<story><title>All Systems Go for NASA&apos;s Mission to Jupiter Moon Europa</title><url>http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/all-systems-go-for-nasas-mission-to-jupiter-moon-europa</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Achshar</author><text>But what&amp;#x27;s stopping us from making exact copies of this probe&amp;#x2F;sat (say... 10) and launching them all at once?&lt;p&gt;Or at an interval of say 6 months a piece? That way we will have low cost since the r&amp;amp;d will be basically 0 for all the extra models and we get 10x the data and larger time span of coverage. Plus we won&amp;#x27;t be putting all our eggs in the same basket.</text></item><item><author>devindotcom</author><text>Boy, where to start. First of all the conditions around various planets and bodies are very different. Jupiter for example is oozing with ugly radiation so we can&amp;#x27;t just put a &amp;quot;stock&amp;quot; probe into orbit around Europa, it would fry.&lt;p&gt;Second, these missions aren&amp;#x27;t actually that frequent. It takes months or years for a spacecraft to arrive at its destination, and its design had to be finalized and tested rigorously years before its launch. That means by the time we even get a close up picture of Ceres, for example, the science of spacecraft building will have advanced by several years and we now can include new sensors and improve fuel efficiency and so on.&lt;p&gt;Third, what do you think science is? Taking photos and readings. That is a huge, huge part of basic science, especially when it comes to astrophysics, astrogeology, astrochemistry, and so on. Landing on a planet provides further opportunities to take photos and readings, but it&amp;#x27;s phenomenally difficult to do.&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you are bored by cutting-edge space travel and the study of distant worlds that may hold the possibility of life... I don&amp;#x27;t even know. I&amp;#x27;m mystified by your perspective on the universe we live in.</text></item><item><author>jdhawk</author><text>I know there is a very good reason for this, but it seems like we&amp;#x27;re sending a lot of satellites to these moons and planets to perform VERY similar missions. Orbit around, take photos and readings.&lt;p&gt;Why are we creating a new spacecraft every time this happens? Why are they not &amp;quot;mass producing&amp;quot; the same generic exploration sat, with a generally useful set of features, then slightly modifying it for any specifics?&lt;p&gt;Launch in 2020&amp;#x27;s? snooze. Just launch the same sat from the last mission and start getting data now.</text></item><item><author>drzaiusapelord</author><text>This is great news. I can&amp;#x27;t wait for this mission.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; If proven to exist, this global ocean could hold more than twice as much water as Earth.&lt;p&gt;I really wish we were past the &amp;quot;is there water there&amp;quot; stage and onto the &amp;quot;Lets drop a submarine and see what&amp;#x27;s down there&amp;quot; stage. I imagine getting through 15 miles of ice might be a wee challenging.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>devindotcom</author><text>The day (or month, or year) you want to send a probe to Pluto and the day you want to send one to Mercury, not to mention the direction, are going to be totally different, and aren&amp;#x27;t easy to schedule — you might have a 3-day window to be sure something can get to Saturn, since you&amp;#x27;re relying on a gravity assist from Mars and a configuration of the planets that only happens every couple decades. Also, even if such a thing could be organized, there&amp;#x27;s simply no way the budget will support 10 missions launching at once. They have to be tracked, developed, and funded separately for a lot of really good reasons. Stuff that&amp;#x27;s shared (launch vehicles, software) can be co-developed but each mission has wildly different timelines and requirements.</text></comment>
<story><title>All Systems Go for NASA&apos;s Mission to Jupiter Moon Europa</title><url>http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/all-systems-go-for-nasas-mission-to-jupiter-moon-europa</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Achshar</author><text>But what&amp;#x27;s stopping us from making exact copies of this probe&amp;#x2F;sat (say... 10) and launching them all at once?&lt;p&gt;Or at an interval of say 6 months a piece? That way we will have low cost since the r&amp;amp;d will be basically 0 for all the extra models and we get 10x the data and larger time span of coverage. Plus we won&amp;#x27;t be putting all our eggs in the same basket.</text></item><item><author>devindotcom</author><text>Boy, where to start. First of all the conditions around various planets and bodies are very different. Jupiter for example is oozing with ugly radiation so we can&amp;#x27;t just put a &amp;quot;stock&amp;quot; probe into orbit around Europa, it would fry.&lt;p&gt;Second, these missions aren&amp;#x27;t actually that frequent. It takes months or years for a spacecraft to arrive at its destination, and its design had to be finalized and tested rigorously years before its launch. That means by the time we even get a close up picture of Ceres, for example, the science of spacecraft building will have advanced by several years and we now can include new sensors and improve fuel efficiency and so on.&lt;p&gt;Third, what do you think science is? Taking photos and readings. That is a huge, huge part of basic science, especially when it comes to astrophysics, astrogeology, astrochemistry, and so on. Landing on a planet provides further opportunities to take photos and readings, but it&amp;#x27;s phenomenally difficult to do.&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you are bored by cutting-edge space travel and the study of distant worlds that may hold the possibility of life... I don&amp;#x27;t even know. I&amp;#x27;m mystified by your perspective on the universe we live in.</text></item><item><author>jdhawk</author><text>I know there is a very good reason for this, but it seems like we&amp;#x27;re sending a lot of satellites to these moons and planets to perform VERY similar missions. Orbit around, take photos and readings.&lt;p&gt;Why are we creating a new spacecraft every time this happens? Why are they not &amp;quot;mass producing&amp;quot; the same generic exploration sat, with a generally useful set of features, then slightly modifying it for any specifics?&lt;p&gt;Launch in 2020&amp;#x27;s? snooze. Just launch the same sat from the last mission and start getting data now.</text></item><item><author>drzaiusapelord</author><text>This is great news. I can&amp;#x27;t wait for this mission.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; If proven to exist, this global ocean could hold more than twice as much water as Earth.&lt;p&gt;I really wish we were past the &amp;quot;is there water there&amp;quot; stage and onto the &amp;quot;Lets drop a submarine and see what&amp;#x27;s down there&amp;quot; stage. I imagine getting through 15 miles of ice might be a wee challenging.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>billyhoffman</author><text>Because of budget.&lt;p&gt;The closest thing to what you are describing that NASA has done recently was sending 2 rovers to Mars at the same time (Spirit and Opportunity). It cost nearly $1B dollars in 2003 money to do it [1].&lt;p&gt;Nasa&amp;#x27;s entire budget for 2015 is $17.5B&lt;p&gt;In contrast, NASA only spent a further ~$130M keeping the rovers going for the last decade. R&amp;amp;D, as well as getting stuff into space, is incredibly expensive.&lt;p&gt;[1] - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Mars_Exploration_Rover&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Mars_Exploration_Rover&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>