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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2529 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Any multi-lifetime space projects on the map?

Alan Stern, the lead on New Horizons has spent an entire career making this mission happen. His first proposal for a Kuiper Belt/Pluto Probe was in the mid-80's. This is a whole career pushing for a singular mission.

The Jupiter moon missions are being pushed by people who were engineers for the Voyagers.

Something tells me that you do not mean a whole lifetime to get something launched, but there are a few examples.





goobster  ·  2528 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, I am thinking of a group of scientists designing something they know they won't see, because the next generation will be the ones to actually fly it, or do science with it.

Like KB said below, the "pyramid-builder" type of planning, rather than the, "holy shit! That thing is still running! Let's do more science with it!" like we see with Voyager and Curiosity.