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Congress

Congress Just Ordered NASA To Go To Europa – Twice

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 19, 2016
Filed under , ,
https://media2.spaceref.com/news/2016/europa.landing.jpg

House tells NASA to stop messing around, start planning two Europa missions
“As part of the mission to Europa, Culberson would also like to send a lander to the surface of the heaving, ice-encrusted world. This would allow scientists to better characterize the oceans below and, if the lander touches down near a fissure, possibly even sample the ocean. However, there has been some concern that having both an orbital spacecraft and a lander in a single mission would prove too challenging for a single rocket to deliver. So as part of the new House bill, the Europa mission is broken into two parts: an orbiter and, two years later, a lander.”
Keith’s note: This looks like it would be something like a dual “flagship” mission. Each spacecraft will be on the order of, oh $500 million each, and then, knowing Culberson’s preferences, each would require its own SLS launch at $500 million to $1 billion each. Unless NASA’s budget is going to get a big plus up on top of what it already needs to do other things that is going to eat into the whole #JourneyToMars thing – an effort that is already utterly underfunded.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

57 responses to “Congress Just Ordered NASA To Go To Europa – Twice”

  1. Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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    I am impressed that Congress is so scientifically savvy that they ordered a mission with an orbiter THEN a lander, and not the other way around.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      I seem to remember we used to carry orbiter and lander on the same launch vehicle. Astonishing that even SLS is not powerful enough to do so.

      • Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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        I think this is an evil way to hold an unmanned mission hostage to get some public SLS bashers to shut up or a neat mission goes away.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          Sure, it’s a “neat mission”, but at what cost? I’d still rather see the billions being spent on SLS every year being spent instead on enabling transportation technologies like in orbit refueling. In the long run, we’d do better developing a reusable transportation infrastructure instead of yet another disposable launch vehicle.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        Gemini 7 (I think that’s the one) showed us that you could take two little thingies in orbit and make one big thingie. I think they called it ‘rendezvous’.

      • Paul451 says:
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        I seem to remember we used to carry orbiter and lander on the same launch vehicle. Astonishing that even SLS is not powerful enough to do so.

        It’s not about power, NASA wants to do a survey of the surface of Europa before deciding where to land.

        Unfortunately, the 2 year gap isn’t sufficient for the orbiter to travel to Jupiter, so the lander will be launched roughly when the orbiter enters the Jovian system. Essentially they’ll be making the landing decision while the lander is in transit. That means the lander will be a very conservative design and give much less useful data than if they had more time.

        A more intelligent approach is to perform the orbital survey mission, have the data analysed, and then decide on a landing site (or a short list) before making major decisions about the instrument packages that need to be included on the lander.

        • fcrary says:
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          Possibly, but it depends on what you are expecting from the orbiter. If you want a Apollo or Viking style survey for a safe (e.g. flat) landing site, you’re right: Launching the lander before the survey would result in conservative design. But for Europa, I think one of the main goals of the survey is to find thin ice. That is, places where the sub-surface ocean may recently have been in contact with the surface. That’s probably something which can be done while the lander is in flight, without requiring an overly-conservative design. Mars landers have been known to launch without a final landing site selection; just a short list of candidates.

  2. Joe Denison says:
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    This is very good news. Europa is a fascinating celestial body and deserves this kind of investigation. I rarely say this but good for Congress, especially Rep. Culberson.

    • muomega0 says:
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      Updated thread title: Congress Just Ordered NASA To Go To Europa – Twice, only if NASA uses SLS and no other LV to provide certification flight “s” for Orion BEO at the expense of a more economical architecture based on reuse.

      • JadedObs says:
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        What is this fixation with taking every opportunity to bash SLS? It will get these missions to Europa faster and allow for bigger missions as well. Opponents probably want them to use some other launcher so they can say it “proves” there’s no use for SLS.

        • Paul451 says:
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          What is this fixation with taking every opportunity to bash SLS?

          He didn’t “bash SLS”, he bashed Congress for manipulating a science mission to try to channel make-work to SLS.

          • JadedObs says:
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            If you have ever heard Chairman Culbertson speak about his passion for finding out whether there is life on Europa, you would understand that he is not obsessed with SLS – as you seem to be; he is focused on the Europa mission.

          • Paul451 says:
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            If you have ever heard Chairman Culbertson speak about his passion for finding out whether there is life on Europa, you would understand that he is not obsessed with SLS

            “Provided further, That, of the amounts provided, $260,000,000 is for an orbiter and a lander to meet the science goals for the Jupiter Europa mission as outlined in the most recent planetary science decadal survey:
            Provided further, That the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shall use the Space Launch System as the launch vehicle or vehicles for the Jupiter Europa mission, plan for an orbiter launch no later than 2022 and a lander launch no later than 2024, and include in the fiscal year 2018 budget the 5-year funding profile necessary to achieve these goals.”

          • JadedObs says:
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            So? It’s not surprising the language is in there?

        • fcrary says:
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          If SLS is on schedule, it would get a Europa mission there faster. The last time NASA planned fly a planetary mission on a vehicle still in early development, it didn’t work out that way. That was Galileo, and Shuttle development delayed the launch by most of a decade.

  3. DJE51 says:
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    Well, what they are describing is not a Europa orbiter, it is a Jupiter orbiter with close fly-bys of Europa. A huge difference. A Europa orbiter could do so much more, similar to the Messenger orbiter of Mercury. Yes, it will require more delta-V, but hey, by the time they have designed and built the spacecraft, there should be more than one launch vehicle that can handle it, the STS as well as Falcon Heavy.

    • Mal Reynolds says:
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      A true Europa Orbiter would be totally fried by the radiation there. Any astronaut that planted a flag there would be dead in a week.

    • fcrary says:
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      Actually, the big problem for a Europa orbiter was the radiation environment. At least according to the current models (which I think are somewhat beyond worst case), the lifetime of an orbiter would be very short. To the point where multiple flybys actually accomplish more.

  4. Alexander Axglimt says:
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    Do we really want to disobey the monolith?! 🙂
    But seriously, good news!
    that is a interesting moon.

  5. Michael Spencer says:
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    Not sure why folks around here are applauding this move by congress. Isn’t this the same thing as SLS? Just because it makes sense it’s OK for congress to micro-manage?

    On the other hand it’s a terrific project.

    • JadedObs says:
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      If somebody’s going to micromanage – would you rather it be the unelected OMB? Best of all, Congress isn’t capriciously just telling NASA what to do, they are funding a very exciting plan tied to the Planetary Science decadal program. Kudos to Congressman Culberson for his leadership and vision.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        NASA is supposed to work for the good of the country, not four contractors and their lobbyists.

        • JadedObs says:
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          Oh for God’s sake – this isn’t Mr. Smith goes to Washington; besides launching bigger payloads faster to Europa, this also assures Senate support for a mission that 90+% of the public couldn’t care less about. Yeah it’d be great to live in a perfect world; we don’t, never have & never will; this gets a great space science mission funded – have you got a better idea that could actually pass Congress and not an eighth grade civics class?

          • Michael Reynolds says:
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            Yes. The House and Senate leadership needs to stop filling committees with majorities from states and districts that they directly benefit from. This goes for all committees, not just space and science. As long as committees are filled with members that can exploit the system the committee is designed to manage then the corruption will continue. Another case of the fox defending the hen house.

            As much as I like the idea of a flagship mission to Europa, the fact that they are forcing the mission to use SLS is just a kicking the can down the road with this rocket. It has been stated hundreds of times here and by those in the know that any plan that NASA has needs to be sustainable (no matter the destination). The SLS is not sustainable, and this mission is just an excuse to keep it alive for just a bit longer.

            I would rather see two overly expensive Delta-4 launches do this then the much more expensive SLS.

          • JadedObs says:
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            What a great concept for government – put people on committees who know nothing about the subjects they cover and who could care less. Then, when they run for re-election, they will lose every time when they don’t do anything relevant to their home districts!
            If the technical comments on this site were as naive as some of the political statements, we’d be debating anti-gravity versus teleportation as the best way to do space travel!
            Your assumption as to what is sustainable is self justifying; if NASA has enough worthwhile and exciting missions – and political support on the right committees, it will get the funding needed to do them. Assuming the whole world will change to some idealized alternate approach is unrealistic. Finally, just because hundreds of comments by “people in the know” are against SLS does not mean that they are correct; those same cynical perspectives were inveighed in their day against the Shuttle, the ISS and even Apollo.

          • Michael Reynolds says:
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            Do you really think that Ted Cruz knows a lot about space policy and science? He is the committee chairman for the space and science sub-committee. Most of our representatives are not experts on the subject matter of the committee they are except in rare circumstances. So that point doesn’t hold water.
            Most voters to do not continue to elect these representatives based on their work in the committees they are assigned. Sound bites and their voting record for bills that go to the floor are much more important. Keep in mind only a few of theses committees actually have subject assets in very specific districts. Most assets that a committee are in charge of are spread out over a much larger geographic area(Military bases), or are nebulous in nature (IRS and taxes). These people on these comittees still manage to get re-elected.
            Apollo was cancelled because it wasn’t politically or financially sustainable. The shuttle was cancelled because it wasn’t safe, wasn’t economically viable, and hence not sustainable. Constellation was another program that was not financially or politically sustainable. The ISS could be considered sustainable in that it is a good diplomatic tool, but as an orbital lab has been underused due to mismanagement (see CASIS).
            I personally think that the status quo in this country is not sustainable, whether it is our space program, military paradigm, or tax law. From my perspective the only people who are happy with the status quo are those who benefit from it most. They do not seem to be in the majority, if they were then our political entities would not have record low favorability ratings. Even our presidential candidates are disliked if not out right hated by a majority of the people in this country. If you think this is all sustainable I’ve got swampland in Florida to sell to you. You can launch from there too…I swear!

          • JadedObs says:
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            Actually, quite a few members members – e.g. Bill Nelson, Jim Bridenstine and Bill Posey – are quite knowledgeable and are on the right committees and Nelson & Posey also have constituency interests. Cruz is a special case – there’s almost nothing there but raw political ambition; I doubt he knows much about anything that won’t move him towards the White House but even he has hired knowledgeable staff and has supported JSC – his constituency’s interest. While I would agree that not all committee assignments are linked directly to a constituency interest, many are and that only makes sense even though it does lead to a rice bowl protection tendency
            As for your other points, face it, Apollo wasn’t sustainable politically because it had achieved its objective – beating Russia to the moon and Nixon never was a big space proponent; it also ran into the stagflation of the 1970’s economy. Shuttle was cancelled – after 30 years! – because it was not safe enough but also because, once the ISS was completed, it wasn’t needed anymore and t was not going to advance the reason for human presence in space – exploration beyond Earth orbit as defined by the GW Bush Administration and the Congress. ISS as well is obviously sustainable if it’s going to be around til 2024 – 26 years after first launched; sustainable does not mean immortal. As for Constellation – given that SLS is essentially Ares V and Orion is still Orion – who says it was cancelled?
            You are right that many Americans are not happy with the status quo politically but as the Trump/Sanders examples show, that’s not necessarily for the same reason – Trump would love to cut taxes and dismantle Obamacare while Sanders would love to raise taxes substantially and replace Obamacare with a British style national health service. The problem for mainstream candidates like Hillary and Jeb! is that there is no national consensus on what to do instead. As the President points out, by any measure, we are doing better than any other developed economy (unemployment is low, growth is low but still up and the stock market is higher than ever before) yet many people claim we are falling apart – it’s nonsense but that doesn’t make the perception go away.

        • JadedObs says:
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          Nice sound bite but thin on substance – Culberson also has to sell this to the other Appropriators; putting SLS as the launcher gets a bigger payload there faster and helps make it an attractive political package – this is not just about pure science; you also need to come up with a budget that can actually get a majority vote in both the House and Senate.

      • fcrary says:
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        Actually, the Planetary Decadal Survey said the priorities for flagship missions should be Mars sample return precursor, Europa orbiter or multiple flyby mission and then Uranus or Neptune orbiter, in that order. Mars and Europa were supposed to be under $2 billion or deferred. An Europa lander wasn’t even on the list.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Correct. an outer planet orbiter is high on my list as well. The tech for Europa isn’t really ready- I’m speaking of something that could swim below the ice.

        • JadedObs says:
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          True which is why I said it was “tied” to the decadal – its a bold mission but isn’t that what NASA is for?

          • fcrary says:
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            It really depends on the budget details. If the added lander is at no cost to other NASA programs, that’s great. But it isn’t obvious this is in addition to, not instead of, other planetary science programs.

            the Decadal Survey was pretty clear about the need for a balanced program. That means not flying flagship missions at the expense of other, smaller but more focused and frequent missions (Discovery and New Frontiers). That also included not flying more missions of any sort at the expense of the research and analysis program (which provides a large fraction of the funds for scientists to actually analyze the data from flight missions.)

            If those things end up being cut as a result of a congressional mandate for a Europa lander, then no. The lander would not be “tied to” the Decadal Survey.

    • P.K. Sink says:
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      Hopefully this is Congress giving NASA broad strokes of direction, and not micro-managing. But…it’s going to be expensive.

  6. numbers_guy101 says:
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    I’d think some key questions are in order-

    First, is this 100% additional funding or will this mean the decadal planning and any associated budget outlooks have to be redrawn?

    If not 100% additional funding, beyond the decadal outlook, or not enough additional funding, who loses money somewhere? (Decides who will be nipping at who’s heels.)

    If using SLS, are costs incurred by the use of SLS covered out of Human Space Flight?

    If there is a sizable delay in SLS, can the project switch launchers? Or will delay costs, the project to launcher sync problem, be provided from outside planetary sci?

    If the answers to these questions are driven mostly by a desire to give SLS some payload, any payload, a mandated customer, this may end badly in NET for planetary science.

    • Just_Plain_Theo says:
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      “If not 100% additional funding, beyond the decadal outlook, or not enough additional funding, who loses money somewhere? (Decides who will be nipping at who’s heels.)”

      Don’t worry numbers. The Donald will get elected POTUS, and he’ll force the Europans to pay for our trips to Europa!

    • fcrary says:
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      When the idea of a SLS launch for the Europa mission was initially suggested, there was a presentation to OPAG on the subject. The claim was that the Planetary Science Division would not have to pay extra for an SLS launch (i.e. they would get billed the same as they would for an Atlas 551.) I have no idea what the current accounting looks like.

      The Europa Multiple Flyby mission has historically said they are not doing anything which would preclude launching on an Atlas.

  7. Jonna31 says:
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    So I guess the SLS officially can’t be called the “Rocket to Nowhere” anymore.

    Oh by the way the #JourneyToMars funding will come from the billions freed up when the ISIS is deorbited in 2024. It’s not like we’re going to Mars for a decade and change after that anyway, so no rush.

  8. Vladislaw says:
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    the cost of the survey orbiter and lander maybe down in the noise level .. but two launches of the SLS are most certainly not..

  9. Just_Plain_Theo says:
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    LOL. Love the altered 2010 meme!

  10. Neil.Verea says:
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    At least someone is showing imagination and a goal, because this administration’s lack of vision with Missions to everywhere wound up going nowhere as predicted when they canceled CxP. You know you can’t even talk about sending Humans to the Lunar surface at NASA. So much for inclusion.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      I assure you that we would all be happy with a mission to Europa if that were actually what Congress wanted. But if that were the case they would have simply asked NASA to do it and allowed the project scientists to allocate the money as needed to maximize the science.

      Instead a few Congressmen have dictated that almost the entire sum will be consumed by not one but two SLSs when a medium lift launcher at a small fraction of the cost would be perfectly adequate. This will eliminate almost the entire budget from being used for actual science.

      • Neil.Verea says:
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        Hmm… Has Congress ever “simply asked NASA to do it and allowed the project scientists to allocate the money as needed to maximize the science”?

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Not if Apollo is an example; the scientific community was allied against Apollo because it was engineering-driven and would return very little science (for the money spent).

        • fcrary says:
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          Actually, Congress and NASA allow that more often than you might think. The competed missions (Discovery, New Frontiers and Explorer) are like that. The details are a little different, but not much. But a $150 million mission isn’t enough money to concern major campaign contributors, and NASA separately picks and pays for the launch vehicle.

  11. Paul451 says:
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    each would require its own SLS launch at $500 million to $1 billion each.

    The contract for the first stage cores, excluding engines, SRBs, upperstages, etc, is $1.4 billion per core. The contract for the post-SSME engines is around $750m per set of four. There’s no conceivable way you can launch an SLS for under $2.5 billion.

    • muomega0 says:
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      Providing two Class A payload certification flights with payload valued at 1B+ for SLS with EUS (non-common configuration) at a cost of 3B/yr*8 yrs plus the cost of the mission hardware. Insane. 2.5B…missed a decimal point. Orion sits idle.

      Significantly larger missions/payloads are launched cheaper taking advantage of Boeing’s amplification factor–number of missions is quadrupled with a new non-HLV architecture

      Shift of HLV/capsule dollars provides a stable supply of HSF payloads to create new markets and jobs by lowering launch cost–impossible for a seldom used HLV, non common with smaller variants, when the world has excess launch capacity and inadequate funding for missions/payloads and R&D.

      Solids were a major mistake for Shuttle, added by Nixon, and drive launch abort mass from 4mT to >8mT for every crewed launch. No expendable components are common with smaller LVs to reduce costs. Consolidate LVs, reduce fixed costs.

      Greater than 70% of NASA’s mission mass is dirt Cheap, Class D propellant, which means risks can be taken with reuse and provide the ideal certification flights for new LVs or variants.

      NASA requires a suite of technologies to economical explore Mars and beyond, none of them are funded in this budget. Pathetic. Instead, Lunar sortie design excluded Orion asteroid visit, JWST servicing—Golly Gee where was all the Europa/ science support a decade ago. Same ol’ plan…short term focus on special interests at the expense of everything else…

      http://nextbigfuture.com/20
      http://arstechnica.com/scie

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      In fairness Saturn 5 carried a similar price tag…about $180M in 1970 dollars is about $1.2B today.

      Of course that sucker could throw more than 100 tons into orbit, so there’s that.

      • Paul451 says:
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        NASA also had a budget that was about 8 times its current one (proportionately to the total Federal budget), and a hard deadline that lead to a “waste anything but time” philosophy.

        (Today, with 1/8th the resources, they waste money, opportunity, and time.)

  12. fcrary says:
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    The Europa Multiple Flyby mission has an estimated cost around $2 billion plus launch costs, not $500 million. ($500 million would be a Discovery mission.) The cost of an additional lander mission isn’t clear, but there isn’t much NASA could do with $500 million. One with a useful payload would probably cost at least a billion plus launch costs.

  13. Jafafa Hots says:
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    This may be the key to finally unlocking the secret of the Toynbee Tiles.

  14. Zed_WEASEL says:
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    If the Europa mission balloons in cost. An almost certainty with the mission creep to include a lander & non affordable launchers. The annual mission budget slice will approach that of the ISS. The mission will get descoped or cancel by future administrations and/or Congress as the GOP wanes in influence in the future IMO.

    AFAIK the mission is still baseline on the Atlas V 551 launcher. All talks of the SLS is amusing since it is still unflown.

    • fcrary says:
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      I believe the baseline, as of a presentation I heard last February, is for a SLS launch. Specifically because that’s what Congress specified in the appropriations act. But there were also words about making sure an Atlas launch was still a possibility.

  15. billinpasadena says:
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    The mission designers had better make the spacecraft compatible with a smaller launcher, even if it requires gravity assists and a longer flight time. Don’t repeat the Galileo headaches.

    • Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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      Despite the common sense of such an approach, I have little doubt that Congress will specify that the spacecraft be sized such as to only fit on SLS, even if it means attaching large concrete blocks to the payloads.