REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA (Robert Elton Maas) (11/17/86)
<HS> Date: 16 Nov 86 02:04:54 GMT <HS> From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@seismo.css.gov (Henry Spencer) <HS> Subject: space news from AW&ST 6 Oct 1986 <HS> JPL is studying a mission dubbed TAU, Thousand Astronomical Units, for a <HS> nuclear-ion probe to travel well beyond the solar system. A megawatt <HS> nuclear reactor would power ion engines for about 10 years, ... This excites me! More info please if available. <HS> [Mini-editorial: a probe with a 50-year mission will be passed by newer <HS> probes with better engines long before the end of its mission. Planning <HS> for such long missions needs to consider in-flight obsolescence. -- HS] That's what I thought about Voyager 2. By the time it gets to Uranus, much less Neptune, it will have been passed by an ion rocket with improved telemetry, so the whole Uranus/Neptune mission is a waste. As it turns out, delays in the whole space program, especially the ion rocket, have turned Voyager 2 into a note in a bottle not likely to be exceeded by any new mission for many years. I say we should go ahead and put up our ion rocket, with state-of-art telemetry virtually guaranteed for 20 years, and note in the bottle for additional time if our space program falls on its face again.