Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs
Neil deGrasse Tyson had an awesome tweet today.
Someone asked what the obstacles to exploring Mercury are and is it mostly about temperature to which Neil replied "No, you need a space program too".
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Actually. The biggest problem is (has always been) to get something in a sufficiently similar orbit as Mercury. To go to Mercury directly would take a tremendous amount of fuel, which we don't want (shooting fuel and a spaceship with a large enough engine up is very expensive) so we have to make complicated detours through the solar system which take a long time and need more course-corrections.