Starship Uranus

ScienceDaily, belatedly, offers up "Starship Could Cut The Travel Time To Uranus In Half". Andy Tomaswick, 18 October.

A mission for six and a half Earth years is more likely to retain mission planners' interest than would decades-long SLS nonsense sure to be cut out by some President Abernathy (or President Beale). Some plans do exist to VASIMR out to the two formerly-"ice" giants in less than 3.5 years but those were flybys. For best results we need to keep our cargo at the destination. That requires deceleration, for double the delta-V (which, remember, is an exponent for Tsiolkovsky in propellant).

If the probe stayed encapsulated in the Starship, the heat tiling could aerobrake in 34 Tauri's atmo. This means the mission could be refueled in Earth orbit - by another Starship, perhaps. Then the first 'Ship just blows all the fuel speeding up to meet the Eighth Heaven, where to intercept its Seventh Planet.

This is a chemical mission. Not considered are Princeton's Direct-Fusion Drive or any NERVA. But Starship could be refitted for such engine too, I believe.