Pluto Probe Launches 312
Artem S. Tashkinov writes "The US space agency, Nasa, has successfully launched its New Horizons mission to Pluto. The $700m probe will gather information on Pluto and its moons before - it is hoped - pressing on to explore other objects in the outer Solar System. Pluto is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a spacecraft."
Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Re:Cool (Score:2)
"Attention, big mean hostile alien vessel hovering overhead in an obvious attack posture..."
The website that changed policy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The website that changed policy (Score:3, Insightful)
People coming together for a common good.
I'd love to see more of that.
Re:The website that changed policy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The website that changed policy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The website that changed policy (Score:2)
I'd love to see more of that."
Tune in the StarTrek theme. Tam ta daam, paa pa pa pa paaaa.
Re:A family walks into a talent agency. (Score:2)
It's just as not funny now as it was then.
Re:The website that changed policy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The website that changed policy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The website that changed policy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The website that changed policy (Score:3, Funny)
Photo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Photo (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Photo (Score:2)
Re:Photo (Score:2)
Re:That reminds me... (warning: a little offtopic) (Score:2)
Christ I'm old.
Re:That reminds me... (warning: a little offtopic) (Score:2)
Fastest too.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fastest too.. (Score:3, Funny)
Anyway, that's quite some speed it has. Major improvement. Now we just have to hope nothing goes wrong.
Re:Fastest too.. (Score:4, Informative)
Relativity ;) (Score:2, Insightful)
Anytime they say
"as twice as fast than spaceshuttle"
you mentioned
"10 times faster than a bullet"
From my point of view this "relativism" isn´t good, it teaches especially
non technical people or even kids, not to refer to the hard facts first,
and using a relation to make this fact or high speed seizable in the second,
it also misses out things to m
Re:Relativity ;) (Score:2, Interesting)
Would someone like to explain that one to me?
Re:Relativity ;) (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Relativity ;) (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Relativity ;) (Score:4, Interesting)
The speed of sound is a lot more important than just for the rate at which sound propagates. Transsonic speeds are extremely turbulent because you have some parts of the craft getting shocks and others not, leaving the flow very irregular (regionally and temporally). Subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic speeds require different profiles for optimal performance (for example, a plane-shaped subsonic craft has the least resistance if the fuselage continues on straight at the wings. A supersonic or hypersonic craft has the least resistance if the fuselage pinches inwards at the wings in order to keep a constant cross section). Shocks can cause regional stresses (tensile, thermal) on parts of the craft. Etc.
Re:Fastest too.. (Score:3, Funny)
Not necessarily. Superman is faster than a speeding bullet -- that doesn't mean he is NOT eleven times[1] faster than a speeding bullet.
Besides, how long did it take Him to fly around Earth a few times to reverse time by using his massive amount of drag to reverse the spin of Earth? I bet the same speed would get him past the moon in less than 9 hours. Then
Re:Fastest too.. (Score:2)
Re:Fastest too.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fastest too.. (Score:2)
Nah. Stopping would have been easy at any speed. (Score:4, Funny)
Yes!!! (Score:5, Informative)
For those not aware, had it been delayed past early Feb, the mission would have taken 4 years longer to reach Pluto, due to missing Jupiter for a gravitational 'slingshot' assist.
Roll on 2015. The best images we have of Pluto now are fuzzy Hubble pics, and I can't wait for this to change.
Re:Yes!!! (Score:2)
I would love for there to be awesome new info found on such a mission. Then we'd have reason to go out again, and again.
Anything, really, to spark some new desire for space exploration and development!
Orbit every planet. (Score:2)
Re:Orbit every planet. (Score:2)
oy, big problems here (Score:5, Informative)
If you wanted to go into orbit, you'd have two choices. The first, and most economical, is to launch the spacecraft on an elliptical trajectory [wikipedia.org] that just barely reaches out to Pluto. That gets the spacecraft there with the lowest possible speed relative to Pluto. You still have some braking to do, but it's the least possible. Problem is, the length of such a trajectory is about half the period of Pluto's orbit, i.e. 125 years. Ugh.
If you speed things up by taking a faster trajectory, then you end up with much more braking to do. Then the problem becomes: how do you lose all that speed? If the planet had an atmosphere, and you have good heat shielding, you can do a little aerobraking, which is what's done with Mars. But with an airless world you're stuck with bringing along enough fuel to do almost as much braking as you did accelerating from Earth orbit. So far, that has been very difficult without a very large spacecraft. One plausible hope for improvement is to bring along a real nuclear reactor [nasa.gov] (instead of just an RTG) which can provide lots of electric power, and then use a high-efficiency ion drive to slow yourself down.
Re:Slingshot (Score:4, Insightful)
Note that there is conservation of energy, of course; Jupiter also slows down in its orbit slightly in response to the energy it adds to the probe, but the amount is unmeasurable due to the mass ratio between Jupiter and the probe. The speedup is therefore considered "free."
Google [google.com] is your friend; see this page [ednet.ns.ca], this page [howstuffworks.com], this page [nasa.gov] for more information.
Regarding your second question, the probe doesn't slow down again, and does do a very fast flyby. However, we know so close to nothing about Pluto that we don't have to get very close to get new information--for example, the resolution of the New Horizons cameras will exceed that of the best Earth telescopes (including Hubble) for 150 days. (Of course, it will take 4-9 months, depending on which estimate you like, to transmit the data back to the earth at the probe's minimum data rate--which it likely will use at that distance--of 800 bits/s.)
Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologize (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:5, Insightful)
Lemmings.
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean it's not like anything NASA does ever goes wrong?
I expect that if it ever does happen you'll either be very quiet, or you'll find someone else to take a cheap shot at.
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:3, Informative)
Get over it.
They are very serious about minimizing the exposure, which is why the teams were deployed, but the actual danger is negligable.
No, I wouldn't "appologize". I have nothing to appologize for, and certainly
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:3, Interesting)
Since a space probe's plutonium slug would not actually bring harm in the event of a catastrophic failure, those of us who understand this would have nothing to apologize for even in the event of a catastrophic failure.
Summary: Stupid people should apologize for trying to influence policy according to their stupidity. Smart people should not apol
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, and the amount of plutonium is roughly a handful.
-h-
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:5, Informative)
Remember there have been accidents with them in the past.
During the three mission accidents that did occur, the RTGs performed as predicted. The Transit 5-BN-3 mission was aborted because of launch vehicle failure. The RTG burned up on reentry as designed with the plutonium dispersed in the upper atmosphere. The RTG design was changed shortly after that to accommodate intact reentry. The next accident was with the Nimbus-B-1 that was aborted shortly after launch by a range safety destruct. The RTG was recovered, with no release of plutonium, and the heat sources were reused in later missions
The failure of the Apollo 13 mission meant that the Lunar Module reentered the atmosphere carrying an RTG and burnt up over Fiji. The RTG itself survived reentry of the Earth's atmosphere intact, plunging into the Tonga trench in the Pacific Ocean. The US Department of Energy has conducted seawater tests and determined that the graphite casing, which was designed to withstand reentry, is stable and no release of plutonium will occur. Subsequent investigations have found no increase in the natural background radiation in the area.
In order to minimise the risk of the radioactive material being released, the fuel is stored in individual modular units with their own heat shielding. They are surrounded by a layer of iridium metal and encased in high-strength graphite blocks. These two materials are corrosion- and heat-resistant. Surrouding the graphic blocks is an aeroshell, designed to protect the entire assembly against the heat of reentering the earth's atmosphere. The plutonium fuel is also stored in a ceramic form that is heat-resistant, minimising the risk of vaporization and aerosolization. The ceramic is also highly insoluble.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTG [wikipedia.org]
http://www.ne.doe.gov/space/space-desc.html [doe.gov]
http://www.nuclearspace.com/facts_about_rtg.htm [nuclearspace.com]
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nav
Nice information about RTG powered lighthouses
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:2)
Do you demand that the operators of coal-fired power plants apologize to the residents of the Black Forest in Germany, the NE United States/SE Canada, etc. for all the damage to arboreal forests caused by acid rain?
Some accidents happen. If they had to abort that rocket, it would have been downrange from Cape Canaveral into the Atlantic Ocean. Sure, the COSMOS probe that crashed into Alberta in the 80's spewed some plutonium over some area of a range grazing area, but the world
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you demand that the operators of coal-fired power plants apologize to the residents of the Black Forest in Germany, the NE United States/SE Canada, etc. for all the damage to arboreal forests caused by acid rain?
Sure, why not? And include all those
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:2)
Mass of lost plutonium: 1 kg
Radius of Earth: 6,378,100 m
Volume of first 2m of atmosphere: 1,022,404,245,219,396 m^3
Mass of air: 1.3 Kg/m^3
Mass of first 2m of atmosphere: 1,329,125,518,785,216 Kg
So, if it was spread over the Earth as claimed, but assuming it all ended up very near to the surface, we're still talking about 1 part per qu
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:4, Interesting)
Of the fifty odd launches of reactors or RTG's - no fewer than nine have resulted in the radioactive material being returned to earth. This article [nuclearspace.com] lists eight failures, but misses a ninth [jamesoberg.com]. It's not a pretty record - and it's only by luck that major contamination has been avoided.
A lemming in this instance is someone who blindly repeats something without understanding it. Consider the carefully the walls of your house before casting stones.Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's stone cold truth. Any other brand of engineer that designed something that failed as much as 2% of the time would be considered an utter failure. Imagine that high a failure rate in a nuclear power plant, or a nuclear submarine, or a high performance jet aircraft (like Concorde or Blackbird). You say space is hard? Well, these things are too.
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet, no major ecological disaster has ensued. Perhaps the danger is overstated?
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:2)
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:2)
Ever notice how tough they build those RTG's? Among other things, it's because they know that histori
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:2)
I'd say that considering the difficulty of what's being attempted, a failure rate of one in fifty is still doing pretty well. Hell, even model rocketry buffs can sometimes have trouble having that much success. Putting a payload in space involves lots of energy being released very quickly using dangerous and often unstable substances using very complex machines, and there's an inherent danger in that
No apologies yet (Score:2)
As far as I can tell they ARE wrong. The RTGs are designed to withstand the destruction of the launch vehicle without dispersing the radioactive material. But I haven't seen the tests that prove th
Re:No apologies yet (Score:2)
They are designed to have a high chance of survival - but they are not impregnable.
Actually - I pretty much have. But then I've bothered to actually seek out and read the enviromental impact statements for the launch. I *support* nuclear power, but these lau
Re:Don't suppose the No Nukes freaks will apologiz (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yeah - sure (Score:2)
Re:Yeah - sure (Score:2)
Given that Iran is working on their own nuclear reactors, I'd say it's pretty likely. If their own technical inexperience doesn't get them, then some other nation's military bombing those reactors will have the same effect.
New data on Pioneer anomaly? (Score:5, Interesting)
[Drains glass, turns over on top of bar...]
One wonders if NH might contribute some data to finally solve the Pioneer anomaly [wikipedia.org].
Re:New data on Pioneer anomaly? (Score:2)
And IIrC, there is a dedicated gravity probe mission in the planning stages.
Re:New data on Pioneer anomaly? (Score:2)
Re:New data on Pioneer anomaly? (Score:2)
D'oh! For a second there, I thought you said "the Commander Data system." Pity. Ah, well...engage!
Kinda Slow (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, it is the fastest probe to escape from the earth, but why not strap on an extra stage and get that baby really cookin!
Re:Kinda Slow (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention this is a flyby mission, not an orbiting mission like Cassini or the MESSENGER mission. You do not want to zoom by and get less data.
These space probes are in for the long haul, not just a quicky.
Re:Kinda Slow (Score:2, Informative)
Shocked one time to find out that a new sattelite was going up with a years-old PPC processor running at something crazy like 333MHz, I asked him what all this was about.
Apparently, to get these chips made, they have to wait until Motorola releases a processor. Then they get a contract from the military. So they take the c
Re:Kinda Slow (Score:3, Informative)
Which sounds shocking - until you realize these birds are not running Quake or Halo. The OS they use demands much less system resources (and wouldn't be reconizable as an OS to most computers geeks to start with) and is much more t
Re:Kinda Slow (Score:3, Informative)
You're probably thinking of JPL's PKB Express, which was cancelled. New Horizons started cutting metal in earnest around 2003, which is when they had their CDR. Most of their flight avionics was completed in 2004, wich is also when most of their flight software saw it first release. Long lead time isn't the reason they didn't use an ion engine. The reason is that given the current state of ion engine technology, it would be a bad idea - especially when they had a mission design that closed with a relati
Re:Kinda Slow (Score:2)
Ok, maybe nobody else thinks MOO1 was the greatest 4X but I do.
Sorry, every time I read about ion drives I always
Re:Kinda Slow (Score:2)
Getting there faster, while trading most of your instruments for engines and fuel seems to have little point.
The 500 series Atlas V is about the biggest proven and commercially available launcher we have - and they
Re:Kinda Slow (Score:2)
You really need a power supply with a high power/mass ratio to power an ion drive. Outside the orbit of mars this means using a real nuclear reactor (not an RTG) which automatically gives you 1-2 tonnes of extra mass.
And if you are going to put a reactor on the spacecraft you might as well build a real nuclear rocket.
The
Most distant human object... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Most distant human object... (Score:2)
Thanks for doing that. I didn't have an envelope handy.
Leaving Solar System or not? (Score:2)
I've read that New Horizons will not escape the Sun's gravity and circle back to the inner Solar System in thousands of years. I thought Voyagers and the Pioneer probes were leaving the Sun system. If NH is faster, then shouldn't it also be leaving the Sun's pull?
Obligatory "Remember Firefly" post (Score:5, Funny)
Reavers!!!
10 years later... (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting metric/imperial conversion (Score:2)
Wonder why they changed it to per hour instead of per second. Must be a "2.5mph feels too slow" thing
Re:Interesting metric/imperial conversion (Score:2)
Wonder why they changed it to per hour instead of per second. Must be a "2.5mph feels too slow" thing
9000 mph = 25 mi/s.
What concerns me is how 4 km/s = 25 mi/s. Great to convert to metric now, but we might want to check our conversion factors.
Re:Interesting metric/imperial conversion (Score:2)
Euhm... what is a "mi" ?
Re:Interesting metric/imperial conversion (Score:2)
Re:Interesting metric/imperial conversion (Score:2)
my bet: (Score:2, Funny)
p.s. How long before we get to the Pegasus Galaxy? I need to ask Thor and the Ori about Intelligent Design. I'm pretty sure they were involved somehow
When this probe gets to Pluto... (Score:2)
BB frikkin' C! (Score:2)
Re:BB frikkin' C! (Score:3, Informative)
It's linked right off the home page of CNN [cnn.com] and it's headline news (with a big beautiful picture) on MSNBC's Science and Technology [msn.com] section. (As well as ABC's [go.com] and CBS's [cbsnews.com] news departments Science and Technology pages.) Its also the lead story on Google News's Sci/Tech [google.com] section.
As a matter of fact - this list [google.com] from Google news shows a pretty even balance between US and th
Interesting trivia (Score:2, Interesting)
I worked on launch, didn't know it going to Pluto (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This happened around 2 PM EST (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I LIKE the 9-hour window. That's exactly how long this thing has taken to pass the moon. That's really, really fast.
Re:This happened around 2 PM EST (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This happened around 2 PM EST (Score:5, Funny)
Whew. Talk about your eccentric orbits! Glad to have you back.
Re:Question for the white house (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Question for the white house (Score:5, Interesting)
So not only is everything proceeding as planned, but actual physical artifacts are being built at this very moment in direct support of the Mars program.
Some of us think this is very cool, really neat, etc.
Apparently, others prefer ignorance, if it makes it easier to make cheap political shots.
This is exciting science-type stuff! Give the political asshattery a rest, why don't you?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)