Slashdot Mirror

Robbie Woodbridge is SO 1337!

That it is going to take us 50,000 years to send a probe to pluto and back?

If you read the timeline, it'll only take about 10 years for the probe to get there. I know you said "there and back", but your comment is still a little misleading.

The Deep Space 1 probe did a fine job of landing on a small asteroid. It used an ion thruster and carried almost no fuel compared to most spacecraft.

I think you mean the NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) probe that "landed" on Eros on Valentine's Day in 2001.

And what is it, exactly, that New Horizons will find when it reaches Pluto? As even the most immature encrustling knows, there must always be one Spathi who picks the short Ta Puun stick. :)

Yes, but tell me, when is the next time we'll have a probe that far out in say, oh, the next 20-30 years??

A lot sooner than you think. The Pluto probe will be launched by a souped up Atlas V (Model 551). That with a Jupiter flyby will have the probe screaming into the outer Solar system in a few years. It will be wandering the Kuiper belt like the Voyagers in 2020.

AIN'T IT ALSO FUNNY when a person like you is so ignorant as to not realize that NASA has a better mission planned http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

You know whats even more funny, when a bunch of slashdot nerds try to throw in their own political agenda into what they say while trying to sound completely impartial. Your a bunch of idiots, a new and better probe is coming, Voyager isn't needed anymore.

"Nooooooo your going to kill pathfinder! but its done so much science!! bush adminstration = bad!!(hint 2 new landers called spirit and opportunity coming!)" --- Is what slashdot would be saying if bush was president 7 years ago(or however long ago pathfinder was)

AIN'T IT ALSO FUNNY when a person like you is so ignorant as to not realize that NASA has a better mission planned http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

You know whats even more funny, when a bunch of slashdot nerds try to throw in their own political agenda into what they say while trying to sound completely impartial. Your a bunch of idiots, a new and better probe is coming, Voyager isn't needed anymore.

"Nooooooo your going to kill pathfinder! but its done so much science!! bush adminstration = bad!!(hint 2 new landers called spirit and opportunity coming!)" --- Is what slashdot would be saying if bush was president 7 years ago(or however long ago pathfinder was)

AIN'T IT ALSO FUNNY when a person like you is so ignorant as to not realize that NASA has a better mission planned http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

You know whats even more funny, when a bunch of slashdot nerds try to throw in their own political agenda into what they say while trying to sound completely impartial. Your a bunch of idiots, a new and better probe is coming, Voyager isn't needed anymore.

"Nooooooo your going to kill pathfinder! but its done so much science!! bush adminstration = bad!!(hint 2 new landers called spirit and opportunity coming!)" --- Is what slashdot would be saying if bush was president 7 years ago(or however long ago pathfinder was)

Hm... I went through three rounds of rejected submission attempts earlier trying to submit this story, several hours before this version was posted. In any case, here's my version of the submission, which has many more links:

NASA Watch, New Scientist, and Space Ref report that Dr. Michael D. Griffin has been nominated as the next administrator of NASA, to replace Sean O'Keefe. As NASA head, Griffin will be tasked with implementing the Vision for Space Exploration. Griffin is currently head of the Space Department at the Applied Physics Laboratory at JHU, is president-elect of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and has a doctorate in aerospace engineering. He's noted for being passionate about space exploration and having strong management experience. His nomination has been praised by a number of groups, including the Planetary Society, the National Space Society, and House Science Committee Democrats and Republicans. In the past, Mike Griffin has testified to Congress on the future of human spaceflight, the vision for space exploration, and the danger of asteroid impacts. He was also rebuked in the early 90s for pointing out problems with the space station's review process.

As for my own thoughts, I think Griffin is an excellent pick. I'm amazed that they were able to find somebody with as much technical expertise as him who also has such a large amount of experience with managing large organizations. According to the space.com article, Griffin can be expected to make maximum use of the emerging commercial spaceflight industry.

In the past he's also said the following, which I approve of highly: "What is needed is to retire the Shuttle Orbiter, and its expensive support infrastructure," Griffin wrote. "It simply does not serve the needs of exploration and it is too expensive, to logistically fragile, and insufficiently safe for continued use as a low Earth orbit transport vehicle."

In the past he's been highly in favor of the government constructing a new heavy-lift launch vehicle, which I somewhat disagree with. Such an endeavor could easily end up being a bottomless money pit. Hopefully SpaceX's low-cost launches in the coming months will help raise awareness of frequently-launched smaller vehicles.

Hm... I went through three rounds of rejected submission attempts earlier trying to submit this story, several hours before this version was posted. In any case, here's my version of the submission, which has many more links:

NASA Watch, New Scientist, and Space Ref report that Dr. Michael D. Griffin has been nominated as the next administrator of NASA, to replace Sean O'Keefe. As NASA head, Griffin will be tasked with implementing the Vision for Space Exploration. Griffin is currently head of the Space Department at the Applied Physics Laboratory at JHU, is president-elect of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and has a doctorate in aerospace engineering. He's noted for being passionate about space exploration and having strong management experience. His nomination has been praised by a number of groups, including the Planetary Society, the National Space Society, and House Science Committee Democrats and Republicans. In the past, Mike Griffin has testified to Congress on the future of human spaceflight, the vision for space exploration, and the danger of asteroid impacts. He was also rebuked in the early 90s for pointing out problems with the space station's review process.

As for my own thoughts, I think Griffin is an excellent pick. I'm amazed that they were able to find somebody with as much technical expertise as him who also has such a large amount of experience with managing large organizations. According to the space.com article, Griffin can be expected to make maximum use of the emerging commercial spaceflight industry.

In the past he's also said the following, which I approve of highly: "What is needed is to retire the Shuttle Orbiter, and its expensive support infrastructure," Griffin wrote. "It simply does not serve the needs of exploration and it is too expensive, to logistically fragile, and insufficiently safe for continued use as a low Earth orbit transport vehicle."

In the past he's been highly in favor of the government constructing a new heavy-lift launch vehicle, which I somewhat disagree with. Such an endeavor could easily end up being a bottomless money pit. Hopefully SpaceX's low-cost launches in the coming months will help raise awareness of frequently-launched smaller vehicles.

Official announcement.

Griffin is currently the head of the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Previously, he was at In-Q-Tel, Orbital Sciences Corporation, NASA and the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.

Prior to being at JHU's APL for the second time, Dr. Griffin was also the "president and chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, a private, non-profit enterprise funded by the Central Intelligence Agency to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests."

Some may be familiar with In-Q-Tel as the CIA's private venture firm.

He had just rejoined APL last April. He was with APL in the 1980s, and left to become the technology chief for the Strategic Defense Initiative.

To expand a bit on what the summary said, "in addition to a doctorate in aerospace engineering, he holds master's degrees in aerospace science, electrical engineering, applied physics, civil engineering and business administration, and a bachelor's degree in physics." He is also the president-elect of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

There's no question he is not only a skilled academic with a clear appreciation for space sciences, but a competent administrator and manager as well, and experienced with Washington politics to boot. Let's hope he does well for NASA.

Real work? Like heading the Space Department, a group with more than 600 people, which is the 2nd-largest group at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory?

As for your doubts that he actually built stuff, according to that first link above he helped design the Delta 180 missile components of the SDI program. He was also SDI's deputy of technology, associate administrator for exploration at NASA, and COO of In-Q-Tel (a private CIA-funded group to invest in relevent technology companies). He also had leadership positions at Orbital Sciences Corporation, and tech jobs at NASA JPL and Computer Science Corporation.

Regardless of whether you agree w/ SDI and the other jobs, you cannot doubt the fact that he has had both engineering and management positions, and apparently been rather successful and has a buttload of experience.

So back to your quote above, I'd say you'd make a pretty lousy hiring manager if you just judged their time in school without putting their work experience into context.

Real work? Like heading the Space Department, a group with more than 600 people, which is the 2nd-largest group at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory?

As for your doubts that he actually built stuff, according to that first link above he helped design the Delta 180 missile components of the SDI program. He was also SDI's deputy of technology, associate administrator for exploration at NASA, and COO of In-Q-Tel (a private CIA-funded group to invest in relevent technology companies). He also had leadership positions at Orbital Sciences Corporation, and tech jobs at NASA JPL and Computer Science Corporation.

Regardless of whether you agree w/ SDI and the other jobs, you cannot doubt the fact that he has had both engineering and management positions, and apparently been rather successful and has a buttload of experience.

So back to your quote above, I'd say you'd make a pretty lousy hiring manager if you just judged their time in school without putting their work experience into context.

Griffin currently heads the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University

IBEX will make these observations from a highly elliptical orbit that takes it beyond the interference of the Earth's magnetosphere.

Guys, I know the article says very little, but from what I can see this probe orbits the EARTH, not the sun, in an elliptical orbit, with sensors to examine (amongst other things) particles from the heliopause. Makes sense - $134 million would not be nearly enough money for a deep-space mission - the Plutonium nuclear batteries (RTG) alone would cost most of that. Deep space needs expensive support from Deep Space Network, and advanced/expensive comms. To get to Earth-escape you need an expensive big rocket too, unless you use ion. This probe will probably run off solar.

To get an idea of what even a "cheap" mission to Pluto & Heliopause is going to cost see the New Horzons page
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ - this will be around $600 million. Apparantly they are in a real race against time to make the Jan 2006 launch window - there was a hitch at Los Alamos where they make the RTGs - Plutonium 238 is currently very hard to get hold of & they might not have enough by launch date. Shame they are not funding a "cheap" copycat 2007-8 NH-2 mission which could swing by Jupiter,Uranus & a few more KBOs including a nice double system..

By the way I do think it could be done cheaper still - when are we going to have a true deep space ion craft? (solar+RTG)

We learn a lot more from a single one of these probes than we do from having a couple of starving astronauts endlessly orbiting the earth in a big tin can full of their own garbage.

Gravity will pull it closer to the sun, but it will not pull it into the sun. If you drop your speed relative to the sun, all you will get is a closer orbit around the sun. Witness the wacky path we took with Mariner 10 and the even longer and even crazier path we're using for MESSENGER. And that's just to get to Mercury.

The grandparent is right. You basically need a velocity of about 31.8 km/sec [Gurzadyan 1996, Theory of Interplanetary Flights, pp. 58-60] to actually get to the sun from Earth, unless you use a gravity assist from other solar bodies.

Orbits just don't "decay" in the sense that radioactive materials decay. Some are stable, some are instable, and some are affected by interactions with atmospheres or collisions with other particles. All are affected (however slightly) by the gravitation of everything else. This makes long term precise orbital calculations in the real world very difficult. Bank shotting radioactive material around the solar system sounds pretty dangerous to me. Even if we had rocket motors that could get us to Sol directly, there's a chance you could miss and put the stuff on a highly elliptical orbit with aphelion near the Earth's orbit. We could shoot ourselves nicely with that.

I can think of a 5th lander, though it wasn't designed to be a lander. NEAR Shoemaker landed on the asteroid Eros.

My brother tells me about radioactive batteries used in space, specifically the Pluto probe due to go up in 2006 and arrive 2015.
More battery details here and here and here.
There's less and less solar power available as you move away from the Sun (which was abundant on the Mercury trip). Plus, you need power for 10+ years. Where do I get that battery? From nuclear material, of course. The battery is the last thing to go into the spaceship, and you do lots of testing without it. And you make sure all the materials in the spacecraft can function with a reasonably radioactive source (near the top, as I recall).
He told me all this because I didn't know that the pilot light in a gas heater heats a piece of metal which provides enough voltage to drive the thermostat (hey bro, why doesn't the water heater have an electric plug?) Radioactive materials are mixed with ceramics to keep a reasonably constant amount of heat. The voltage comes from the heat. Wow, appliance technology moved into the space program.

When it comes down to radiation and absorption on the surface of an object, all that really matters is the blackness of the surface.

A very good example of an application is in MESSENGER. The side facing the sun is white, so it will absorb less heat. The side facing away from the sun is painted black, so that the probe will get rid of the heat even faster.

This guy beat them to it, sending an UAV over the Atlantic.

Also, you don't seriously believe that solar panels could withstand the heat and radiation on Mercury do you?

Uh oh! You better tell NASA quickly! The solar panels that they've just launched to inside the orbit of Mecury are gonna kersplode!

Possible launch in 2008 or 2009. The idea is to build a sistership to the Pluto New Horizons mission, maybe adding some new instrumentation. But AFAICT this is just speculation, and not actually a planned mission (yet). Even New Horizons itself could still be axed to free funds for the Moon/Mars stuff.

That would be The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where I used to work. NEAR was the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, the spacecraft that landed on an asteroid (a year or two ago?). I know a number of the people from APL involved in the project. There's a pretty detailed article in our local paper (local to JHU/APL) that describes more of the background. And of course their Messenger website is informative too.

That would be The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where I used to work. NEAR was the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, the spacecraft that landed on an asteroid (a year or two ago?). I know a number of the people from APL involved in the project. There's a pretty detailed article in our local paper (local to JHU/APL) that describes more of the background. And of course their Messenger website is informative too.

The planet does indeed spin - Mercury rotates on its axis 1.5 times per solar orbit (see http://www.solarviews.com/eng/mercury.htm). Because of this 3:2 resonance, a Mercury solar day (sunrise to sunrise) is equivalent to 176 Earth days.

So what this means is that for every Earth year Messenger is orbit, 4 Mercury Years will pass, which consists of 2 Mercury Solar Days (see http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/mission_de sign.html.

This gives the spacecraft many passes over the light and dark side of the planet, so much that they can spend one (Mercury) day doing global mapping and the second (Mercury) day doing targeted science investigations.

In terms of heat - the highly elliptical, near polar orbit is designed so that the heat shield always faces the sun, giving the instruments a nice room temperature setting on the other side of the shield. There is the possibility of heat from the surface, but the instruments are designed to take that into account.

NASA can explain it better: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/mission_de sign.html

While most other planets have been well studied, Mercury has not even had half its surface mapped! Messenger has non-visual light detectors including a laser altimiter which will let it map the whole planet, counteracting its slow rate of rotation. I hope the launch goes well and look forward to the data return. Kudos to NASA for doing some good science on what is considered a less sexy target than some others which seem to hog all the research money.

Don't think ESA has done that yet. NASA, OTOH, landed the NEAR probe on the asteroid Eros after orbiting/studying it for several weeks.

And likewise there should be no further possibility he could even be a professor in mathematics from either University of Maryland, College Park , Johns Hopkins University , or many of the other nearby colleges/universities I'm too lazy to link (George Washington University, Towson University, Loyola, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, etc etc).

Mercury is iffy...

Mercury is not iffy! The Messenger Spacecraft is on track for an August launch this year.

Certainly taking this to the next level as compared with the NEAR (Nasa Probe) that was not designed to bring back material.

While this is an improvement, it still only scratches the surface as it will only bring back "up to one gram of material". Also, consider that the gram of material is from the very surface of the asteroid, which is most likely contaminated by other collisions. Still quite an accomplishment if they can recover the material in 2007 as predicted.

However, the astute person would have noticed that Venus does spin very, very slowly. This would generally lead to a small or non-existant field, since planet spin is thought to be tied in to the dynamo process. (There's a strong correlation between field strength and planet's angular momentum, for example.) Of course, Mercury only spins 3 times faster, but that's still something.

This had me giggling. (-:

OK... so if Mercury spins 3x faster, it should have roughly 3x, or 3^2x the field depending on how your dynamo works? It's about 0.7% of Earth's field, and Venus' is less than 0.06%, which doesn't work either multiplied or by multiplied by the square, particularly with mass factored in. But it still spins roughly 90x slower than Mars... which has a field only twice as strong as Venus'. Venus has not cooled as much as Mars, but OTOH Mercury's core has to have cooled much more than Mars'. And for all of Jupiter's spectacle, a magnetic field only 8x stronger than Earth's is pretty disappointing, given all of that mass and spin, and that cold compressed H2 is metallic. Is this all producing as little rhymne or reason for you as it is for me?

MESSENGER will be fun, when it starts telling us stuff.

<aside> Mars has patches of magnetised rock, but no serious field today. This is said to imply a strong field in the past, but maybe not.

One of the few forces which explain nearly all of the features of Valles Marineris is lightning (pardon the kind of bolt which could leave a scar 3000km long! - but water, sand and tectonics don't explain much) which would imply (there's that word again) an essentially singular event and also explain a lot of loose rock scattered around on the surface of Mars. Such an event would be big enough to magnetise mucho rock, and/or disrupt an existing magnetic field. Until we can explain VM, we might be struggling to explain a few other features of our solar system as well. </aside>

As for Uranus and Neptune, I'm not sure I'd actually describe a 60% tilt (plus lateral offset) as "aligned" in the conventional sense of the word... and right next door gyrates Saturn, with the magnetic axis apparently perfectly aligned with the spin axis.

How you'd set about reconciling a dynamo theory with the lesser gas giants is beyond me. John, if you do try to explain it (as many great men have tried to do in the past) please give me time to sell tickets. (-:

[field changes next]

These are an easier pictures to get the idea of what they are doing - Artists Impressions

How can you keep the spacecraft at room temperature if everything around it is at least 212F? I need to get some of those fans for my computer.

It would be amazing if it was true that everything around the spacecraft was at 100C. But the side which doesn't face the sun A) doesn't need the sun shields, and B) sees the cold vacuum of space, a great place to passivly radiate unwanted heat to.

Check out this page from the MESSENGER site showing the sun shields only on the side facing the sun.

Also, New Horizons is not an orbiter, it will simply fly past Pluto and get the data. Afterwards it may check out some nearby KBO as well.

This may answer your question. Either that or just confuse you more. ;P

This reminds me of Quaoar.

Both are small Kuiper Belt objects. Quaoar was mentioned on Slashdot before.

It's nice to find these mini-planets and give them names. The area beyond Pluto is fascinating, all the more reason why the New Horizons probe should be launched. I hope that Bush's single-minded fixation on Mars doesn't cause this project to be scrapped....

Bepi-Colombo

What about MESSENGER, launching to Mercury this year ?

Yes, I agree, as another poster noted, it's the planets beyond Saturn that really get neglected: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

At least Cassini is going to Saturn. I can't wait for that, especially the probe to Titan.

I really wish more probes would go to Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. I find them absolutely fascinating. I guess it's a cold temperature thing--I'm fascinated by cold.

I really hope I'm alive to see the New Horizons misson arrive at Pluto. I think I've come to the decision that I'm going to make every effort to keep myself alive until I can see pictures of Pluto. That's going to be absolutely amazing.

Not that Pluto is such an impressive planet--or planetoid?--just that to actually see it would be such an impressive feat.

While direct reception of Spirit and Opportunity is probably beyond the capabilities of single-amateur equipment, reception of a continuous wave (unmodulated carrier) beacon transmitted by the Mars Relay Radio System aboard the Mars Global Surveyor on the way to Mars was achieved by amateurs in 1996. At the time, the 1.3 Watt transmitter was approximately 5 million km away from Earth.

The Mars Express probe that launched the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander, and the Mars Orbiter in orbit around Mars, were both detected by this station in November last year, although it stretches the definition of "amateur" quite a bit; also by these guys with much more modest equipment.

For a real challenge, the New Horizons spacecraft, scheduled for launch in 2006 to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt beyond, will employ beacon cruise mode, in which it will send a fixed tone (see page 42), designed for easier reception by amateurs, while cruising in deep space.

Additional information on amateur deep space reception is available here.

Fortunately, they do have some experience to draw upon. NASA's NEAR mission managed to land on a 21x8x8 mile asteroid named Eros and operated afterwards, despite the fact it was not actually designed to land. Performing that end of mission "stunt" contributed greatly to the overall knowledge of operating around small bodies, although the comet will be even less massive and more challenging.

considering Bush's plan calls for a $1B increase in NASA funding over _5_ years, and plans for the first new moon landing is set for 2015.... it's obvious that Bush's plan is an investment into setting a new vision for NASA, not for implementing it. This is a big difference that I don't think many people fully appreciate.

This does raise some questions:

(1) What's the real mission gonna cost?

(2) How in the heck will we pay for it?
and most importantly:

(3) If we don't have really solid answers to (1) and (2), is a Mars study the best thing NASA can do with $5 billion?

I mean, think about it: That $5 billion would save the Hubble several times over, and fund more science missions like Mars Spirit Rover, Stardust GALEX, New Horizons, etc, etc. Doesn't it make more sense for the space scientists to decide how to spend the $5 billion than letting Washington politicians decide? The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes for Health, and DARPA all have a pretty good track record for peer-reviewed funding decisions; why not space science too?

Meters away isn't necessary if you do the thermal design right. This spacecraft for example, will hold its RTG fairly close. We're not talking about a huge amount of heat, and thermal isolation isn't risky technology.

I'm confident that the waste heat from an RTG is anything but a showstopper - it would be especially beneficial in the cold Martian nights.

Did you watch his speech or read the text of it?

He talked about robotic missions like the Mercury and Europa missions and proposals along with the manned operations as well as the new Space Telescope.

Yes, I did read the text. And no, he didn't talk about Messenger or Jimo. He talked about precisely three kinds of robotic probes:

1) those which *in the past* have greatly increased our knowledge of the solar system,

2) the Mars rovers *in the present*, and

2) those which *in the future* will "blaze the trail" for humans to "mars and beyond".

(my emphasis on past/present/future)

He also talked about funding a project estimated to cost several 100B$ to the tune of 1B$, and about NASA finding another 11B$ for it (out of their 15B$/year overall budget) - all without cutting any of the missions he *didn't* mention? Dream on.

(He then talked about his recent visit with Santa on the North Pole, balancing the budget, and cutting more taxes. With that kind of vision, you just gotta vote for that man, dontcha think? Just kidding.)

Far from constituting a revolutionary new vision, this speech actually just continues the time-honored tradition of presidents twisting NASA's arm for reelection purposes, creating gigantic white elephants in a pork barrel ("unifying visions" in president-speak) at the expense of real space science and exploration. It did work like a charm the first time around (Apollo) but then went steadily downhill (Shuttle, ISS, mars or bust).

I call it "mars or bust" rather than "mars and beyond" because given the evidence so far (esp. the proposed funding), "bust" looks far more likely to me than "mars", let alone "beyond".

- nic

The cool thing about space exploration at the moment is a lot of that stuff you mention is being done now or about to be done.

It's a bit easier to land on Venus than Mars as the atmosphere is so thick - apparently the landers didn't use the parachutes that much to slow down. On the flipside - existing in -25 degrees is easier than +500 degrees.
The Messenger spacecraft will be on its way to Mercury via Venus soon.

The Galileo Atmospheric entry probe hit the atmosphere of Jupiter in '95. In the future we may see the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter and possibly a Europa lander and submarine - depending on whether the sub surface ocean exists.

The Huyghens probe attached to the Cassini (Saturn orbiter) will analyse the atmosphere of Titan for about 2.5 hours and may work on the surface for 5 minutes or so (arriving July 2004).

Cheers

These guys have a cool desktop, if you can call it that.

Riccardo Giacconi was using a fairly ordinary CDE on Solaris desktop on a beautiful 24 inch wide-screen monitor the last time I saw it, with some very cool galaxy images from the Chandra Deep Field.

Steven Squyres probably also has an interesting desktop, and I think I saw it on ABC News last week, before they switched to talking about the problems with the rover.

You can see Asia Carrera's desktop in the background, but it's not safe from work. Looks mundane.

I wonder if Pheobe has a cool desktop. Not Alyssa Milano, but her character.

Speaking of fiction, I wonder whether David Kay uses Windows or Mac?

While I like innovators, I'm more interested in users. They at least try to do useful things. That was the problem with Alan Kay. He always has interesting desktops. He showed squeak at a conference a few years ago that just stunned people, but none of us could figure out what we would actually do with it.

Because some of these are in the "build phase". Like Mercury Messenger which will spend time around venus before moving on.

Messenger's Site