I wonder how this mission compares in scale to the JAXA Hayabusa comet interceptor done twenty years ago.
I hope they make some photos of Phobos monolith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_monolith
Bringing Protomolecule to earth, when?
(Minor spoilers for The Expanse, word Protomolecule means something there.)
This is good space science.
Unlike iPhone selfies around the moon, or golf on mars.
Manned space missions are very rarely justified in the modern era.
An unmanned probe doing science for 20 years, or a one shot influenza photo op.
The cost is about the same...
JAXA does great work, they also publish the highest resolution open access global surface elevation model. Really impressive for a country with about 1/10th the GDP of the US.
Nice. These missions that tell us the basics about objects in the Solar System are more useful than, say, re-visiting the moon or Mars.
Venus and Europa could use some attention. Anything underway?
I suggest Terraforming Venus with microbes or extremophiles.
And to hell with the "planetary protection" treaty. We need "lebensraum"! Our females want to breed!
Apparently five Venus missions (DAVINCI, VERITAS, Envision, Venus Life Finder, and Venus Orbiter) all in the next five years or so: https://www.space.com/astronomy/venus/these-5-venus-missions...
For Europa, Europa Clipper Mission (already on the way): https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/mission-time...
... and JUICE (already on the way): https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice
There might be others, those are just what I found in a quick search.
Europa clipper launched 2 years ago arrives in 2030. DAVINCI, a Venusian probe, is slated net 2033
All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there.
I can't imagine aliens being so stupid to claim part of our Solar System. To me this would become a giant bullseye.
Sample return from Venus is practically impossible with our current tech.
There is also NASA's upcoming mission to Titan, where they plan to fly an octocopter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(Titan_space_probe)
I'm really exited about Dragonfly, as Titan is a world not too different from ours: it gas lakes and rivers (made out of hydrocarbons, like methane), dunes and mountains