From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Satellite around Pluto Mission? 
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 35

In article <1993Apr30.004311.1@aurora.alaska.edu> nsmca@aurora.alaska.edu writes:
>Is there a plan to put a satellite around each planet in the solar system to
>keep watch? ...

There would be some point to doing long-term monitoring of things like
particles and fields, not to mention atmospheric phenomena.  However,
there is no particular plan to establish any sort of monitoring network.
To be precise, there is no particular plan, period.  This is a large
part of the problem.  In this context, it's not surprising that unexciting
but useful missions like this get short shrift at budget time.  The closest
approach to any sort of long-term planetary monitoring mission is the
occasional chance to piggyback something like this on top of a flashier
mission like Galileo or Cassini.

>How about a mission (unmanned) to Pluto to stay in orbit and record things
>around and near and on Pluto...

It is most unlikely that there is much happening on Pluto that would be
worth monitoring, and it is a prohibitively difficult mission to fly
without new propulsion technology (something the planetary community
has firmly resisted being the guinea pigs for).  The combined need to
arrive at Pluto within a reasonable amount of time, and then kill nearly
all of the cruise velocity to settle into an orbit, is beyond what can
reasonably be done with current (that is, 1950s-vintage) propulsion.

>It could do some scanning of not only Pluto, but also of the solar system,
>objects near and aaroundpluto, as well as SETI and looking at the galaxy
>without having much of the solar system to worry about..

Most of this can be done just about as well from Earth.  The few things
that can't be, can be done better from a Voyager-like spacecraft that is
*not* constrained by the need to enter orbit around a planet.
-- 
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
