Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!sri-unix!hplabs!ucbvax!SU-AI.ARPA!REM%IMSSS
From: REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA (Robert Elton Maas)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: thousand astronomical units via ten-years of ion rocket thrust
Message-ID: <8611171130.AA09807@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Mon, 17-Nov-86 06:31:55 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8611171130.AA09807
Posted: Mon Nov 17 06:31:55 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Nov-86 20:55:11 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 23

<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.