Just to check: If were to happen in say 2060, how does this market resolve?

@Nat 2065 and 2075 would resolve to YES

It's a hard mission. I think the future will have a lot more mass available to plan it with, but it will still be hard.

There's no economic benefit, it would just be for science points. Not a lot gets done just for science, and science missions are usually prioritized by reward/difficulty. It'll be a long time until this goal makes it to the front of that line.

I'm an optimist about having a lot more space activity throughout this century, but even that much isn't certain.

@DanHomerick but you must be aware of how many science missions NASA has launched since 1957

@JoshuaWilkes sorry, this comment sounds a bit short, but we (humans) have launched literally hundreds of science missions with no economic benefit. Not just space probes, but astronomical telescopes of all colours

@JoshuaWilkes that's true! I really didn't mean to sound cynical about us (humankind) doing science.

But compared to how much is done (and how quickly) for other motivations, I do think it's fair to say that pure science moves slowly.

And there are a lot of other "interesting" things to explore in the solar system. With a couple of major missions happening a decade, there only has to be a dozen "better" missions (in terms of benefit/cost) for Venus surface sample to get bumped to the 2075+ category.

If it was as easy as tagging an asteroid, I'd bet on a lot earlier timetable.