Cumbrian Sky

The "head" of NASA, Mike Griffin, has been speaking at a big conference about the future of NASA's exploration of the solar system. In his speech he explained that there won't be as much money for missions to Mars as there has been in recent years, and that NASA will be starting to turn its attention - or rather, more of its attention - towards the planets and moons of the outer solar system.

I had mixed feelings when I read this. My instant, gut reaction as a lifelong "Mars nut" was "NOOOOOOO!!!" ... but then the more reasonable part of me took over and I began to think "Hmmm, ok... fair enough," because - and I never thought I'd find myself thinking this thought or typing these words - maybe it is time to not focus quite so much on Mars, and strike out a bit for the Farworlds.

It actually makes a lot of sense. MSL will - hopefully - trundle around Mars for several years at the least, so there's no urgent need to send more rovers after it for a while. And with a fleet of orbiters circling Mars - among them the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter "martian spy-sat", which as we all know here can pick out individual boulders with HiRISE - there's no pressing need for a flagship new orbiter either. After landing on May 25th, the Phoenix lander will "do" the polar environment; MRO will let us map the surface in amazing detail; who knows how much longer Spirit and Oppy will keep doing their Duracel bunny act... There's actually plenty going on on Mars to keep us, and martian scientists, busy for the forseeable future. If Europe's ExoMars makes it to Mars that will further surface studies. As far as NASA is concerned, the next logical Mars mission is a sample return, right? And there's obviously no money for that at the moment... so, amazingly, I find myself agreeing that perhaps it is time to turn our minds towards other bodies and destinations.

I've actually been feeling this way for a while, if I'm honest. Everyone who reads this blog knows how passionate I am about Mars but recently I've been feeling a kind of... well, no, not boredom, I wouldn't go that far, but I have definitely been feeling a kind of restlesness, a wanderlust almost. I think, in fact I know, a lot of that is to do with the work of people on the unmannedspaceflight forum - the fantastic images of Io produced by Jason, Ted's stunning portraits of the oft-neglected moons of the outer planets, Juramike's intense studies of Titan's surface, pictures produced by so many other people here during the recent Mercury and Iapetus and Enceladus encounters, and more besides. They've made me feel fascinated by these places all over again, helped wash the martian dust out of my eyes and allowed me to see that there are other wonders Out There worthy of exploration.

So, while part of me, again if I'm honest, feels a pang of guilt for even thinking this, I have to agree that the time is right to not turn our back on Mars, but definitely to sweep our eyes across the bigger picture and embrace the Farworlds. The fractured ice plains of Europa calls to us, as does the sulphurous landscape of Io and the bizarre, alien-yet-familiar surface of Titan. The moons of Uranus and Neptune deserve further study, and Pluto is now just years away from being seen as a real world for the first time. Wonders await out there in the realm of ice, where the Sun is but a distant star and Earth is a mote of dust lost in that star's glare.

Bring it on, I say!

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