[Fitzcarraldo]

Spend on the order of a billion $$$ to travel 3 billion miles and spend 10 minutes observing Pluto as the spacecraft flies by?

I say wait 20 years until we have the propulsion technology to go into orbit around Pluto and its moon, Charon.

I would rather spend $30 million to directly confirm ice at the lunar poles (the existence of which is now in doubt because bistatic radar measurements have been reinterpreted as not providing evidence of lunar ice).

[Fitzcarraldo]

bump

[traditionalist]

I say wait 20 years until we have the propulsion technology to go into orbit around Pluto and its moon, Charon.

I don't understand. We can put spacecraft into orbit around other planets. Why is Pluto different? Why can't present technology put something into orbit around, say Mars or Venus, but not Pluto? I understand Pluto is a lot further away, but I don't understand why the greater distance is relevent.

[KevinDavis]

I think a manned mission to Mars should be the priority. Not a mission to Pluto.

[reg45]

I propose Hillary as Mission Commander and Tom Daschle as Chief Photographer. Our money could not be better spent.

[magellan]

"I say wait 20 years until we have the propulsion technology to go into orbit around Pluto and its moon, Charon."

What make you think we will have better propulsion technology in 20 years? I has been 33 years since Apollo 11 went to the moon and we have mode only very minor improvments to space propulsion systems. Most of these improvements were made as part of the Space Shuttle system in the 1970's. In essence, space propulsion today is not any more sophisticated than space propulsion was in the late 1960s.

Time alone does not cause technogy to advance. An active effort is needed. From 1961 (Kennedy commits U.S. to the moon) to 1967 (first unmanned Saturn V launch) the U.S. advanced the state of the art on space propulsion. That would not have happened if not for the money or pressure of Project Apollo.

[RightWhale]

The deal with Pluto is that is is now relatively close to the sun and in a few years will be farther away. Apparently there are volatiles that are now in the atmosphere but that will be frozen on the ground if they wait too long. To catch Pluto in its warmer state again means waiting 200 years if the miss this opportunity.

It doesn't matter a lot. Pluto might be the key to development in the outer solar system, but that is a ways off in time.

[farmfriend]

Care to weigh in?