JIMO claims to only cost about $3 billion, which I believe is the inflation-adjusted cost of the Cassini mission. The Cassini mission was politically feasible, so a JIMO-type mission to Titan should also be feasible, IF one believes that $3 billion figure is accurate. The problem isn't the political feasibility of the numbers the Bush administration puts out, but rather the credibility of those numbers. The $3 billion figure is almost as unbelievable as the 2012 launch date.
If they continued to develop NEP at a slower, reasonable pace that did not entail the expense of moving fast, a launch of a NEP mission in the 2020s to Neptune or Titan would be a good idea, and meanwhile we could put a lander on Europa, or some other chemically-fueled mission to the Jupiter system.
Space/Science » in reply to JIMO is a technology demonstrator that should be funded
re: JIMO is a technology demonstrator that should be funded
