New Space Probes

 

It's long past time for humans to launch new interstellar space probes. The American government's NASA space company launched Voyager 2 in August, 1977; and Voyager 1 in September, 1977. Voyager 2 travels at about 9.6 miles per second and is 12.9 million miles away; Voyager 1 travels at about 10.6 miles per second, and is 15.5 million miles out. Both are an awesome seven to eight times further away from the sun than the last planet Uranus, which is 1.7 million miles distant from Earth. Both crafts still partially function, which is impressive. But both use grossly out-of-date, 48-year-old technology!

New private spaceships would have vastly superior cameras and sensing equipment to gather far more knowledge of the distant planets, Kuiper Belt, and outer space. And these probes could travel at at least three times the Voyager speeds, at over 30 miles per second, by using gravity assist from Jupiter. NASA's 2018 Parker Solar Probe, using gravity assist from the sun (getting within a dangerous 3.8 million miles), travels at a stunning 110 miles per second; so possibly new Voyager-type space exploration craft could get close to that. SpaceX, Firefly Aerospace, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Sierra Space, and Intuitive Machines – all successful capitalist space companies based in America – need to get to work! Since this would largely be a quest for general knowledge, possibly several of these private companies could collaborate. By firing the public imagination, it might be easy for them to get funding from other large corporations and the general public for this magnifcent venture!