What is the one space mission you would love to see in your lifetime

[Turbinator]

What is the one space mission you would love to see in your lifetime? This excludes any manned missions. And has to be realistic, something that could be actually done.

List the top one and the five after it.

1. Full exploration of the seas of Europa. A proper submarine with proper HDTV cameras
2. Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (16.8m segmented mirror telescope) in space
3. Jupiter "hot-air" balloon probe, with a 4+ week lifetime and HDTV
4. Probe with bulldozer like digging capability on Mars, instead of children's sand scoops. Or aeroplanes on Mars.
5. MICROPHONES on planetary landers !!!!! What does Mars sound like? How did the Titan splashdown sound like? How do parachutes on other planets sound like?



2.

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[Wishbone]

1. Europa - seconded.
2. Solar/Solar-electric fast interstellar probe
3. Martian sample and return from a network of drilling probes. No bulldozers!
4. Solar statite above Martian poles
5. Full Neptune system exploration
6. A fly-by of one or several of the KBOs

To achieve this, I don't smoke, do exercise and keep on sailing.

 

[Carmen A]

To watch a future iteration of Apollo astronauts make planetfall on Mars.

My hopes used to be further outside the Solar System but it will be some time (a few decades at least) before aggressive space exploration will be undertaken once again by us Earthlings.

And that would be worth the wait because by that time there would in all possibility be immersive enhanced/virtual reality technology that makes a broadcast from Mars maybe as good as being there in remote :3

 

[N_Molson]

- Manned Mars Landing.

I'm not hoping anything else, given the current poor funding of the space agencies and the general lack of political will.

 

[Wally]

Ballons in the atmosphere of Venus. And landers that lasts more than a few minutes.
Europa and Titan proper exploration also.

 

[Urwumpe]

Lets be realistic, a Manned Mars Landing. It can be done.

As unmanned mission, I would like to see a Titan rover.

 

[Jarvitä]

1.)A Titan rover somewhere near MSL on the capabilities scale
2.)Europa submarine
3.)A concentrated unmanned Mars exploration program with the full budget of a "flags and footprints" mission - a series of coordinated lander, rover, aeroplane, baloon, orbiter and sample return missions
4.)Manned NEO mission
5.)Fast interstellar probes. Come on, we've got solar sails, all we need are some terawatt laser arrays on the Moon to propel them. Even a flyby at relativistic velocities would give us a lot more information that we can gather from here.

 

[C3PO]

Too bad manned missions aren't included. I'd be happy to see manned missions anywhere farther then LEO.
Sadly the outlook isn't very good because of economic reasons, not technical.

 

[Ark]

Excluding manned missions, show me a space telescope large enough to spot continents on extrasolar planets.

 

[Solar424]

1. Sample Return From Mars. Bonus if it contains evidence of life.
2. Exploration of Europa, with ability to sample water for signs of life.
3. Proof of concept asteroid deflection mission.
4. Unmanned Helium-3 mine on the moon.
5. Mission to Venus that lasts more than 1 hour.

 

[statickid]

two things i've always been really interested in would be an Io lander and something that can actually fly closer to saturns rings and see the swarm of individual particles. Both missions probably to risky so spend millions of dollars on though... :\ maybe not the Io lander though.

 

[Aeadar]

I guess this would be a good place to ask this; if there were two Hubbles (or whatever the next large, space-based telescope is), and they were placed in solar orbit, one ahead of Earth by six months, one behind Earth six months, so that the distance between them was approx. 186 million miles, would there be an advantage to the 'stereoscopic' view that provided?

 

[DanM]

Any mission that I could fly on

 

[fireballs619]

Manned would be a mission to mars, no doubt. I too would like to to see Europa explored properly-it holds a lot of potential!

 

[T.Neo]

Sadly the outlook isn't very good because of economic reasons, not technical.

Y'know, I don't think it's economic reasons as much as it's political reasons. There is plenty enough money, it's just that nobody is really willing to spend it.

It's important to recognise that the annual defence budget of the USA is a probably more than even the most blatantly expensive Mars mission eventualities...

 

[OrbiterSpore]

1.Spacecraft in solar orbit, close enough to see VERY closely.
2.USV flight (autonomous "Unmanned Space Vehicles").
3.Europa underwater exploration.
4.Auto repair satellites?

 

[fsci123]

1. BREAKAGE of the light-barrier
2. Travel to GL581 system within 40 years
3. 00.1c

 

[T.Neo]

1. BREAKAGE of the light-barrier

Oh yes, we all want to see that... I can write a 50 page essay on how I want to see that.

I'll lump it in with my list of "day trip to Mu Arae", and "being accepted to fly on a shuttle mission"...

3. 00.1c

If you're breaking the light barrier 0.01 C doesn't mean much, does it?

 

[fsci123]

Oh yes, we all want to see that... I can write a 50 page essay on how I want to see that.

I'll lump it in with my list of "day trip to Mu Arae", and "being accepted to fly on a shuttle mission"...



If you're breaking the light barrier 0.01 C doesn't mean much, does it?

UH i said .1c

 

[T.Neo]

Then it still doesn't mean much. If you're breaking the light speed barrier, well, even 90% of C is then slow...