Wired Science

When it comes to exploring the far reaches of our solar system, robots rule.

Man may have left footprints on the moon but our probes have landed on or orbited every single other planet as well as countless asteroids and comets, beaming back valuable data and amazing images. The next few years will see greater milestones, with a rover scaling a mountain on Mars and a spacecraft getting the first close-up view of Pluto.

But there’s always more to be done. Eager planetary scientists would love to get new information about each body in our solar system and numerous propositions have been made, including missions to fly through the clouds of Venus or drill down to the ocean on Europa.

NASA’s latest budget hit the agency’s planetary science division particularly hard, making some of the more expensive missions nigh impossible. But there’s always room for hopes and dreams. Other countries’ space agencies are picking up the pace in their own robotic exploration — with occasionally disastrous results — while newcomers like India and China are laying down the foundation for future exploration.

Here, we take a look at some of the coolest missions that we would love to see happen some day. Let us know in the comments which ones we missed out on or some ideas you’d like to see in the future.

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Lunar Network

Colonizing the moon is no longer in NASA’s cards, but planetary scientists are still eager to learn everything they can about Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor.

Several years ago, a team of scientists proposed the International Lunar Network to NASA. The mission would plop four nuclear-powered science stations on the moon — each lasting about six years — to listen for moonquakes caused by meteorites with seismometers 10 times more sensitive than those left by Apollo astronauts. The devices were also pegged to study lunar magnetism and monitor the surface’s heat flow, but cost estimates for that plan ran close to $1.2 billion.

Instead of letting the idea of a lunar seismic network die out, other scientists dreamed up LUNETTE: a smaller network of three nodes with a cost of about $425 million to NASA. (International collaborators would have picked up the remaining tab of $375 million.) Each solar-powered node would weigh about 220 pounds and last two years. And to survive the blisteringly cold 14-day-long lunar nights, each node would conserve power and trickle it out during a hibernation mode.

The scientists’ proposal was rejected in 2011 — NASA narrowed its running to three missions last year — but a similar proposal might reappear during a call for entries next year.

Image: NASA