With the looming retirement of the current Space Shuttle missions, our
interplanetary launches and marathons keeps my hopes alive that our beloved
country's thirst for knowledge will not fade-away into obscurity. Needless
to say, I am a neophyte and know nothing of the plans for continued
exploration. My main concern is:
Where is it going? What can we anticipate? Ongoing and far-reaching goals
attract the brilliant minds.
Ron, can/will you (please, if you are at liberty to do so) shed some light
upon the future of ongoing space exploration? Notwithstanding the
anticipated data from Mercury, and of course New Horizons....generally we
simpletons know nothing of the plans. Hopefully it isn't at the complete
whim of a non-interested executive branch, nor the actual and true concerns
in bugetary analysis in Washington. I realize that $$$ is in play here, and
take no 'political' position....but I'm very concerned that the rug may be
pulled.
Our space exploration parallels and in a grand way personifies the spirit of
advancement/exploration/research and generally the antithesis of sitting on
our collectives asses, while knowledge burns.
Stated above, Ongoing and far-reaching goals attract the brilliant minds.
Looking for some encouragement, sincerely,
Richard Montgomery
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Baalke" <[email protected]>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 4:51 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Later,Uranus: New Horizons Passes Another
Planetary Milestone
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20110318.php
Later, Uranus: New Horizons Passes Another Planetary Milestone
March 18, 2011
New Horizons is ready to put another planet - or at least the planet's
orbit - in its rearview mirror. The Pluto-bound spacecraft crosses the
path of Uranus around 6 p.m. EDT on March 18, more than 1.8 billion
miles from Earth.
"New Horizons is all about delayed gratification, and our 9 1/2-year
cruise to the Pluto system illustrates that," says Principal
Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute. 'Crossing
the orbit of Uranus is another milepost along our long journey to the
very frontier of exploration."
New Horizons is headed for a rendezvous with planet Pluto and its three
moons in July 2015 and, soon after, possible encounters with smaller
bodies in the distant Kuiper Belt. The fastest spacecraft ever launched,
New Horizons has already covered serious space since lifting off in
January 2006 - traversing 20 times the distance between Earth and the
sun, including a flight through the Jupiter system
<http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/100907.php> in 2007 for a
gravity-assisted speed boost and scientific observations of the giant
planet and its largest moons.
"This mission is a marathon," says Project Manager Glen Fountain, of
the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "The New
Horizons team has been focu sed on keeping the spacecraft on course
and preparing for Pluto. So far, so good, and we are working to keep
it that way".
When has New Horizons passed the other planetary orbits? Check here
<http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingplanets/passingPlanets_current.php>.
No pictures of Uranus are planned - the gas giant is 2.4 billion miles
from New Horizons and the spacecraft is currently in electronic sleep
mode - but the mission team on Earth is busy enough, putting final
touches on its Pluto-encounter plan and, in April, starting a search for
potential flyby targets in the Kuiper Belt. Preparations are also under
way for the annual spacecraft systems checkout this spring.
Next planetary milestone on New Horizons' voyage is the orbit of
Neptune, which it crosses on Aug. 25, 2014 - exactly 25 years after
Voyager 2 made its historic exploration of that giant planet.
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