Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space • Hacker News Board

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#21

Post by brudgers » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 4:06 AM UTC

calebmpeterson wrote: post #3

Every time I read about either Voyager I/II or Pioneer 10/11 I am amazed at just how vast space is. Nothing like spending the better part of 50 years to go an incredible distance - a distance, which is so small in the grand scheme of things... At the same time I'm delighted to be alive during a part of history in which humanity accomplished such a pitifully tiny and yet monumental feat.

>"Nothing like spending the better part of 50 years to go an incredible distance - a distance, which is so small in the grand scheme of things"

50 years is very short on a galactic scale as well.

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#22

Post by alienfluid » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 4:09 AM UTC

icehawk wrote: post #4

Voyager is a beautiful example of reliable code and engineering. 30 years and 10 billion miles out, and still functioning.

Exactly what I thought. This is what real engineering looks like.

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#23

Post by brudgers » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 4:21 AM UTC

jberryman wrote: post #9

veb wrote: post #6

Fantastic read! Fantastic technology! This stuff is old, but it still works extraordinarily well. They sure knew how to engineer stuff then. They say that they might keep going until 2020 -- I bet those bad boys will surprise us and keep on kicking for much longer!

From memory, the probes will shut down their functioning gradually as they run out of power. Also if they stop receiving messages from earth they will keep doing science according to some preprogrammed procedure and beam the results back. Go humans!

Plutonium 238 which powers the thermopiles has a half-life of about 87 years and many of their instruments are no longer in operation, so the remaining mission scope is an issue of power management.

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#24

Post by brudgers » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 4:23 AM UTC

icehawk wrote: post #4

Voyager is a beautiful example of reliable code and engineering. 30 years and 10 billion miles out, and still functioning.

As an engineering approach to generating power, thermopiles are considered differently today than in the 1970's due to environmental and health risks associated with plutonium and the probability of a launch failure.

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#25

Post by haberman » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 4:24 AM UTC

The article reminded me of this classic story of geek-love between Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan as they were creating the "gold record" that is traveling on both Voyagers.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1235348...

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#26

Post by kinkora » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 4:55 AM UTC

jaysonelliot wrote: post #10

It just so happens I was listening to some beautiful 1970s space music when I read this (Tangerine Dream, if you're interested). The dreams of exploration we had from the time of the first man in space through the 1980s were so wonderful and optimistic. I grew up reading OMNI and Discover, watching Carl Sagan on television and playing with toy Space Shuttles. When the Voyager left earth, we believed that man would wa…

nothing to replace it? See SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#27

Post by jeza » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 5:01 AM UTC

icehawk wrote: post #4

Voyager is a beautiful example of reliable code and engineering. 30 years and 10 billion miles out, and still functioning.

This was back in a time when one guy could be familiar with every single line of code running on a computer, from user space programs right down to the kernel. This level of simplicity surely did wonders for reliability. Not to say you couldn't achieve good results with a more complex modern system, though to spend a lot more time making things failsafe.

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#28

Post by blhack » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 5:15 AM UTC

reallyacow wrote: post #17

prawn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone who didn't get the 'joke' (like me) and who knows nothing about Star Trek (also me), turns out that "V'Ger" is a Star Trek character. From Wikipedia: "A sentient being that evolved from Voyager 6, a fictitious space probe from the 20th Century that vanished into a black hole and was given life by a race of living machines. The story of V'ger and its return to Earth to seek "the creator" forms the plot for…

I'm personally waiting for V-GINY.

(For anybody curious, this is a reference to an episode of Futurama, which was an homage to the Star Trek episode. In Futurama "V-GINY" is the result of an FCC "v-chip" which was mounted on a space probe coming back to earth to cleanse earth or "inappropriate content". You can read about this, here: http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/V-GINY)

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#29

Post by r00fus » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 5:15 AM UTC

cal5k wrote: post #7

It's almost as if the universe was created to mock us. So much space to explore, but physical law makes it impossible to explore more than the smallest, most insignificant fraction.

The concept of the light-cone[1] really frustrated my younger self (raised on heady expectations, warp drives and transporters). There might be a sentient race very close to us in time-space that we will never know because the light-cones will never meet.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone

Re: Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

#30

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 5:16 AM UTC

rorrr wrote: post #11

cal5k wrote: post #7

It's almost as if the universe was created to mock us. So much space to explore, but physical law makes it impossible to explore more than the smallest, most insignificant fraction.

Which is why we need to work on the aging problem. Once that is solved, we can explore all we want.

[deleted]