Missions could see NASA spacecraft heading to Uranus and Neptune

Cancel SLS. Cancel Orion.

Mass produce satellites and space station modules instead.

I really do wish NASA had a focus. The 60s showed the power of NASA given a clear goal and direction, but now a days they feel like they're operating a mile wide and an inch deep.

Probes are great, but I think many overestimate the amount of information they can genuinely provide. Even on Mars where we have had multiple rovers on the surface, there are still ongoing debates about things such as whether the streaks on the planet's surface are water, which NASA made a large announcement of, or indeed just sand which is where the latest interpretation stands. And that's for a very peaceful and close planet (in comparison to Uranus or Neptune) that we ostensibly have a great understanding of.

I don't really care what their goal would be, as long as it would be a goal that they could work towards - a base on the moon, a base on mars, expanding the ISS, or anything - preferably with a human element as that's what attracts people to space, and thus gets the money to make these missions become reality. But these probes are not really advancing society.

And here I would make an exception for things like the Kepler missions. Those were a directed mission with a specific, valuable, and new purpose that could (and did) provide information that substantially advanced society. Let's go shoot some probes off around Uranus and Neptune and grab some pics and atmospheric readings is better than nothing but it feels like spending funding for the sake of spending funding.

I wait and hope for someone with more planetary knowledge than I have to explain the lack of interest in Venus as a habitable planet and thus the center of NASA's attention ahead of Neptune, Uranus, and of course, Mars.

Based on what I've read, which includes a paper from a NASA (or was it JPL?) engineer, Venus' surface is not very hospitabl, but at a certain altitude it looks like an oasis in the Solar System:

Venus (at ~50-55 km altitude) / Mars (surface): (all stats from Wikipedia, and yes not always complete or comparable)

* Gravity: 0.9G / 0.38G

* Pressure: ~1 atm / 0.00628 atm (prevents liquid water)

* Temperature: 27-75 deg C / -63 deg C (mean)

* Shortest distance from Earth (for logistics): 40M km / 55M km

* Sunlight (energy): More than Earth / 43% of Earth

Also, oxygen and nitrogen are lighter than the CO2-heavy atmosphere, so a balloon of O2 and N2 would float conveniently at 50 km. The CO2 in the atmosphere also could be a valuable resource.

I'm not an expert, but the wikipedia page alone doesn't paint that bright a picture.

> Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid.

We know very little about it. Also, I'm sure you'll need to coat any probes/spacecraft to protect against the sulfuric acid.

> The water has probably photodissociated, and the free hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field.

So basically same chance of water (maybe worse) as Mars.

> Venus (at ~50-55 km altitude)

So we'd have to have floating habitats even if we knew this zone was actually habitable (it's still a sulfurous environment). This also means much higher energy costs along with other logistical challenges.

> Shortest distance from Earth (for logistics): 40M km / 55M km

Yeah, but you're fighting solar winds so the question is how much less are the energy costs. Also, from a logistics perspective, communication might be important & the unfriendly atmosphere may pose additional challenges/costs.

However, an interesting aspect of floating habitats in the Venusian stratosphere is that a terrestrial breathable gas mix (80% N2 / 18% O2 / 2% trace others) is a lifting gas that's about as effective as Helium here on Earth. (Venus's atmosphere is > 90% carbon dioxide, which has a significantly higher molecular weight than air.) And it's protected from solar UV and radiation to a considerable extent by the layers of atmosphere above it. So your entire balloon -- or, more likely, dirigible airship -- can be inhabited volume, rather than just a cramped gondola slung underneath.

Photovoltaic power might sound problematic at first in view of the long Venusian night (a single day lasts up to 116 Earth days), but at altitude there are strong jet streams and winds circulate around the equator roughly every hundred hours. So you're not stuck running on battery power for months on end, but you may need some maneuvering capability.

This is not to minimize the problems associated with activity in the Venusian atmosphere -- but it's not quite the impossible hell-hole it's been portrayed as.