Galileo took 6 years and 2 moths from launch to orbital insertion at Jupiter. FH should be able to shorten that a bit. If only a Venus flyby, and no Earth flybys, is needed, two orbits around the Sun would be skipped and it should take more like 4½ years. Isn’t it likely that SLS will be delayed by at least an extra 1½ years? Flyby probes have reached Jupiter within 18 months.

@Tom Billings, Thanks for the logic behind it.

“The Administration proposes to launch the Clipper on a commercial launch vehicle, which would be several hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper than an SLS flight and would not impact the availability of SLS rockets to support human exploration. The Administration recognizes the benefits of using an SLS vehicle, including a shorter cruise to Europa and a more direct trajectory (enabling a simpler thermal design and earlier science return to inform future outer planet missions), but makes this proposal primarily due to budget considerations.”

See page PS-77 in https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2019_presidents_budget_nasa.pdf

Also on page PS-83: “If the Congress were to support the Administration’s position, NASA could move forward this year with securing a commercial launch vehicle.”

“I wonder how Bezos running the NYT affects the prospects of Blue origin.”

Jeff Bezos bought the *Washington*Post* in 2011, not the NYT. He did so because it was recognizable as one of the flagship progressive papers, like the NYT, mixed with one other reason. In 2011, the Obama Administration had made it clear they intended to Chicago-ize US politics, and US political relations with business. The rules in Chicago and its surrounding Cook County Democratic Party were pretty simple:

1.) Donate to the Party regularly

2.) Never criticize the Party openly

3.) Place in your window a sign stating your support for the Cook County Democratic Party

Following these rules kept the City and County governments from sending their license and permit inspectors through too often. Refuse to follow them, and you would be inspected for permits you didn’t even know you had, and
shut down again and again till you “corrected the problem”, …again and again, essentially shutting down your store by eventual refusal of your business license. In 2010 the Obama Administration made clear they would do the same to anyone in the US, by doing it to a nationally known builder of musical instruments, Gibson Guitar. Their factory had its materials assets confiscated and shut down for 5 years.

Jeff Bezos, not wanting his largest retail store in the world shut down, and already donating “properly”, bought his “sign in the window”, by purchasing the Washington Post, the only big newspaper to rival the NYT in the egregiousness of its progressive slant. He keeps his hands off its progressive staffing and coverage, so that if Trump is booted out in 2020, he can claim he was a “loyal supporter through those 4 horrid years”, … of exactly the progressive thought replacing Trump. If Trump stays in office, Bezos can kick the money-losing bird-cage-liner to the side, and get on with making money and building spaceships.

Under cover of this ridiculous collusion-memo-Russians-whatever nonsense, individual senators have made themselves indispensable to the administration and uses it to favor their own cash cow spending. Trump won’t sacrifice anything to try to fight that, he will win win win as in at least looking like a winner.

Btw, businessmen hate taxes, but they love credits, especially in the real estate industry. So there won’t be any solution to the debt crisis under Trump, I bet. Higher growth will be matched by even bigger public spending (hopefully space somehow gets its share of that, I hope it becomes part of the infrastructure bill). It might very well be that Trump’s view of NASA is shaped by the space race days. But he certainly is very aware of the success of private space too, simply because he reads the business press. His fellow billionaires who invest in space aren’t very shy. I wonder how Bezos running the NYT affects the prospects of Blue origin. Trump said in his campaign that he thinks that Amazon’s “monopoly” should be regulated. I guess that’s something he could find common ground with the democrats on. And that’s not about ideology, that’s personal. He would win against his enemey Bezos, win by uniting the congress and is only waiting for the phases of the Moon to somehow lock in a third win before he acts on it, according to his win win win way of doing things.