I wish they would forget about mars........

[spurius]

and focus more on the exporation of Uranus and Neptune. Any one of these planets is far more interesting in my opinion but whats more to the point they remain practically unexplored. I doubt I will live long enough to see an orbiter of either of these worlds. The next major mission from Nasa must surely involve one of the ice giants.

[rowan46]

Mars was never intended to be a final destination more of a testing, proving ground and stepping stone or staging post for future exploration after all if you are doing an expedition anywhere you have to train for it first

[astro mick]

Forget about Mars,the most Earth like Planet, I dont think so.

[K3ny0n]

As the above post said, Mars could have once been like Earth. Why forget it?

Rob.

[Mezolitik]

I reckon Jupiter's moons will probably come next.

[JamesF]

There was a discussion about this a couple of months back. Mars may have the potential to have a semi-permanent human settlement and be a staging post for exploration of the outer solar system and beyond. That alone makes it worth exploring, I reckon.

James

[ronin]

Problem is they do not send a misson to Neptune or Uranus as a direct flight cannot get enough fuel on board. They have to slingshot off of another planet ot two. That means that these other planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn even Venus have to be in the correct positions for it to be possible. SImply they are not. So no slingshot means no misson to anything out there.

Seem to recall that the next time the planets are in a good position to get anything out there is about 200 years away. Until then not a lot will happen. That leaves Mars to have peak at, and Venus isn't that much use to us.

It is not a case of no-one wants to go, just no-one can go.

[spurius]

Forget about Mars,the most Earth like Planet, I dont think so.

Spot the difference:

[spurius]

Problem is they do not send a misson to Neptune or Uranus as a direct flight cannot get enough fuel on board. They have to slingshot off of another planet ot two. That means that these other planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn even Venus have to be in the correct positions for it to be possible. SImply they are not. So no slingshot means no misson to anything out there.

Seem to recall that the next time the planets are in a good position to get anything out there is about 200 years away. Until then not a lot will happen. That leaves Mars to have peak at, and Venus isn't that much use to us.

It is not a case of no-one wants to go, just no-one can go.

Didnt think about that. I remember a documentary on the voyagers. They took advantage of an extremely rare opportunity where a spacecraft could literally hop from one planet to another several times, rather than just from jupiter. Im not in any way criticising the exploration of mars however, just would like more exploration of worlds that are less explored.

[steve_bham]

Mars was in the early days similar to earth. So that alone warrants further investigation. Plus the possibility of a stepping stone to other further planets.

We are still wet behind the ears in actual space exploration. So every planet out there we could find new discoveries.

[astro mick]

(LOL) Spurius. Take your point,but at least you can walk on it.

I would also dearly love to see probes to Europa,and Enceledes,but i fear the Techknowledgy doesnt yet exist to drill down to the Depths of the suspected Oceans.

Mick.

[Marki]

I reckon Jupiter's moons will probably come next.

Isn't the ESA's JUICY mission designed to do just that? (JUpiter ICY moons - gotta love those acronyms) - due to launch 2022 or something like that.

EDIT - that should be JUICE - JUpiter ICy moon Explorer

[kyokugaisha]

And what about New Horizons - due to reach Pluto in July 2015 and then the possibility of further kuiper belt objects in the following years.

[kyokugaisha]

...Dawn heading to Ceres, Messenger still orbiting Mercury, Venus Express still orbiting Venus and of course good old Cassini at Saturn!

[Bendeavour]

...Dawn heading to Ceres, Messenger still orbiting Mercury, Venus Express still orbiting Venus and of course good old Cassini at Saturn!

Don't forget voyager 1 and 2 going beyond the solar system

[Lee M]

Yeah, but other than that, what have the Romans ever done for us?

[Pig]

Its got to be the sun next

[Naemeth]

Its got to be the sun next

That would be burning money..

The problem as has been said in a discussion a few months back is the distance (and therefore fuel) required to travel between Earth and Neptune / Uranus.

Personally, I'd like to see lots more exploration of the Asteroid Belt, something we know relatively little about.

[Mr Spock]

There is still so little we know about Mars. We have barely scratched the surface (literally) of what is a fascinating planet.

[Naemeth]

There is still so little we know about Mars. We have barely scratched the surface (literally) of what is a fascinating planet.

That's what this is for, I'm sure of it .

[nicnac]

i believe in the hop,skip, jump method.

base and launch pad on the moon on to mars and repeat....... then onwards from there.

[astro mick]

When you think that Mars is roughly the equivalent of Earths Land Mass,then we still have an awful lot of discoveries to make.

Mick.

[Paul M]

I think that without the diversion that was the Space Shuttle, we'd have been to Mars already. Sadly the Shuttle has little more than a place holder for manned space flight.

The ISS has been little more than an excuse to keep launching Shuttles.

So with man stuck in Low Earth Orbit playing at astronauts Mars has looked quite exotic.

I honestly think it's been done to death. Technology wise we're as capable of putting man on Mars now as we were of putting man on the Moon 50 years ago. We just need the political desire to get it built.

They should save the next batch of Mars bound hardware for more interesting destinations.

Don't they know there are moons up there with frozen oceans and sulphur volcanoes and hydrocarbon atmospheres?

Further unmanned missions to Mars just aren't exciting enough. Might as well save on rocket fuel and just dump the stuff in Death Valley....

[Paul M]

Sorry forgot one exception.

That Sky Crane was a beaut! Pure Thunderbirds!

[DaveS]

Titan looks an interesting place to visit.