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posted by martyb on Thursday May 18 2017, @07:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the dogged-determination dept.

Scientists, including New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, met in Houston on April 24th to discuss the possibility of a Pluto orbiter mission. The mission would likely cost $1-2 billion, compared to around $700 million for New Horizons and $467 million for the Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres. A launch date in the late 2020s is possible, with a 2030 launch coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Pluto's discovery:

[A] Pluto orbiter mission is a long way from becoming reality, Stern stressed. He said he and his fellow researchers aim to mature the concept in time for it to be considered during the next Planetary Science Decadal Survey, a U.S. National Research Council effort that sets exploration priorities for NASA every 10 years. The next decadal survey will start in 2020, finish in 2022 and be published in 2023, Stern said.

Using the Space Launch System (SLS) could reduce travel time compared to the nine-and-half-year journey of New Horizons, but braking would be required to orbit the Pluto-Charon system, increasing the total travel time back to around seven to nine years. Other missions being considered include flybys of more distant Kuiper Belt dwarf planets (Eris, Sedna, etc.) and exploration of Neptune's moons Triton and Nereid, which are likely captured Kuiper Belt Objects. Triton has about a 14% larger radius and 64% more mass than Pluto. Voyager 2 observed 40% of Triton's surface in 1989.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:13PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:13PM (#511808)

    ... to make more free software and free content to support freedom in the world.

    (Too bad Mozilla has squandered so much of the Google / Yahoo windfall.)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:29PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:29PM (#511815)

    Why should anyone pay you to code when you people freely admit you would code for free? You negotiated your pay to be zero and now you want to whine about it? No you shut the fuck up and you get back to work. More free software, produce the code, right now.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:59PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:59PM (#511831)

      Those bastards, doing charity work to make the world a better place! Fuck 'em!

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:01PM (#511832)

      I'm sure you know the difference between free as in speech and free as in beer, stop acting dumb

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:37PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:37PM (#511845) Homepage

      Don't egg them on. The more they work on Firefox, the more it sucks.

      Now, a proper boot manager would be nice. You wouldn't believe how much of a pain in the ass it is to set boot partitions when dealing with multiple operating systems. A-HEM. Get crackin' boys!

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:31PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:31PM (#511816)

    Space exploration is also important. I wish we did that instead on fighting each other.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:54PM (#511830)

      Well said! (original AC)

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:18PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:18PM (#511837) Journal

      Are you trying to hurt the profitability of the military industrial complex? Isn't that anti-American?

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:51PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:51PM (#511829)

    It could pay a bunch of extra UX experts to more thoroughly fuck up ALL the Mozilla product interfaces. Indefinitely. :P

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:13PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:13PM (#511835) Journal

    Imagine what even one billion dollars could have done for LibreOffice a few years back. That might put a dent in some proprietary office suites.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:47PM (#511903)

    I heard Trump doesn't take a salary for his President gig. I guess it's one of those things you put on your cv when you're looking for a better gig.