tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post4962304155251601110..comments2024-01-03T20:28:17.727-08:00Comments on Future Planetary Exploration: A Minimalistic Uranus OrbiterVan Kanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14227978868817989527noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post-50738406855374137962009-05-28T13:13:55.766-07:002009-05-28T13:13:55.766-07:00One can easily conceive of a joint NASA-ESA missio...One can easily conceive of a joint NASA-ESA mission to drop an entry probe into the atmosphere of Saturn, Uranus or Neptune during a flyby, or drop a lander into one of Titan's polar seas for a reasonably complex search for organic compounds, biogenic or otherwise. Presumably the ESA would build the probe/lander while NASA provided the main carrier spacecraft. Of all possible concepts for international Solar System missions, this is perhaps the most workable and practical.Bruce Moomawnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post-62054457129414814982009-05-26T11:28:00.283-07:002009-05-26T11:28:00.283-07:00Would be interesting to know what would possible w...Would be interesting to know what would possible with a New Frontiers budget if a foreign partner would invest either 200 or 300 Million US-Dollars.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post-48420979273741574292009-05-24T17:06:10.790-07:002009-05-24T17:06:10.790-07:00It's Sushil Atreya who has said that the highest p...It's Sushil Atreya who has said that the highest possible altitude for water vapor in the atmospheres of the two ice giants is much too low for it to be detected by a microwave radiometer, thanks to the cold of their upper atmospheres. This is referred to in at least one of the papers on his site ( http://www-personal.umich.edu/~atreya/s_publications.html ), and I think in more than one. However, he also says that water measurements are less important for them than for Jupiter and Saturn when it comes to understanding the formative mechanisms of the Solar System.Bruce Moomawnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post-2904463514253679042009-05-23T14:13:54.616-07:002009-05-23T14:13:54.616-07:00das is good!das is good!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com