>>11396368Cause we can launch missions to mars in a couple of months while it takes a long time to get to Enceladus. There's a new push for human exploration so naturally planetary science is getting shafted. Sadly we can't send people near Enceladus any time soon. NASA scientists say that icy moons are a high priority science target. Enceladus is better than europa for missions too. Europa's bathed in deathly radiation and has thicc ice. Because of the deadly radiation, a lander will only last a month at most before getting fried. The thicc ice means you need to bring a heavy tether. Enceladus is just spewing stuff with it's geysers. Absolute madman Freeman Dyson has suggested flying a probe through with a net to catch flash frozen fish! Just flying through the plume and analyzing what it's made of would tell us lots about the oceans composition. It'd be much cheaper than a lander too. Landers will take a while. You see all those cracks? that means the terrain is wild. NASA only lands in flat places. We'll need an orbiter or clipper to find a place to land. Or we send a nuclear powered space battleship with fuckloads of dV. NASA wanted to do this for Europa, but that got cancelled when bush wanted to go back to the moon.
