Mars, Mercury, Martian moons, Ceres, Io, Europa, Enceladus and [possibly] Venus sample returns would all be possible with Atlas V 551, Falcon Heavy Delta IV Heavy and eventually SLS
I'm going to post a series of mission plans that are possible with and use current/in development technology and hardware, but would be prohibitively expensive to fly. Thus the title "If NASA Had An Infinite Budget".
Quote from: MarsDude on 02/13/2017 05:51 pmI'm going to post a series of mission plans that are possible with and use current/in development technology and hardware, but would be prohibitively expensive to fly. Thus the title "If NASA Had An Infinite Budget".NASA already has a near infinite budget - the U.S. Treasury. There are no constitutional limits on how much money Congress can allocate to any department or agency.The real question is "What activities in space are of interest to the U.S. Government, and how much of a priority are they?"Robotic missions to destinations within our solar system? Sure they are of interest, but the real question is what century we need to have the answers we seek? Because while the budget is potentially unlimited, there are lots of priorities we have here on Earth that take precedent.As to anything regarding sending humans beyond Earth's orbit, we have yet to see a strong interest from those that hold the purse strings in sending government employees to other places in our solar system. Why? A distinct lack of a measurable ROI for the U.S. Government, besides "science".
In terms of "infinite budget", I recall reading Arthur C Clarke's "Rescue Party" and thinking, if we had 100 years warning that the sun was going Nova, and all defence budgets were reallocated to Space development, what would be done?
I'm going to post a series of mission plans that are possible with and use current/in development technology and hardware, but would be prohibitively expensive to fly. Thus the title "If NASA Had An Infinite Budget". This post will be edited from time to time when new missions are thought up/figured out. Missions I'm Working On Figuring Out:-Titan Sample Return -Pluto Orbiter -Europa Submarine
Quote from: MarsDude on 02/13/2017 05:51 pmI'm going to post a series of mission plans that are possible with and use current/in development technology and hardware, but would be prohibitively expensive to fly. Thus the title "If NASA Had An Infinite Budget". This post will be edited from time to time when new missions are thought up/figured out. Missions I'm Working On Figuring Out:-Titan Sample Return -Pluto Orbiter -Europa Submarine These would "only" advance planetary science. Which is valuable, but by itself it's not very useful until we actually need that knowledge for some practical use.And NASA is reasonably efficient at advancing planetary science already.What it is awful at is manned space program. 40 years since Apollo and the progress is so glacial that we still discuss colonization and Moon/Mars bases as completely theoretical activities - no substantial actual R&D is spent on that, it's almost entirely PowerPoint.I would direct "infinite" budget, first and foremost, into building both Moon and Mars bases. There are A LOT of research to be done just to make the very first base possible.