The Planet of Doubt Jupiter and Saturn and on the surface of Uranus itself. At the time "The Planet of Doubt" takes place at the turn of the 22nd century, the limited range of the spaceships ensures that Uranus can only be reached from the American base on Titan when Saturn reaches conjunction with Uranus, an event that occurs once every forty years. The Young expedition explored the planet's south pole in 2060; now Hammond takes his ship, the "Gaea", to the north pole. Finding an ocean at the north pole, Hammond sends the "Gaea" spiraling southeast until they reach land. They find the
Exploration of Uranus to send an atmospheric entry probe to Uranus. In 2015 NASA announced it had begun a feasibility study into the possibility of orbital missions to Uranus and Neptune, within a budget of $2 billion in 2015 dollars. According to NASA’s planetary science director Jim Green, who initiated the study, such missions would launch in the late 2020s at the earliest, and would be contingent upon their endorsement by the planetary science community, as well as NASA’s ability to provide nuclear power sources for the spacecraft. Conceptual designs for such a mission are currently being analyzed. MUSE, conceived in 2012 and