🚀 go-pugleaf

<HS> Date: 16 Nov 86 02:04:54 GMT
<HS> From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@seismo.css.gov  (Henry Spencer)
<HS> Subject: space news from AW&ST 6 Oct 1986

<HS> JPL is studying a mission dubbed TAU, Thousand Astronomical Units, for a
<HS> nuclear-ion probe to travel well beyond the solar system.  A megawatt
<HS> nuclear reactor would power ion engines for about 10 years, ...

This excites me! More info please if available.

<HS> [Mini-editorial:  a probe with a 50-year mission will be passed by newer
<HS> probes with better engines long before the end of its mission.  Planning
<HS> for such long missions needs to consider in-flight obsolescence.  -- HS]

That's what I thought about Voyager 2. By the time it gets to Uranus,
much less Neptune, it will have been passed by an ion rocket with
improved telemetry, so the whole Uranus/Neptune mission is a waste. As
it turns out, delays in the whole space program, especially the ion
rocket, have turned Voyager 2 into a note in a bottle not likely to be
exceeded by any new mission for many years. I say we should go ahead
and put up our ion rocket, with state-of-art telemetry virtually
guaranteed for 20 years, and note in the bottle for additional time if
our space program falls on its face again.