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New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

bbc.co.uk

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Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#131

Post by japhyr »

kartikkumar wrote: post #89

Quote from a friend of mine on the team: "After 9.5 years and 6 billion km, we made it to Pluto 72 seconds ahead of schedule." Amazing! The views of Pluto and Charon already reveal how incredibly fascinating this system is. The dichotomy of their surface colours will most definitely lead to further insight into formation processes in the Kuiper Belt. Just such a shame that we can't land this time around. With the vol…

I love HN for things like this - personal accounts of people associated with groundbreaking projects. Thanks for sharing.

Most of your post is about visiting planets and exploring the solar system, but you close witha comment about disrupting science communication. What aspects of science communication are you referring to?

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#132

Post by pluma »

pavlov wrote: post #96
oh_sigh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rosetta/Philae was all over the news a few months ago. Not sure what news sources you read but I saw it everywhere, including cool animations about their lander

Sure. But did you think of it as a European achievement? That's what I was getting at. When news media talks about European integration, it's always with the "Greeks are lazy, Germans are stuck up" style angle that tries to play up national stereotypes. Rarely do we get to read about Europe as a group of people that get together to put spacecraft on comets, and the EU as a project that has brought 70 years of peace t…

To be frank, across the whole lot of NASA, ESA and even the Indian, Chinese and Soviet space programmes, I had never once seen any achievement as an achievement for anyone other than all of mankind. More than forty thousand years of human civilisation have lead us to where we are -- even if it's a team effort by people alive today, they're standing on the shoulders of millions of giants and they're achieving this for all of us, living or dead as well as all future generations to come.

This is actually why I never warmed up to Star Trek "Enterprise" (Captain Archer and friends) -- it basically presented itself as "Americans in Space", starting with the intro's repeatedly showing (exclusively) American flags. All the other shows didn't waste much time on modern nations because those were something mankind had outgrown: it wasn't even "us humans" anymore, the Federation spanned different species just like the UN today spans different nations.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#133

Post by grkvlt »

pavlov wrote: post #19
whatshisface wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that all of humanity will benefit, but it's also true that a very specific subset of humanity payed for it. Look at it from a purely practical perspective - it is absolutely unnecessary for anyone outside of America to like this program! The American voting public took on all of the downsides of this program (the expense, mainly). They hold complete control over its existence, and the existence of many miss…

Rosetta/Philae was a European achievement paid by the EU public, yet that barely gets mentioned. It's really a shame that the endless churn of downbeat economic news has overshadowed everything good that European countries are able to do together... Maybe Europe would benefit from having a bit more American-style "rah-rah" patriotism around the good old "12 stars on deep blue" EU flag. Nowadays it seems that we Europ…

> Rosetta/Philae [...] barely gets mentioned

There was huge news coverage of the initial landing, and the amazing images. Then, when contact was re-established, there was another burst of coverage - so much, in fact, that many friends who ordinarily have no interest in space or science would mention it to me as a 'pub conversation' bit of trivia. I was actually very pleased with the coverage of the Rosetta/Philae mission, modulo the shirt issues, and I hope more space science gets that kind of exposure.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#134

Post by smackfu »

rootbear wrote: post #116
blakecaldwell wrote: post #83

It kills me we're not gonna orbit Pluto.

In the press conference, the PI was asked about a future mission. He said that he has thought about orbiters and landers and considers the Pluto system to be a valuable science target. But he said that we need to study the New Horizons data for some years, to better design the next mission. At this time, they wouldn't know what the best instruments to send would be. Also, it is far from clear how to send a mission to…

> At this time, they wouldn't know what the best instruments to send would be.

There's an interesting BBC documentary series on the planets, called The Planets, that has an episode covering the Voyager probes. They had to do some quick redesigns on them after Pioneer 10 and 11 visited the outer planets and found fun stuff like radiation and unexpected rings. They said that if they hadn't had the earlier probes, Voyager would have been fried when it got to the system.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#135

Post by japhyr »

The images we've been seeing the last few weeks, which grew by a few pixels every day or so, were exciting. I read about how much higher resolution the images would be as the probe reached its closest point in the flyby. But I had no idea how striking the best images would be.

When I opened this article, my jaw dropped. I never in my life expected to see Pluto in this level of detail. I always imagined it would be just a cold ball of rock. This is absolutely amazing.

And there's this still: Images set to be released on Wednesday will be more than 10 times the resolution of those already published.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#136

Post by pluma »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #88
thatsone wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading that this spacecraft would not have been launched without a Russian rocket engine, and that the plutonium fuel also came from that country.

Well, to be honest, if we were to treat vendors as contributors to projects, the entire world would owe almost everything to China.

... which we do. Your point being?

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#137

Post by Retric »

scrollaway wrote: post #105
snowwrestler wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People chanting "USA" are literally not saying "in your face, my country is better that yours." I think if that's what you're hearing, you're bringing some personal interpretation to your hearing.

It's not what I'm hearing, and you probably missed my point. It's alienating and very shallow. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with being proud of one's country's, or a country's achievements. There's nothing wrong with being proud of your government, of your people, of your land. But turn that into mindless yelling and that's just a pissing contest. It's ignorant of what other countries have to bring. To give you…

If you have ever been to a high school pep rally; most people don’t actually care about the school. But, it’s fun to stand up and yell really loudly.

Nationalism is IMO deeper than that. To use a EU example, many people in Greece complain about countries that are giving them money. “How dare they attach strings when handing us money!!!” That’s nationalist in ways I have trouble understanding.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#138

Post by Trombone12 »

fit2rule wrote: post #46
whatshisface wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that all of humanity will benefit, but it's also true that a very specific subset of humanity payed for it. Look at it from a purely practical perspective - it is absolutely unnecessary for anyone outside of America to like this program! The American voting public took on all of the downsides of this program (the expense, mainly). They hold complete control over its existence, and the existence of many miss…

>The American voting public took on all of the downsides of this program. True. But the rest of the world bears the brunt of American liabilities.

You might remember the government shut down of 2013 and its relation to the debt of the USA?

Although according to wikipedia the rest of the world owns about half of the american liabilities.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#139

Post by pluma »

lukeschlather wrote: post #78
dombili wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't go so far as saying it was appalling, but it was in bad taste. No one doubts Americans are ahead of everyone else in terms of science and exploration, so they certainly deserve to celebrate however they want, but science and exploration are beautiful and inspirational because they're borderless and bring humanity closer, even if it's for a short moment. I'd have preferred them not to chant U-S-A and wave f…

I think everyone talking about this as in bad taste isn't looking at the big picture. What if we could take all the energy people direct at the World Cup and redirect it towards space exploration? I mean seriously, the World Cup's budget this year is roughly 15 billion, NASA's budget is 18 billion. I think part of me would prefer a calmer, more civilized approach to space exploration, but on the balance I'll take twi…

If populism is the focus, why not just do what the US always does and declare War on Space so you can send troops to look for space terrorists?

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#140

Post by pluma »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #60
dingaling wrote: post #4

That flag-waving and chanting of U-S-A U-S-A at the point of closest approach was one of the most appalling, jingoistic, alienating spectacles I've ever seen. You'd think they had just planted the flag in the soil ( ice? ) and claimed Pluto for God and America. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Space Race is over. Grow up. You're doing this for all humanity.

Jingoistic? Do you know how to use that word? Quit the hyperbole.

Jingoistic, Adj. See everything the USA does.
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