However the Orion missions, on the other hand, just might do what you say, and not just nearly but almost completely. The Europa Orbiter that was originally going to be launched this year has been canceled. There is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter scheduled for later this year (which arguably is just part of the planned lunar missions). There is next year's Mars Scientific Laboratory. And then there is the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter scheduled for 2015 (which leaves plenty of time for it to be canceled too ;p). But that's about it for exploring the rest of the solar system...
Yet another thing they could do back then that they can't seem to do now - have a series of robotic probes doing space exploration at the same time as having manned missions for the same purpose (shuttles don't count as space "exploration").
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 04:09 pm (UTC)No, not really. "Nearly" perhaps, but there was still one other very important space program going on:
The Pioneer program was concurrent with the Apollo program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_6,_7,_8_and_9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_10
However the Orion missions, on the other hand, just might do what you say, and not just nearly but almost completely. The Europa Orbiter that was originally going to be launched this year has been canceled. There is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter scheduled for later this year (which arguably is just part of the planned lunar missions). There is next year's Mars Scientific Laboratory. And then there is the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter scheduled for 2015 (which leaves plenty of time for it to be canceled too ;p). But that's about it for exploring the rest of the solar system...
Yet another thing they could do back then that they can't seem to do now - have a series of robotic probes doing space exploration at the same time as having manned missions for the same purpose (shuttles don't count as space "exploration").