National Space Exploration Agency: 20-Year Plan for $100 Billion Budget

Costs of Robotic Missions and Time Taken

A new Prime Minister has been elected in your country and they have allocated $100 Billion dollars over the next 20 years to space exploration. The new Prime Minister has named you head of the National Space Exploration Agency and would like to a see a PowerPoint presentation outlining your plan to spend these $100 billion dollars. You can choose to explore any objects in our solar system, but the kinds of missions you choose, and the distance of objects, will impact their cost. Different kinds of missions also take different lengths of time to be developed and launched. Below is the “cost” to your country for each kind of mission.

 
The plan you propose must stay within the $100 billion budget and 20 year range. Note these are not the real costs of these kinds of missions (i.e. no currency is reflected), just relative costs compared to one-another for the sake of the assignment.Your presentation will need to outline how you will stagger missions and what will take place in each year of your 20-year plan. 
Robotic Mission “Costs” and Times 
Flyby Inner Solar System 2 $1 
Flyby Outer Solar System 5 $5 
Multi-Body Flyby Inner Solar System 3 $3 
Multi-Body Flyby Outer Solar System 6 $10 
Multi-Body Flyby Inner & Outer Solar 
 
Lander Inner Solar System 5 $15
Outer Solar System 8 $20 
Orbiter Inner Solar System 5 $15 
Orbiter Outer Solar System 7 $15 
Rover Inner Solar System 8 $20 
Rover Outer Solar System 14 $25 
Lander/Rover & 
Sample Return 
Inner Solar System 16 $30 
Lander/Rover & 
Sample Return 
Outer Solar System 18 $35 
  
Assignment Objectives 
Your PowerPoint should make the case for each investment choice based on evidence from past explorations and ongoing scientific questions and unknowns related to the object being explore.Your presentation can do so in writing right on each slide or in the notes section of PPT, it is up to you. Your PowerPoint should be at least 20 slides in length, but cannot be longer than 30 slides (including references). 

The presentation should make clear how material from class and during your own research for the final project led to your choices. You also want to indicate the scientific information that will be gained from the exploration program you are proposing. Keeping in mind the thesis of this course that space exploration is both a scientific and social process, you should have slides in your presentation addressing the “why” and benefits of your program from any social, political, economic, or philosophical positions you wish to take. Nonetheless, the scientific merit (or justification) of your program, and its argumentation as related to academic literature, is the core concern of the assignment. Points you need to address for each mission selected: 
1) What is the scientific objective of the mission? (The more detailed, and referenced, the higher you will score) 
2) How will the mission collect information? (The more detailed the higher the score. While specific instrument names aren’t needed (e.g. APSX) the kinds of instruments (X-Ray Spectrometer) indicate you did research into what kinds of instruments are on spacecraft and what they do. Hint: this podcast is very helpful for that. 
3) Reference to any major missions that also went to the planetary body(ies) you are proposing to explore (i.e. if you are proposing a Neptune Orbiter & Probe, you would need to mention the Voyager Program. If sending humans to land on the Moon, you might want t recap the Apollo Program and explain what will be different or how you will expand on past missions).