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Old 06-07-2015, 05:05 PM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
Highest Observatory in Oz

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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Canberra
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deanm View Post
Mike - having thrusters is no issue: it's the enormous quantity of propellant that would be needed to decelerate into Pluto orbit.

Orbit-matching approaches to targets, as successfully performed by Dawn, Hayabusa, Rosetta etc. work, but take a long time.

The 10 years to Pluto direct (as was done by New Horizons) would be much inflated by a similar orbit-matching scenario.

Dean
He he yeah, well aware of that...but it would be cool, even if the required craft looked more like the Daedalus
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