go by, and we lose all the expertise we had
Unless they find Taliban on Mars, there's no way we're spending a trillion dollars for a sustained American presence there
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