Robotic exploration - present and future

摘要

ESA's David Southwood quipped that ESA actually stood for 'Exploration Science Applications', adding that the agency is chiefly about exploration before the science and applications. In his mind it is exploration, finding how we got to where we are now and if there are any worlds like ours elsewhere that drives the science. Cooperation and experience are also a big part of it. For example, there would have been no European Huygens probe to Titan without the NASA Cassini mission to Saturn. The technology of Rosetta lead to the Mars Express and Venus Express missions.