With an increase in technology, why doesn't NASA re-do a few projects?
We launched Voyager in the late 70s which had the same technology as a key fob, and the Hubble telescope was launched in the 90s, when cameras were advanced for that time but nowhere where they are now. My question is, why don't we re-do a few projects with better technology? My guess is that we are focused on...
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answers:
nineteenthly say: More advanced probes have been sent to Jupiter and Saturn, and New Horizons went to Pluto. Uranus and Neptune would be the ones which have missed out.
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Jeffrey K say: The Kepler and Webb space telescopes are improved versions of the Hubble telescope.
Voyager flew by all the gas giants because the planets were lined up at that time. That won't happen again for a long while. But Galileo and Cassini and New Horizons were new improved planetary probes.
New versions of the Viking Mars lander went to Mars about every 2 years.
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ANDRE L say: The Voyager flybys were possible because of the lineup of the outer planets that occurred at the time. Due to the outer planets presently not being so arranged, such a mission could not be flown now.
The Hubble has been upgraded over the years by the several servicing Shuttle missions. And, the successor to the Hubble is presently in testing. It is scheduled to launch in two years.
Perhaps you should learn something about the past projects such that you would then understand more about them. As well as keeping up with current projects.
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PhotonX say:
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Meanwhile, yes, interest in Mars is intensive, but we've sent an orbiter to Mercury, a fly-by of Pluto and Ultima/Thule, and there are usually around 75-100 missions active at NASA at any given time. Did you research any of that before asking your question? https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/?type=...
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ReductioAdAstronomicus say: Unfortunately nasa is obsessed with the dust of Mars and lobbing men up into space, so there is little budget left for anything useful or interesting.
To add to this appalling lack of vision and finesse, the JWST is soaking up around ten billion dollars, and although it is a huge leap above silliness like the ISS and hopeless Mars missions, it is still not in the same league as those magnificent achievements of the past such as Hubble, Voyager, Cassini, Magellan, Mariner, etc.
Personally I get the feeling that the glory days of space exploration are coming to a close, as money is tending to flow towards ensuring the budget continues, rather than wowing the public with new discoveries and new images. All rather sad really, considering what we could have had.
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David say: NASA's manned space missions have been rather lackluster lately but one area where NASA has been very successful is with its recent deep space missions.
The Voyager missions took advantage of a planetary alignment that only happens every 175 years. It would be nearly impossible to do the same thing until the planets line up like that again. A probe wouldn't be able to hit all the outer planets at once, it'd have to select just one or two planets to visit.
NASA has had other successful missions to outer planets. The Cassini mission spent 13 years studying the Saturn system and ended just a couple years ago in 2017 when it was deliberately plunged into the planet.
The New Horizons mission was the first probe to study Pluto and then just a short while ago studied another Kuiper Belt object, now the most distant object ever visited by a space probe.
The Juno space probe is currently studying the Jupiter system. The ESA (European Space Agency) is planning another mission to Jupiter within a few years to study the moons. NASA will then follow that up with the Europa Clipper mission (set to launch in 2023) which will study Jupiter's moon Europa, which is an icy moon believed to contain a liquid water ocean beneath the ice.
There are several ongoing missions on and orbiting Mars. There are also probes that have been studying asteroids and comets and the Moon. There are also probes studying the Sun including the Parker Solar Probe which was launched last year and is en route.
As far as telescopes go, the James Webb space telescope, will be many times more powerful than Hubble, and is supposed to launch in 2021. There have been other telescopes, such as the Kepler space telescope, which has found literally thousands of exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) and the Chandra telescope which studies the x-ray spectrum of the universe.
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say: Talk to your elected officials to give NASA more morning, Congress controls the purse strings.
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skeptik say: Because such projects are expensive.
How small of an improvement would justify the immense cost? Rather then taking the money and actually doing something new?
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And to clarify:
There have been multiple space telescopes since Hubble which are much more advanced. For example - Hubble was incapable of detecting exoplanets. Yet we currently aware of several thousand of them. Because of a post-Hubble space telescope.
There have also been multiple planetary probes since Voyager which are much more advanced. Cassini/Huygens and New Horizons are just two examples. Perhaps the most important element of these newer missions is how much of the work is being done by organizations other than NASA. It's now all of humanity involved in space exploration, not just the U.S. and Russian governments.
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Nyx say: And the money to do that is going to come from where?
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Rufus Tavalkus say: Because there's no point.
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CarolOklaNola say: Money is why. Congress sets NASA's budget every 2 years. This the legacy of the Tea Party that was elected into office in 2010. Many of of those members of Congress do not understand science and have NO DESIRE to understand science. So you want lLockheed, Grumann,and Boeing to rebuild the machines that built the Saturn 5 rockets that is based in 100 year old and older technology at the same time the next generation of rockets are currently in production for more than 7.5 years? That takes MONEY. WHERE is that money going to come from?
If the James Webb Space Telescope ever gets launched it is going to be outdated. There is ALWAYS a time delay, and there will always be people who misinform intentionally. Hubble will eventually fall out of orbit if it isn't boosted to a higher orbit. So will the ISS.
WHERE is the MONEY going to come from. YOUR or your childrens' Social Security? The USA is paying Russia for ferry service to and from the ISS.
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