Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Where are the Voyagers?

voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 70 posts

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#31

Post by Sanddancer »

josho wrote: post #2

As amazing as space technologies are, we are in the stone ages when it comes to spaceflight: > Earth moves around the sun faster than Voyager 2 is traveling from Earth, the distance between Earth and the spacecraft actually decreases at certain times of the year. We don't even have the technology to escape the sun's gravity without needing a gravitational slingshot from other planets, and that still leaves us with a…

Keep in mind that the Voyager probes weren't designed to go as fast as possible, they were designed to do planetary surveying while taking advantage of a rather favorable set of planetary alignments [1]. They could have been set on a much faster course if we were just concerned about getting them as far out into space as fast as possible. Voyager 1, for example, had its path altered away from Pluto to do a more in-depth survey of Titan.

Regardless, using planets to help speed things is just good sense. Think of going on a long trip in a car. You don't hook a trailer full of all the fuel you'll need to get to your destination, you stop at gas stations along the way. Using planets is a lot like that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour_program

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#32

Post by Retra »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #26
Diederich wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we are in the stone ages when it comes to spaceflight Indeed, only 59 years since we first put something into earth orbit. We're just getting warmed up!

But that was only 54 years after figuring out powered flight.

It turns out that "getting off the ground" is also the hard part when it comes to space exploration.

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#33

Post by mjevans »

sandworm101 wrote: post #25
sien wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could build something nuclear powered that would be able to do it. Project Orion or Project Daedelus would be able to escape the sun's gravity without needing a gravitational slingshot. But we have decided for now not to build something like that. Maybe in the next century at some point a nuclear powered spacecraft could be built in space that could start exploring other star systems.

>> nuclear powered spacecraft. The voyagers are nuclear powered. They have RTGs powering their electronics and heat from those devices has changed their trajectories. The concept of a nuclear reactor powering an electric thruster isn't very far fetched. If we were going to go anywhere outside the solar system, that is the sort of nuclear power we would use.

Sein is probably referring to something running quite a bit hotter and likely exciting hydrogen atoms or other expendable fuel sources. I think these might have been looked at for purely interplanetary/solar travel in the past, but written off for the dangers of lifting cargo to orbit (think about the failure cases!) and also the general cost compared to alternatives.

If we had mining in lower gravity well areas (such as the asteroid belt) yielding that kind of fuel it might make a lot more sense.

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#35

Post by peterwoo »

josho wrote: post #2

As amazing as space technologies are, we are in the stone ages when it comes to spaceflight: > Earth moves around the sun faster than Voyager 2 is traveling from Earth, the distance between Earth and the spacecraft actually decreases at certain times of the year. We don't even have the technology to escape the sun's gravity without needing a gravitational slingshot from other planets, and that still leaves us with a…

New Horizons was launched directly into a solar escape trajectory.

It's going slower than Earth but that is no indication of how advanced the technology is. The whole goal was to get a close encounter with Pluto-Charon. What's the point in flying off into nothingness any faster after that?

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#36

Post by sidcool »

> Because Earth moves around the sun faster than Voyager 1 is traveling from Earth, the distance between Earth and the spacecraft actually decreases at certain times of the year.

So obvious yet so mind blowing.

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#37

Post by peterwoo »

pkituu wrote: post #11

You can ride along with Voyager in "Eyes on the Solar System" ( https://eyes.nasa.gov ) It's an open world Solar system with NASA missions and imagery.

I wrote a much less complete/polished program like this using WebGL this year:

https://wioux.github.io/tracking-station/

I was playing a lot of Kerbal Space Program and wanted to use those UI concepts to explore real missions and orbital maneuvers. I was particularly interested in the Cassini trajectory. But I started the project before discovering Eyes on the Solar System, which is awesome and now I find I'm kind of robbed of my motivation.

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#38

Post by supergarfield »

mjevans wrote: post #33
sandworm101 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> nuclear powered spacecraft. The voyagers are nuclear powered. They have RTGs powering their electronics and heat from those devices has changed their trajectories. The concept of a nuclear reactor powering an electric thruster isn't very far fetched. If we were going to go anywhere outside the solar system, that is the sort of nuclear power we would use.

Sein is probably referring to something running quite a bit hotter and likely exciting hydrogen atoms or other expendable fuel sources. I think these might have been looked at for purely interplanetary/solar travel in the past, but written off for the dangers of lifting cargo to orbit (think about the failure cases!) and also the general cost compared to alternatives. If we had mining in lower gravity well areas (suc…

Specifically, projects Orion and Daedalus are based on nuclear pulse propulsion[0], which is essentially detonating thermodynamic bombs behind the spacecraft. It's one of the only realistic options we currently have to do interstellar exploration. There was a discussion on HN not too long ago[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12705705

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#40

Post by rootbear »

secfirstmd wrote: post #15
pkituu wrote: post #11

You can ride along with Voyager in "Eyes on the Solar System" ( https://eyes.nasa.gov ) It's an open world Solar system with NASA missions and imagery.

I love NASA's work but I find it's websites are very messy and without a decent standard framework or layout. I really wish someone go to a GOV.UK job on them and get some decent standardisation going with them.

There are some standards for NASA websites, but I think they have more to do with responsibility for content and other bureaucratic matters than design concerns. The group I used to be with, the Scientific Visualization Studio, at svs.gsfc.nasa.gov has a pretty decent website, in my biased opinion.
Post reply on HN