space mission's!

[apollo@pluto]

well all of them have been , Really! , Havent They?

[cartmancakes]

I vote for Apollo 12.   Talk about a precision landing!

[DonPMitchell]

I tend to admire the firsts.  Sputnik-1, Vostok-1, Apollo 11.  I can't compare them really.

[Johno]

My own preference is for the pulling of fat from the fire.  Apollo 13 for mine.

[Satanic Mechanic]

I voted for the program that we learned the most from and is over-looked: the Gemini program.  Most of the systems and concepts that were in Apollo came from Gemini.  It was a test bed for many theories and applications.

SM

[DonPMitchell]

Now that I think about it again, I think I would vote for the Voyager Mission.  I think in terms of science and learning, there was huge bang for the buck.

[evancise]

Speaking of Voyager...
NASA's Voyager 2 on a 'magic mission' into Milky Way

[LunarOrbit]

I love that the Voyager probes are still alive and communicating with Earth.

[evancise]

It was very humbling and awe inspiring to be in the Deep Space Network control center and see a pass with Voyager 1 come up on their timeline.  They talk Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 once a day.  A comm session takes about 1 day each way so 1 day's pass is "listen" and the next day is "send" for each probe.

[ijuin]

I love that the Voyager probes are still alive and communicating with Earth.

Yup, keeps on ticking. NASA builds their probes to last.

[DonPMitchell]

Ed Stone was the chief scientist for Voyager, and I was fortunate to be one of his graduate students at Caltech in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  I was there during the Jupiter and Saturn encounters.  I worked on another project (the HEAO-C satellite), but during Voyager encounters the whole lab was pretty much mobilized to help.

Stone was an important role model for me, a good guy, a good scientists and a good administrator.  His grant applications were said to be better that most people's journal papers.  I wasn't at all surprised when he later became head of JPL.

[apollo@pluto]

in 10 years time from now man will return to the moon . probes and sattelites have already searched out landing sites. NASA is building the rockets to take us there , but what will they drive there . the new buggy or lunar electric rover to give its proper name , is part of ''Constellation'' , the missions that will once again put someone - man or woman on the moon . like the later Apollo missions of the 1970s.

[ijuin]

NASA will return to the Moon  . . . IF Congress agrees to pay for it.

Getting Congress to pay for anything, however, means that either 60% of Senators believe that their individual states will get money or jobs or glory from it, or else that the Senators themselves will stand a better chance of re-election if they support it (in other words, the Senators have to believe that adding money to NASA will get more votes for them than adding the money to education or Medicare or the military or other stuff).

[DonPMitchell]

I would object to a one-shot apollo like mission to the Moon, because it would be expensive and we've done it before.

I'd like to see NASA and ESA get together and build a large perminant interplanetary spacecraft, like the Soviet TMK concept.  Fission power and ion drive are the way to go.

[Johno]

I agree with Dr Mitchell!!!!!!!

(First time for everything . . . )

Seriously, though, I agree that the last thing we want is to repeat the glories of the past.  If we are to return to the moon, we really need to make sure that we're achieving something new. 

I think a permanently manned scientific base would be worth the cost, especially if it is multinational.  I also can't help thinking there's some advantage to developing our colonisation technologies and skills in an environment where if something goes wrong, we can be home in 3 days!