ABSTRACT |
NASA has become the world leader in space exploration, journeying further and learning more about our surrounding universe than any other group of scientists and engineers on our planet. Beginning in the 1970s with Pioneer, NASA has conducted many voyages to our outer solar system, where planets very unlike our own reside. Employing flybys (Pioneer and Voyager) and orbiters and probes (Galileo and Cassini-Huygens), NASA missions have analyzed these strange bodies and their systems of moons, particles, and fields. These trips generated a variety of benefits, including engineering advances, scientific discoveries, political influence, defense advantages, and less concrete benefits related to ethical questions and national vitality. This paper examines some of the benefits that emerged from two notable journeys beyond the asteroid beltGalileo and Cassini-Huygens. |