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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

"JWST isn't providing enough new for you?" he asks sarcastically.

I think the budgets required would make any of the things you describe as flagship missions. Taking years after launch before the mission can start is a hard sell. The couple of months for JWST to become operational seemed like it was killing some anxious/excited people in that wait. Nevermind the decades long wait from delays in getting it launched too. It could literally something where the designers/builders never see the results. So I guess we should have started 10 years ago?

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For both technical and scientific reasons (e.g., fundamental limitations of optical resolving power), there are things which cannot be seen via JWST or any other near-Earth telescope which a probe might be able to observe.

There are also observations which extend beyond the electromagnetic spectrum itself, or sample physical conditions in the neighbourhood of outer-solar-system planets.

(These are not knocks on JWST which is absolutely phenomenal for what it does. These are simply observations on the limits of JWST or any comparable near-Earth telescope or remote-sensing resources.)

Power way out there is hard and I do not know the best ways to deal with it but a standard sort of "explorer" class spacecraft the gets produced and sent out every few years. avoiding he development costs and some of the risk. Maybe one or two in Earth orbit to chase down interstellar interlopers. I suspect (but do not know, maybe someone else does) some of those that worked on JWST did not get a chance to see it launch (but an amazing project non the less).

Also, JWST is mostly looking at things kind far away and sort of a long time ago (with some closer that is incredible. It cannot really compare to the images from Voyager(s) of the outer planets.

They have already been launching these missions for years on a regular basis. Interesting that no one here bothers to do a web search before commenting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_probes

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