Titan Rover vs. Titan Balloon

A Triton mission would be much higher in cost, just because you'd have to
monitor the spacecraft while it's in cruise, to make sure everything's OK, and
to make sure it's still on course, for a much longer period of time. Neptune
is, what, four times further away, and every mission needed monitoring in order
to make sure the spacecraft is still working right.
--
Sincerely,
--- Dave
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It don't mean a thing
unless it has that certain "je ne sais quoi"
Duke Ellington
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"Intertracer" wrote in message
oups.com...
Chemical rockets and gravity assists are so history... Any serious
mission to Jupiter and beyond (including Titan) will have to rely on
nuclear power. In fact, huygens would have never landed on Titan if
Cassini wasn't powered by the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator...
Hopefully we'll have Nuclear Thermal Rocket in our disposal when the
time comes for the next big Titan mission. Another alternative is to
use Nucleat Electric Propulsion (that is to feed ion engine from
nuclear reactor or a powerful RTG), just like the one they are planning
to use for the JIMO mission in 2009.

Speaking of rovers, baloons, etc. -- these will also HAVE to use RTG
for any lasting mission. It's very encouraging that the upcoming Mars
Science Laboratory will rely on such power source either. If it will be
airplane (I think it's unlikely), rather than baloon or a rover, then,
again, it would probably need nuclear-powered jet engines... People,
really, just forget arout oxygen or other stuff like that :-)

I don't think Titan rovers are coming any time soon, we'll possibly get
to Triton sooner. Just another fascinating world with it's hudge ice
volcanoes which are just as fascinating as rivers of methane... Will it
be Titan or Triton -- the main idea remains the same.

Yes indeed it's gonna be costly, especially with a bunch of piggybacked
probes and a high-end nuclear-powered propulsion. Still I guess it's
more likely that something like this will be attempted before returning
to Titan. And we're talking about decades, rather than years :-\

So monitoring the spacecraft during its cruise might not be the most
expensive part of the mission, in the long run, even despite it may
take 20 years to reach Neptune. Well, let's hope they (we?) find a
faster way of getting there

The nearest event should be Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (in a few years),
AFAIK no landing probes/baloons/whatsoever are planned.

Oh hell we're offtopic now What's your best bet about returning to
Titan? 30 years? 60? 100?