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NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

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Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#311

Post by paulddraper »

xnorswap wrote: post #140
huytersd wrote: post #5

I don’t understand why we are not sending these off in every direction constantly. The price can’t possibly be that prohibitive considering what we can accomplish with 40 year old technology.

"Every direction" isn't what you think it is. Even if we had a voyager travelling the "opposite" direction, once outside the solar system they'd appear to be travelling at almost the same speed with respect to the orbit of the solar system around the milky way. The solar system is estimated to orbit ~200km/sec around the centre of the milky way. Even with a perfect ejection, at the estimated speed of Voyager you'd en…

Doing a % comparison makes little sense. Everything in this arm of the Milky Way is moving along with us.

The key metric is that their locations would spread by ~40km/sec. Whether that is an interesting amount of distance in an interesting amount of time is debatable, but that's the number.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#312

Post by paulddraper »

otteromkram wrote: post #154
xbmcuser wrote: post #51

It takes around 22+ hours for 1 way communication to Voyager if I recall correctly. It takes 8 min for light to reach earth from the Sun. The closest star is 4.24 light years away. These kinds of distances are hard wrap your mind around.

Not distance related, but here's another terrifyingly fun fact: The sun accounts for ~99.9% of total mass of the solar system.

* 99.8%

Don't underestimate yourself!

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#313

Post by paulddraper »

ravenstine wrote: post #145
swexbe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russians, or the Chinese.

Maybe, but what would they gain by this exactly? Aha! Now you'll have to wait another 40 years to collect information from deep space! Take THAT, Americans!

> Maybe, but what would they gain by this exactly?

It's called the Space Race for a reason.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#314

Post by tesseract2 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #198
qrybam wrote: post #31

This is incredible. Not just because of the engineering that went into such a long lived machine, but also because of the ingenuity of the teams that have looked after this mission and those currently working on it. Half a century of operation. Bits of data, like gold dust, peppering our radio telescopes with telemetry from the edges of our protective solar shell, and beyond. Not only is the technical achievement som…

>Half a century of operation. The stability of society (specifically American, specifically California/Caltech/JPL/Pasadena) must also be marveled at. That's 2 or 3 generations of engineers and scientists that were trained well enough to actually get things done. This is a marvel of teaching, technical communication, and societal infrastructure. Notably, NASA/JPL has maintained its prestige and funding for that entir…

Yes, indeed, when so many projects get started and stopped, this continuity is notable, and we need more of this.

And then, this puts me in absolute awe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda_mahavihara

A residential university that ran for ~750 years. What a marvelous achievement of human culture and spirit!

It survived multiple royal dynasties.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#315

Post by dredmorbius »

giovannibonetti wrote: post #304
dredmorbius wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thought occurred to me some years ago that a key aspect of governmental institutions is their durability , particularly in the face of adversarial politics. Though the inefficiency of government services is quite often grossly exaggerated, there's much consideration which has to be made of the trade-offs between efficiency and durability. This should be front-of-mind whenever someone proposes a start-up to addres…

> The thought occurred to me some years ago that a key aspect of governmental institutions is their durability, particularly in the face of adversarial politics. Though the inefficiency of government services is quite often grossly exaggerated, there's much consideration which has to be made of the trade-offs between efficiency and durability. Governmental institutions are durable even when they are detrimental to so…

Durability, as with virtually any other characteristic or technique, has two edges. However where it is useful to have, it is indeed useful to have.

As to the other substance of your comment, I suspect you would benefit from reading this and its references: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37366751>

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#317

Post by HappyDaoDude »

jzwinck wrote: post #288
HappyDaoDude wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true now, but maybe once the probes go completely dead with no chance of revival and there is no risk of tampering?

NASA have a history of reusing bits and pieces when they develop new vehicles and systems. If someone learns how to control Voyager there may not be much left to figure out if they want to control New Horizons etc.

That is a fair call. If that is the case, robably best to just leave it.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#318

Post by saberdancer »

randomdata wrote: post #132
saberdancer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's better to say - if your phone was 12 billion miles from Earth and used to send sensitive scientific data - it would get updates as well.

Not when you only paid on the order of $1,000 for it. For so little, nobody is going to bother to support your device for decades, no matter how near or far away it is from you or what you happen to be doing with it. The original Voyager budget was $865 million (~$5 billion today), and has paid out even more for maintenance and operation since. Spend that much money on an iPhone and not only will updates be available…

The point is that they are getting updates, not because NASA paid 865 million in 1970s but because it is doing scientific work that no other spacecraft is able to do currently. If Voyager was orbiting around Earth it would get no updates at all, no matter how much NASA paid to get it into orbit.

So my point stands - if Voyager ran on an iPhone it would get those updates.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#319

Post by [deleted] »

sheepscreek wrote: post #310
troyvit wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point, especially for a country that is so young and that has grown so fast. Maybe the instability resulting from that growth is yet to come but it doesn't detract from what NASA and JPL have accomplished so far.

> especially for a country that is so young and that has grown so fast USA gained independence 247 years ago. That puts it in a minority of countries that have been sovereign as long or longer.

[deleted]
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