Why Have Uranus and Neptune Been Overlooked by Recent Space Missions?

[Caramon]

Not exactly sure what forum I should post this in, feel free to move it to a more appropriate forum if you wish!

Following the successful Galileo and Cassini missions to Jupiter and Saturn, respectively, and with another mission to Jupiter (Juno) coming up shortly I think it is time that the space community organized a concerted effort towards developing Uranus and Neptune Orbiters.

We have not seen any new direct information from the vicinity of the planetary systems of Uranus and Neptune and have had no further inspection of their fantastic and intriguing moons since the Voyager 2 mission in the 1980s. Considering the fact that we repeatedly send missions to Jupiter and Saturn with more planned on the horizon why are Uranus and Neptune left out of the scientific inspection? The reason why Uranus has such an extreme axial tilt and why it has a strange magnetic field coupled with Neptune's mysterious atmosphere and also seemingly misplaced magnetic field all pose interesting questions to be answered by closer inspection. Sending these orbiters would lead to a greater understanding of gas giant planets dynamics, evolution, and interactions with space.With recent advances in exoplanet research and the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope, there have been hundreds of planets discovered around the mass of Uranus and Neptune. We could develop our understanding of these fairly common exoplanets with a size of 10 to 17 Earth masses and in general have a far more in depth understanding of how planetary systems evolve and the reason for why certain planets end up being the way they are.

I'm sure these Uranus and Neptune Orbiter missions would not be of extremely excessive cost, they could likely be pulled off for around $1 billion to $1.5 billion considering what NASA's current mission costs are for unmanned orbiter programs.

It seems that Uranus and Neptune have been left in the shroud of obscurity by all NASA missions since Voyager 2 and with New Horizons on it's way to Pluto (closest approach in 2015) it seems that they have been skipped over all together.

Any thoughts or comments?

Thanks,
-Sam

 

[Caramon]

I suppose nobody gives a damn! :X

No wonder these projects don't get funding.

 

[john.phillip]

As you stated, Neptune and Uranus are unarguably invaluable to science for several reasons and the community knows it, but have been left out of probe missions due to current propulsion technology limits and budget.

There are future missions planned to be launched around 2020 and beyond, but they are depending on the development of a nuclear-electric propulsion and would be arriving around 2035. With current technology, budget limits, risk management and restraining missions to less than 15 years cruise time, it is only possible to do a fly-by, like the Voyager missions and New Horizons.