New Horizons Victory Lap at Congress
Hearing on Pluto Flyby
“Tuesday, July 28, 2015: The Science Committee’s NASA Authorization Act for FY16 and FY17 restored funds the Obama administration proposed cutting from planetary science budgets. This would bring parity between NASA’s science accounts and allow for development of missions like New Horizons to continue at the current pace.”
Keith’s note: The New Horizons team is now openly talking about a New Horizons-2 mission back to Pluto. It will be interesting to see if this topic is raised given that this committee is on the record about their interest in Europa – not Pluto. Also, given the NASA’s budgetary issues, it will be interesting to see how the extra $1 billion-plus needed for New Horizons-2 would be squeezed out of an already constrained budgetary future – one that will inevitably stressed by SLS costs.
– Video
– Hearing charter
– Scientists Advocate for Planetary Funding in Wake of #PlutoFlyby, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
– Committee Discusses New Accomplishments in the Exploration of the Solar System, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Democrats
– Statement of Brian Babin
– Statement of Lamar Smith
– Statement of Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson
– Statement of Rep. Donna Edwards
– Statement of Robert Pappalardo
– Statement of John Grunsfeld
– Statement of Robert Braun
– Statement of Chris Russell
– Alan Stern did not provide a prepared statement – just pictures and the New Horizons Press Kit
I very much supported New Horizons. I think another mission to Pluto would be much less preferable to missions to Titan, Mars, or Europa. Also to other astronomical missions like a Kepler follow on.
The place to go is to set a lander or landers on the bright spot on Ceres
What “science mission is most likely to help all of us in the nearest future?
A Ceres fuel depot!
Likely the spot is easy source I of water. Ceres gravity is low enough to throw fuel back into the inner solar system.
Another ice ball flying in
How do you insulate your ice ball before fling it??
Isn’t it time to do Practical Science????
That’s a whole lot premature, especially as Dawn has yet to reach its lowest altitude. There are a lot of spectroscopic studies for Dawn to yet do. Let’s see what Dawn finds out about those spots before anyone starts planning a mission to Ceres with a lander. As AstroinMi pointed out, we have the 2013 Decadal Survey to guide decisions. That survey has a lot options, many of which are of more scientific value than a lander mission to Ceres. Examples of more scientifically interesting missions would include missions to Io, Europa, Titan, and Enceladus.
No, please no. New Horizons is an amazing program and captured the public’s imagination. I am 100% behind it. But a New Horizons 2 would be nowhere near the impact — it would be the robotic spacecraft equivalent of the Human Space Program trying to capture the spirit of Apollo again. It won’t happen.
The Decadal Survey is there for a reason. In fact, the 2001 study was one of the hammers used to get New Horizons done in the first place. To now disregard the 2013 study because Pluto is in the spotlight is just not right.
There’s a lovely proposal on YouTUBE somewhere of a probe to Eris that passes Venus, Jupiter and Uranus (releasing balloon-carried atmospheric probes on the way) before heading out into the 50AU gap beyond the Keiper Belt. Call it ‘Voyager 3‘.
Something to look at, surely!
New Horizons was really cool, and I think a second shot at Pluto would also be really cool. As would missions to Titan, Mars, Europa, and many other proposals. I know I’d be fascinated by all of them and as a non planetary scientist, I know that I don’t have the expertise to prioritize them, but I do get that there can’t be funding to do everything.
So if there is billion dollar class funding available to start new deep space exploration programs beyond what is already on the books, what I’d really like to see as the next priority is restart of the NERVA engine program so that we have the launch vehicle performance to do these deep space missions faster, bigger, and more often. Hopefully even with a return capability for some of them.
I always wondered about NERVA and if there is a killer technical issue that makes the project impossible/ impractical.
I’m pretty sure that the worries about NTR are entirely political, specifically the fears (no matter how unjustified) of massive plutonium fallout from an LOV during launch or early ascent.
There is no Plutonium in the NERVA derivative engines, or the CERMET altenrate NTR engines. The engines are entirely fueled with Uranium Dioxide or Uranium Di-Carbide.
The potential for radiation release prevented NERVA from being considered in the Earth escape portion of the trajectory, where high thrust might make a real difference. With the higher Isp and rapidly growing thrust of Hall effect devices, if we can just get permission to launch a simple power reactor, nuclear-electric propulsion may well have greater potential.
I understand the sentiment, but NERVA was not cancelled for that reason, NERVA was cancelled because Nixon had other spending priorities. Since we had already been to the moon, it gave him justification to massively scale back on NASA funding. While what you are saying was a concern of many and still is today, it was not the reason for canceling NERVA, nor did NASA, the legislature or the executive branches bar NERVA from use over these concerns.
That’s about what I’ve been able to gather of the history from Wikipedia. Appropriate user name BTW, 😉
To be a little more specific (and speaking as a layman), I thought P&W’s trimodal nuclear engine of the pre-Constellation VSE days sounded pretty cool:
http://alternatewars.com/BB…
That’s what Ive been able to discern as well. Thanks everyone.
Yup. Even an appropriately designed RTG could be sent up as a dedicated power source for an ion drive.
There are plenty of intriguing features on Pluto and Charon that could make a Pluto system orbiter be worth doing, but I think they need to get all the data back from New Horizons first, get some initial analysis done on that data, and really build up a solid scientific case for a return to the Pluto system. Talking about it now is OK, but the big push for a “New Horizons 2” should start building momentum in a couple years.
Problem is, there’s a 10-year flight time to get there. There should have been enough confidence in NH that NH-2 was built and launched a year or two after NH-1. Then it would be now on trajectory to Pluto, but there’d be time for flyby feedback to optimize the next encounter.
The problem with that idea is Jupiter wouldn’t be in the right place for a gravitational assist two years later. These launch opportunities to Pluto are available only once every 12.5 years or so. The next favorable launch window to Pluto using a Jupiter gravitational assist trajectory comes in late-2028 / early-2029.
True if you use a small booster.
Still true with a larger rocket…
What’s the hurry? A probe waiting for the assist with the smaller rocket would most likely arrive at about the same time as one going direct with a bigger one.
Of course, if a NH-2 mission had been launched before the NH encounter, its instruments would not be as good. In contrast, Cassini’s payload benefited significantly from having been designed _after_ the Voyager encounters .It had the benefit of those discoveries. It takes longer, but it’s generally better to wait for the results from the first flyby before designing the follow-up mission.
Gee if we had a larger booster we could have done an orbiter in the first place and it get there before the researchers become senile.
Doesn’t matter if you’re using a Delta II or an SLS. Jupiter gravity assist is the fastest way to get out to Pluto.
An orbiter is out, given its velocity at arrival for any NH-2 craft, but timing the arrival and trajectory through the system could fill in some of the unseen and lo-res parts. Shame they didn’t fund NH-2 back in the day, with the second s/c arriving enough later that the first flyby’s data could inform plans for the second.
Oh, well.
An orbiter isn’t out. The necessary change in velocity to orbit Pluto is within the abilities of current ion engine systems.
There may well be a job for a NH clone, but it isn’t Pluto. The science returns from successive flybys fall off pretty quickly, but there are plenty of other Kuiper belt dwarfs that we know even less about than we knew about Pluto a year ago (I’m looking at you, Haumea).
Sedna, Eris and Makemake, also.
Don’t read this link
It might make you have to deal with reality
http://www.lancashiretelegr…
The reality that not everyone likes or cares about space exploration? I don’t think that’s a surprise given the poll numbers. I can’t imagine that there’s anything in the world that has universal support. Some people even dislike chocolate. 🙂
Seriously, though, I love the images of Pluto but she doesn’t. That’s fine. The only quibble I have with her comment is that it’s like Emperor’s New Clothes. Certainly someone can not care about planets in the same way I don’t care about, say, classic literature. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something there for someone else.
That’s an article that really reveals nothing but Helen Meads’ opinions, and her opinions aren’t universal truth. They certainly say nothing about any reality, well with the exception of her reality as she views it.
With that said, I don’t remember reading anything that suggest any public interest in such things was anything but transient and that people with continued interest in such things only make up a smallish fraction of the total population. Again, this is absolutely nothing new.
Was there something that we were supposed to learn from her article?
As best I can figure, all we were supposed to learn is that she’s not an interesting person and her articles should be ignored.
Maybe some of that money Congress is throwing at SLS could be used to fund a capability demonstrator mission to verify the wisdom in the program. Something impossible without that much throw weight, such as an outer planet orbiter – I’d pick Neptune over Pluto, but you get the point…
A Keiper Belt mission might actually be a nice application for an SLS core with a smaller but high-power upper stage (something not dissimilar to the Block-I to be used for EM-1). SLS and Falcon Heavy are the only launchers projected to come into service in the near-term that could carry sufficient propellent to carry out the journey in a reasonable time-scale.
Only if you launch everything with one launcher. You can assembled something massive in LEO.
And the assembly can include a solar (or nuclear) electric propulsion stage that can get it anywhere in a few years, even the Kuiper belt.
I would as well. Neptune and Uranus are fascinating targets.
Whatever future missions may be, NH flyby was really nice to have good news during a period of horrible shootings and bitter politics. Kind of like Apollo 8 was good news during a period of horrible news.