We come in peace
By now, you've probably heard the sad news in science: The Genesis probe crashed yesterday. The probe contains samples from solar winds, and the capsule was supposed to have popped out a parachute to slow it down enough that a couple of helicopters could catch it. Instead, it hit the earth at 311 km an hour and buried itself halfway into the ground. Obviously, losing so much good data sucks for scientists, and I'm depressed myself.
Yet as I looked at the pictures of the fallen capsule, I couldn't help but notice: Don't they look, rather hilariously, like secret snapshots of a crashed UFO? All those puny humans, huddled uncertainly around the wreckage of superior extraterrestrial technology! It reminds me of what it'd be like if one of our probes ever landed on a planet with sentient life. What in hell would they think of the metal gizmo we'd plunked down on their back yards? Of course, crashes like this also serve to highlight the Andromeda Strain-class importance of our planetary protection protocols, an issue I wrote about several months ago.
NASA has posted a mesmerizing video of the falling capsule online. It looks even more like some crazy samizdat VHS tape of a plummeting alien mission gone terribly awry.
Still, I gotta hand it to NASA: They're scientists, so when something goes wrong, they don't try to cover it up. They show you the pictures, they write the press releases glumly concluding that everything went all to hell. It's another reason I so prefer the culture of science to that of our sneeringly mendacious government administration. If anything goes wrong with the nation, you can count on Bush's minions to try and hide it. But when something goes wrong in science, researchers immediately trot out the painful evidence. "Sure. Check it out. Here's a video of our $260-million probe slamming into the earth like a bag of anvils tossed out of heaven."
Posted by Clive Thompson at September 09, 2004 01:26 PM
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Can you actually believe they planned to risk over 200 million dollars, all on the final decent in which you have to use a helichopper to catch a falling capsule, which has never been done before?
They risked, it now they lost. dumb asses.
Posted by: Joe2 at September 10, 2004 11:27 AM
I admit the idea sounded pretty wild to me at first, but it sounds like the pilots were trained pretty well; had the parachute opened, it seems like they would probably have caught it.
Posted by: Clive at September 10, 2004 12:00 PM
Actually as one of the scientist stated in an early interview the whole thing relied upon a series of risky manuevers through out the entire mission.
but that is science by definition, and why dumbasses like joe2 can make sweeping statements about things they know nothing about
Posted by: jim at September 10, 2004 5:40 PM
The helicopter was risk-reduction on landing damage. The failure, after all, seems to have been in the batteries for triggering the chute charge - something to do with cold-soaking in space for 3 years, something not previously done (deepspace probes use RTGs, not batteries, and people get twitchy about you dropping RTGs back on earth - even though the 1970's designs could handle the impact shown in the video :-)
That said, having the probe rendezvous with some orbital infrastructure would have been a lot less risky - too bad we don't really have any...
[ps. what's up with the Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: . t h o k . o r g / ?]
Posted by: Mark Eichin at September 12, 2004 6:43 AM
Hey Mark -- good point about the engineering issues, and about there not being a suitable orbital platform.
As to why you were banned ... it appears that I've been comment-spammed in the past by 'bots that listed junk sites subdomained at thok.org, so I'd blacklisted that domain. I'll un-blacklist it now, because, having looked at it, yes, I can't figure out how it got on the blacklist!
Posted by: Clive at September 12, 2004 10:34 PM
I'd suspected something like that. Thanks for fixing it.
Posted by: Mark Eichin at September 13, 2004 2:21 AM
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Posted by: Health Insurance Plans, Providers and Policies at December 20, 2004 10:20 PM
Posted by: Distance Education and Online Learning at December 21, 2004 9:41 AM
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Can you actually believe they planned to risk over 200 million dollars, all on the final decent in which you have to use a helichopper to catch a falling capsule, which has never been done before?
They risked, it now they lost. dumb asses.
Posted by: Joe2 at September 10, 2004 11:27 AM
I admit the idea sounded pretty wild to me at first, but it sounds like the pilots were trained pretty well; had the parachute opened, it seems like they would probably have caught it.
Posted by: Clive at September 10, 2004 12:00 PM
Actually as one of the scientist stated in an early interview the whole thing relied upon a series of risky manuevers through out the entire mission.
but that is science by definition, and why dumbasses like joe2 can make sweeping statements about things they know nothing about
Posted by: jim at September 10, 2004 5:40 PM
The helicopter was risk-reduction on landing damage. The failure, after all, seems to have been in the batteries for triggering the chute charge - something to do with cold-soaking in space for 3 years, something not previously done (deepspace probes use RTGs, not batteries, and people get twitchy about you dropping RTGs back on earth - even though the 1970's designs could handle the impact shown in the video :-)
That said, having the probe rendezvous with some orbital infrastructure would have been a lot less risky - too bad we don't really have any...
[ps. what's up with the Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: . t h o k . o r g / ?]
Posted by: Mark Eichin at September 12, 2004 6:43 AM
Hey Mark -- good point about the engineering issues, and about there not being a suitable orbital platform.
As to why you were banned ... it appears that I've been comment-spammed in the past by 'bots that listed junk sites subdomained at thok.org, so I'd blacklisted that domain. I'll un-blacklist it now, because, having looked at it, yes, I can't figure out how it got on the blacklist!
Posted by: Clive at September 12, 2004 10:34 PM
I'd suspected something like that. Thanks for fixing it.
Posted by: Mark Eichin at September 13, 2004 2:21 AM
Las Vegas Real Estate
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Posted by: Las Vegas Real Estate at November 5, 2004 5:54 PM
Health
Insurance Plans, Providers and Policies
http://www.aclsguidelines.com
Posted by: Health Insurance Plans, Providers and Policies at December 20, 2004 10:20 PM
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http://www.sagemontvirtual.com
Posted by: Distance Education and Online Learning at December 21, 2004 9:41 AM