Original Title: "NASA WANTS TO PROBE URANUS IN SEARCH OF GAS"<p>All jokes aside, these missions are still pretty far off and article doesn't really go into depth of what this research can help accomplish for future generations. Thoughts?
I wait and hope for someone with more planetary knowledge than I have to explain the lack of interest in Venus as a habitable planet and thus the center of NASA's attention ahead of Neptune, Uranus, and of course, Mars.<p>Based on what I've read, which includes a paper from a NASA (or was it JPL?) engineer, Venus' surface is not very hospitabl, but at a certain altitude it looks like an oasis in the Solar System:<p>Venus (at ~50-55 km altitude) / Mars (surface): (all stats from Wikipedia, and yes not always complete or comparable)<p>* Gravity: 0.9G / 0.38G<p>* Pressure: ~1 atm / 0.00628 atm (prevents liquid water)<p>* Temperature: 27-75 deg C / -63 deg C (mean)<p>* Shortest distance from Earth (for logistics): 40M km / 55M km<p>* Sunlight (energy): More than Earth / 43% of Earth<p>Also, oxygen and nitrogen are lighter than the CO2-heavy atmosphere, so a balloon of O2 and N2 would float conveniently at 50 km. The CO2 in the atmosphere also could be a valuable resource.
Coincidentally this week Fermat's Library highlighted a paper about the Voyager mission, the only spacecraft (Voyager 2) to visit Uranus and Neptune.<p>Super interesting paper. Turns out Voyager was the first spacecraft that could be reprogrammed "mid flight". In fact, if it wasn't for that we would have not gotten back images of Uranus or Neptune!<p><a href="https://fermatslibrary.com/s/voyager-mission-telecommunication-firsts" rel="nofollow">https://fermatslibrary.com/s/voyager-mission-telecommunicati...</a>
I can't in good faith upvote a story on a website that has more junk advertisement then content per character and has stories like "VOYAGER 2 MAY HAVE BEEN HACKED AS IT ENTERED DEEP SPACE" featured next to this.
I'm glad, we really need to better understand how the Ice Giants[1] in our solar system work.<p>[1]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_giant" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_giant</a>
I really do wish NASA had a focus. The 60s showed the power of NASA given a clear goal and direction, but now a days they feel like they're operating a mile wide and an inch deep.<p>Probes are great, but I think many overestimate the amount of information they can genuinely provide. Even on Mars where we have had multiple rovers on the surface, there are still ongoing debates about things such as whether the streaks on the planet's surface are water, which NASA made a large announcement of, or indeed just sand which is where the latest interpretation stands. And that's for a very peaceful and close planet (in comparison to Uranus or Neptune) that we ostensibly have a great understanding of.<p>I don't really care what their goal would be, as long as it would be a goal that they could work towards - a base on the moon, a base on mars, expanding the ISS, or anything - preferably with a human element as that's what attracts people to space, and thus gets the money to make these missions become reality. But these probes are not really advancing society.<p>And here I would make an exception for things like the Kepler missions. Those were a directed mission with a specific, valuable, and <i>new</i> purpose that could (and did) provide information that substantially advanced society. Let's go shoot some probes off around Uranus and Neptune and grab some pics and atmospheric readings is better than nothing but it feels like spending funding for the sake of spending funding.