Nuclear Mission Alternatives to JIMO

[Swampcat]

<font color="orange"><b>Prometheus Preempted? New Nuclear Fission Missions Evaluated</b><br /><br />NASA is reviewing a list of fission-powered missions that could pre-empt the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) effort now being eyed for space travel no sooner than 2015.<br /><br />A special study team has identified six potential candidate missions that could be done sooner, have shorter mission durations, and would be far less difficult to implement.</font><br /><br />SDC article... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="3" color="#ff9900"><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>------------------------------------------------------------------- </em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."</em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong></font></p></font> </div>

 

[Swampcat]

I particularly like the NEO Asteroid Mission idea. I don't see the point in doing just a technology demonstration mission. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="3" color="#ff9900"><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>------------------------------------------------------------------- </em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."</em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong></font></p></font> </div>

 

[mikejz]

I'm not so sure about the Mars Telecom station either. with 100,000+Watts you are talking about something in the order of a data link that would be overkill beyond all belief if all it is supporting is a handful or orbiters and landers. Jimo was talking about 10Mbps from Jupiter without being the primary use of power. From Mars you are talking about a something on the order of a few Terabits of data per day--That will take a lot of sources to generate that kind of data. In addition, a Mars telcom mission might should rely on solar power, because it would only need to be launched to earth orbit and use its large solar arrays to power an Ion drive (ala Smart-1) <br /><br />As for the Venus mission, its seems that a solar arrays on a Boeing 702 could produce something on the order of 30Kw in that situation.

 

[thalion]

Thank Woe-Dan that they're reconsidering the Europa orbiter option. As for the "technology demonstration" mission, I can see the rationale, but it still seems like a waste of money and material. Can't they try *some* auxiliary science objective?

 

[mikejz]

How about a deep space mission called 'Go Fast!'<br />Its primary purpose is to test various electric propulsion systems. The second goal would be to overtake Voyager 1 and report back data on the conditions outside the solar system.

 

[rogers_buck]

They could always launch the Mars IMAX mission with that kind of data. Or the Mars Polar Melter.

 

[yurkin]

Mars Telecom<br /><br />The demo version probably won’t be full size so it won’t be that much overkill.<br /><br />With a Mars science rover possible still running and a sample return mission underway I think there will definitely be a need for a telecom satellite.<br /><br />There’s already a mars telecom mission planned so this would kill two birds with one stone.<br /><br />I bet if you put one of the JIMO radars designed to penetrate 20 miles of Europan ice it would give a good picture of the subareon environment. Including any underground aquifers, glaciers and lava tubes and underground cities in much greater detail then Express or MRO could.<br />

 

[mikejz]

Here is a idea: A Nuclear reactor powered Venus rover. The Reactor would generate enought power to actively cool the rover.

 

[spacester]

Well I gotta vote for the NEO mission. We need to prospect that real estate to see if we can establish one or more economical ore bodies. This will tell us if we can do private mining missions. This takes top priority IMO because Asteroid mining is feasible.<br /><br />So I'm into asteroids, part of spacester's space program is going to the NEOs sooner rather than later.<br /><br />Having said that, I love the Martian Bandwidth mission. Two things: Think Big. Build it and they will come. This is usually pretty cheesy logic - build it and they will come is a fairy tale, not a business plan. But in this case it would apply. You could send a small army of robots, have high schoolers and undergrads drive them, use distibuted computing to analyze the data. The robots would have assured communications, making their design and construction that much easier.<br /><br />Give us space keeners the bandwidth and we'll give you the data. That goes for the moon as well. I want Lunar Bandwidth. Robot armies. Telepresence.<br /><br />The Go Fast! mission is a very very very cool idea. I think we need the next efforts from NASA et al to be more practical (i.e. space settlement technology development) than in past decades, so a pure science mission like that doesn't work for me if I have to choose just one. And Martian Bandwidth would spur lots of growth as well.<br /><br />So let's do all three!<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacester]

Y'know, as long as I've got this on my clip board, I might as well paste some links I put together a few years back. I'm expecting most of them to still work, but haven't checked.<br /><br />BTW, I miss harmonicaman . . . is harpdude still around at other forums?<br /><br />***<br />The list provided by harmonicaman's first link is an excellent summary of the big ones we've spotted so far. It's unlikely that we've missed any as big as tens of kilometers, with the *significant exception* of ones orbiting entirely within Earth's orbit. You see, these will never show up in the night sky. They're called Arjunas, and there's every reason to believe there are thousands of them, counting the small ones.<br /><br />The thing is, Astronomers are mostly concerned with the orbits and spin of asteroids (when they're concerned with asteroids at all). They don't care as much about the composition, and because it's difficult to measure their size, the measurement is not commonly done.<br /><br />Here's my understanding of how we measure these properties:<br /><br />Orbits: Professional and sophisticated amateur astronomers are constantly hunting. NEAs are easiest to spot when near opposition, but only appear there briefly. PHAs (Potentially Hazardous) are often found near the horizon around dusk and dawn because they rarely achieve opposition, they're more likely to just peek over the horizon. The IAU's Minor Planet Center is the organization which compiles all the orbital data. This is a neat page showing some orbits. This is even cooler, you can get data from lists of Atens and Apollo <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mikejz]

Its not that I disagree with the need for a Mars Telecom satellite, its just something I feel a solar powered mission could do better for several reasons.<br /><br />1. Cost: A nuclear mission is going to be expensive at this point in time. A Mars Telcom mission could Billions plus would probebly need a large booster to get it there. Solar powered Telecom satellites are well understood and companies have a lot of experense with them.<br /><br />2. Number: The thing here is that I'm not sure having a single Mars Telecom Satellite is the best solution. After all putitng almost all communications with Mars though one data link seems very risky to me. <br /><br />3. Wrong way to put R&D for Telecom links. Basically you can improve the datarate two ways. 1) More power or 2) High gain antenna. The latter option seems to be the more cost effective solution. More effort should be put into inflatable antennas.

 

[spacester]

Aha, I see, that makes sense. All are good points.<br /><br />So it looks like the GoFast! mission is up to second place. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />I think that mission could capture the public's imagination. It would be a clear-cut, understandable goal that would make the statement that we can overtake past glories and exceed them. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[odysseus145]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>3. Wrong way to put R&D for Telecom links. Basically you can improve the datarate two ways. 1) More power or 2) High gain antenna. The latter option seems to be the more cost effective solution. More effort should be put into inflatable antennas.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />There is also the possiblity for laser communications. The one that will be tested on the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter should have a data rate 10 times any existing one.<br /><br />http://www.space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_041115.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mikejz]

I'm not crazy about optical. It should would suck if the video of the first human setting foot on Mars was not not able to be shown because of a cloud.