Sam Fraser
06-04-2010, 10:12 AM
In a project that was part dream and part technical design exercise, a group of scientists drew up a plan to send humans to the outer fringes of our solar system in the later half of the 21st century. ... The plans, published last month in the Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest, would take us to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto starting around year 2050. ... The mission design involves future advanced technologies such as an onboard 100MW nuclear reactor powering magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters, which are basically electric ion propulsion engines on hyper-steroids.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/06/dreaming-big-planning-a-human-mission-to-outer-solar-system.ars
Price tag for return trip to Neptune: $4 trillion. :eek: Of course, that's old school thinking with no ISRU.
Download the study here (http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td2804/McNutt.pdf) (PDF):
Other related studies by the same lead author, Ralph McNutt, which I'm sure have some overlap with deep-space missions to NEOs, Martian moons, Main Belt and Jovian Trojans, here:
Solar System Exploration: A Vision for the Next 100 Years (http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td2702/mcnutt.pdf) (PDF)
ARGOSY: Architecture for Going to the Outer solar System (http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td2703/mcNutt.pdf) (PDF)
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/06/dreaming-big-planning-a-human-mission-to-outer-solar-system.ars
Price tag for return trip to Neptune: $4 trillion. :eek: Of course, that's old school thinking with no ISRU.
Download the study here (http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td2804/McNutt.pdf) (PDF):
Other related studies by the same lead author, Ralph McNutt, which I'm sure have some overlap with deep-space missions to NEOs, Martian moons, Main Belt and Jovian Trojans, here:
Solar System Exploration: A Vision for the Next 100 Years (http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td2702/mcnutt.pdf) (PDF)
ARGOSY: Architecture for Going to the Outer solar System (http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td2703/mcNutt.pdf) (PDF)