Dale.Amon@H.CS.CMU.EDU (11/18/86)
I think Gary Allen's point about Pluto might be a good one. It would be interesting to have such a long distance probe give it a quick pass. Shouldn't really matter that much, except for a bit of DV used for getting a bit off the ecliptic. However, I disagree that it is a boondoggle. There is a great deal to be learned by getting a longer astrometric baseline. We hardly know where things really are in our local neighborhood. I would also say that we will need a lot more accurate position information on the nearer stars if we are going to consider sending probes to them in the next century. The current errors are probably FAR too large to do an REAL orbit for even a star as close as Alpha Centauri. I've heard a great deal of discussion about star probes, but no one has ever brought up the difficulty of navigating to something whose x0,y0,z0 and dx,dy,dz are so poorly known. Pointing a telescope is a bit different from aiming a spacecraft for a close pass 40 or 50 years later. I would say this mission is an important pre-requisite for such a flight. Additionally, there are very interesting question to be answered about the plasma/particle environment of intersteller space. There have been recent suggestions that we are entering a small molecular cloud. It would be extrememly interesting to see if this is true, and if so, to learn more about the actual chemistry/composition/dynamics of such clouds. It would be the collection of 'ground truth' for astronomers. Corresponding to this there are questions about where the heliopause actually is, and what it's structure is like. If such a craft carries a radio antenna of any capacity, we would have the resolution of a TAU-LBI radio telescope system available to study and settle very basic questions about the central structure of the driving engine of quasars, Seyfert galaxies, peculiar galaxies, etc. Not to mention highly detailed pictures of our own galaxy core. I would also love to see a photograph that shows the solar system as a single entity. This would be possible if the mission did indeed have photographic equipment for Pluto was consequently was off ecliptic and still had enough power to take pictures when it got that far out. I realize it wouldn't necessarily show more than a number of bright dots, but let your imagination take hold of it. It's the closest any of us even has a shot at getting to the childhood dream's of starflight. Dreams do count.