Plenty of Targets for Robots Exploring the Final Frontier

Friday, September 9, 2011 - 14:30 in Astronomy & Space

As "Star Trek" marks its 45th anniversary, space exploration is less about the voyages of the starship Enterprise and more about robots that boldly go where no man has gone before. But surely even Lieutenant Commander Data would approve the slate of robotic missions looking out beyond Earth orbit toward extraterrestrial destinations both familiar and mysterious.Possible candidates for robotic planetary exploration missions include Venus, Mars, asteroids, comets and even Saturn's moon Titan . Such ambitious targets have appeared in proposals for NASA Discovery-class missions that have budget caps of roughly half a billion dollars -- a testament to how planetary scientists have balanced risk and innovation while searching for new science frontiers. [More]

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