What Comes After the Moon and Mars?
Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2022 5:33 pm
What Comes After the Moon and Mars?
https://www.discovery.com/space/what-co ... -and-mars-
The Moon is all the rage these days, with NASA gearing up for its (much delayed) Artemis I launch and planning for several more to follow. The mission objectives for the series of Artemis missions are clear: develop a sustainable presence on the Lunar surface and pave the way to develop the expertise to go to Mars.
And then what? What’s the next great leap in humanity’s quest to explore the cosmos?
When it comes to just general scientific exploration, there are a few areas of the solar system that will be receiving some special attention in the coming decades. First off there’s Venus, our twisted sister of a planet. Long ago, Venus was a relative paradise, with oceans and a pleasant atmosphere. Something went terribly wrong a few billion years ago, and NASA has slated a couple of missions to explore what exactly is going on beneath that planet’s oppressive atmosphere.
At the other end of the solar system are the gas giants. While we’ve sent plenty of missions and probes to those distant worlds, we haven’t yet sent any focused on their moons. And what treasures those moons contain! Several of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, like Europa and Enceladus, are covered in thick sheets of ice, and underneath that ice sit globe-spanning oceans of liquid water. Both NASA and the ESA have missions planned in the next couple of decades to investigate those mysterious little worlds, hunting for any signs of possible life hidden deep within the ice.
https://www.discovery.com/space/what-co ... -and-mars-
The Moon is all the rage these days, with NASA gearing up for its (much delayed) Artemis I launch and planning for several more to follow. The mission objectives for the series of Artemis missions are clear: develop a sustainable presence on the Lunar surface and pave the way to develop the expertise to go to Mars.
And then what? What’s the next great leap in humanity’s quest to explore the cosmos?
When it comes to just general scientific exploration, there are a few areas of the solar system that will be receiving some special attention in the coming decades. First off there’s Venus, our twisted sister of a planet. Long ago, Venus was a relative paradise, with oceans and a pleasant atmosphere. Something went terribly wrong a few billion years ago, and NASA has slated a couple of missions to explore what exactly is going on beneath that planet’s oppressive atmosphere.
At the other end of the solar system are the gas giants. While we’ve sent plenty of missions and probes to those distant worlds, we haven’t yet sent any focused on their moons. And what treasures those moons contain! Several of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, like Europa and Enceladus, are covered in thick sheets of ice, and underneath that ice sit globe-spanning oceans of liquid water. Both NASA and the ESA have missions planned in the next couple of decades to investigate those mysterious little worlds, hunting for any signs of possible life hidden deep within the ice.