Posted by
emmett
on from the all-these-worlds-are-yours-except-europa dept.
rhet writes, "NASA may deliberately crash the $1.5 billion Galileo spacecraft which is exploring Jupiter to avoid contaminating the moon Europa. Scientists believe simple life forms may exist on Europa. There is evidence that Europa has an ocean beneath its ice crust. Read more about it here."
Before everyone goes off on wasting the money
by
SgtPepper
·
· Score: 5
Keep in mind that this craft is 11 years old...it's ancient in terms of spacecraft. It's original 2 year mission was extened another 2 years and is AGAIN being extened 2 more years...so we definatly got our money's worth out of it...and then some. we got 4 extra years out of a space craft that traveled a great distance, don't complain, we should retire it with dignity and honour.
Sgt Pepper Lame Sig Shamelessly Ripped from Fortune:
You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.
Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money
by
Shadowlion
·
· Score: 5
How much is science worth to you?
NASA spent that money to design a spacecraft that would spent several years in deep space, resist incredible amounts of radiation (the probe has already managed to go well over twice the amount of radiation it was designed for without serious glitches), computers and software on board the craft to manage all of its systems as well as do diagnostic and preventative capabilities (recongize when an overload of radiation causes the computer to reset itself and automatically correct it), and a vast amount of sensor and communication equipment. Further, it was designed to not explore just *one* world, but Jupiter and many of it's moons - a more complex logistical problem than just dropping an orbiter around, say, Mars.
Given the complexity of the task, NASA built a spacecraft that would be able to do all of the above. They really over-engineered the thing, and then put a *reasonable* cap on the lifespan of the thing (2 years). They were being conservative on the lifespan, and weren't too surprised that it was able to go for another extended mission. That it has lasted this long, though, as they've exposed it to more and more radiation, and has returned the amount and quality of data it has returned, has amazed NASA.
Galileo was one of the last of the big-money space probes, designed to last in inhospital environments and to be quite self-sufficient in case of an emergency. The newer probes, such as the various Mars probes, are much cheaper, but don't have nearly the capabilities as Galileo does - and hence we lose them when a more expensive craft, with redundant systems, diagnostic capabilities, and smarter computers would've survived.
Yes, I think what else could've been done with the money. We could've spent it on the war with drugs, which has turned out to be an exceptional failure that many question was even necessary. We could've spent it on law enforcement - and yet, with places like the LAPD, NYPD, and New Orleans, it doesn't matter how many police we have when the ones we hire are crooked in the first place. We could've built a couple of more fighter planes to add to the military - or maybe we should've just blown that money building a single B-2 bomber.
So maybe you're right - we should've spent that money hiring crooked cops, building implements of destruction, and trying to solve a non-existent drug problem.
I mean, hey, why bother *learning* anything when you can build an aircraft with the radar signature of a bumblebee?
Crash Galileo into Europa as Pre-Emptive Strike
by
Savage+Henry+Matisse
·
· Score: 5
Scientists warn we shouldn't rev ourselves into a tizzy over this. Any life on Europa, they assure us, is of the single-celled variety, at best. Of course, such a declaration is clearly just a smokescreen to prevent us from reaching the obvious conclusion: At this very moment, super-intelligent giant squid have their siege-rockets poised beneath Europa?s half-mile ice shell, ready to launch their imperialist onslaught. These sub-mariner beasts intend to take control of our peace-loving planet and mine us for the rich iron supplies stored in our hemoglobin. Yes, the jovian devil-fish plan to render our blood for precious structural iron, needed to build more of their planet-hoppers. Their ultimate plan: To flood the canals of Mars as a space-squid vacation resort.
At night I can hear the transmissions from their communications satellites resonating in my fillings; the hideous, scheming clacking of their beaks has rendered sleep an unattainable fantasy. They intend to devour our dogs whole and use our sports-utility vehicles as punch-bowls for their post-conquest banquet. They monitor our radio transmissions, love our mariachi music, and yet despise our hip-hop. These are truly monsters.
How long will the scientific community continue to feign ignorance of this exo-cephalopodic threat looming under Europa?s dark plutonian shores? And how long will it be until our own squid-- trusted friend and snack-- turn on us? As the first earth-dweller to fully recognize the very real threat of worldwide Europan conquest, I enjoin you: We must take up arms against this sea of troubles, and by opposing, end it.
Who's with me?
-- Much Love, "S"HM ***** (I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....
by
Tenement
·
· Score: 5
This Headline implies that NASA it wasting money on 'shooting' probes out just to crash them now.
Remember that Galileo has done it's purpose and to avoid a possible extraterrestrial contamination of another celestial body that possibly may supporting life, they decided to crash it into another planet that (most likely) does not support any life.
NASA isn't in the habit of building something just to throw it away for no good reason. Sure, they make mistakes, but NASA is still ran by humans, and humans make 'human errors.' The technological feats that they have done (and are still doing) boggles the mind. (I'd like to see you calculate the exact vector to break orbit and travel to Jupiter over the course of 2 years with only 2 minutes of burn-time)
NASA is still going strong and I feel quite happy that my tax-dollars are being pourned into it. (Besides they brought us TANG!;-) )
I can see the conversation between NASA and the spacecraft now:
Galileo: Well, I've put in my long hard years for the company, and after having put it off for a few years, I think it's time to retire and start collecting social security.
NASA: That's good, because we were coming up with a spectacular retirement package for you.
Galileo: Great, so what does my golden parachute look like?
NASA: [whispers into Galileo's ear]
Galileo: A MASSIVE HELLISH FIREBALL?!?!
--
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Why can't they just leave it up there orbitting and taking pictures? Is it running out of fuel?
Yes. It's also running out of radiation tolerance, RTG power and a number of other things. Maneuvering fuel is apparently set to run out first, but the vehicle is not going to last much longer regardless. To prevent it from contaminating Europa (and throwing off any search for life we may do there in the future), it has to be prevented from crashing there. One certain method of doing this is to crash it somewhere else. Crude, but highly effective. --
-- Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies? Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?
whoa, whoa. calm, cool, collected.
this is space garbage. the mission was judged to be worth whatever they spent on it. then they got three times as much use out of it as was in the original mission guidelines. as much as we litter our own orbits and ecosphere, I hope you haven't gotten the idea that it's a good idea.
they can gain valuable data by doing a suicide mission into Jupiter or Io. don't get the idea that they picked these targets randomly.
*sigh* I really wasn't in the mood for an abortion fight, so I'm just going to say a few things, since it's offtopic:
one prospective member of one (overcrowded) species != wiping out the entire moon's worth of life (and/or) spoiling all future studies and knowledge we might gain from Europa
If your post was meant to be funny, it didn't contain enough hyperbole to be blatently tongue-in-cheek. So I'll just treat it as ignorance.
You know what Jupiter's made of, right? 92% hydrogen, 7% helium, mostly methane for the rest, those sorts of things. At the upper atmosphere, it's more than a thousand degrees celcius, and it's all whipping about rather harshly. And oh yeah, no water. If there is life there, it doesn't resemble anything we have on earth, and whatever we bring from earth wouldn't be able to survive if it got there. And then there's the little problem about how the spacecraft will burn up once it enters the planet's atmosphere, which is after all, all of it (except perhaps for the metalic hydrogen core, which if it exists wouldn't make a lick of difference here). This is in stark contrast to Europa, which doesn't have an appreciable atmosphere and so if we lob something at it, it'll remain intact until it hits the surface.
Soooooo.....What happens if the crash site is currently occupied with Life Forms that we DON'T suspect, hmm? So in an ironic ending to the life of Galileo, it crashes into a planet with life forms and introduces extra-Jupiterian life to divide and conquer.
Yes, it'd be perfeclty ironic, since it'd crap all over lots of our biological and astronomical theories, but that doesn't mean it's possible. You're also forgetting the little bit about how there is no "landing site" per se -- just a spot floating in the outer atmosphere.
Or, we could send it off into deep space, and discover it 300 years from now as a tremendous space probe named G'leo.
Except the whole problem in the first place is that this thing doesn't have any extra fuel lying around for such a purpose. If we could just go ahead and send it off into deep space, it'd still be useful and we'd use it for that. Heck, the Voyager 2 is still sending back data from outside the solar system, and we're praying it'll last another twenty years and make it to measure the helioshock out there. But escaping the gravity of Jupiter is not a simple thing to do without any propulsion. Have you stopped to wonder why Jupiter has so many moons and trojan asteroids in the first place?
--
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Slashdot Mirror
Keep in mind that this craft is 11 years old...it's ancient in terms of spacecraft. It's original 2 year mission was extened another 2 years and is AGAIN being extened 2 more years...so we definatly got our money's worth out of it...and then some. we got 4 extra years out of a space craft that traveled a great distance, don't complain, we should retire it with dignity and honour.
Sgt Pepper
Lame Sig Shamelessly Ripped from
Fortune:
You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.
At night I can hear the transmissions from their communications satellites resonating in my fillings; the hideous, scheming clacking of their beaks has rendered sleep an unattainable fantasy. They intend to devour our dogs whole and use our sports-utility vehicles as punch-bowls for their post-conquest banquet. They monitor our radio transmissions, love our mariachi music, and yet despise our hip-hop. These are truly monsters.
How long will the scientific community continue to feign ignorance of this exo-cephalopodic threat looming under Europa?s dark plutonian shores? And how long will it be until our own squid-- trusted friend and snack-- turn on us? As the first earth-dweller to fully recognize the very real threat of worldwide Europan conquest, I enjoin you: We must take up arms against this sea of troubles, and by opposing, end it.
Who's with me?
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
This Headline implies that NASA it wasting money on 'shooting' probes out just to crash them now.
;-) )
Remember that Galileo has done it's purpose and to avoid a possible extraterrestrial contamination of another celestial body that possibly may supporting life, they decided to crash it into another planet that (most likely) does not support any life.
NASA isn't in the habit of building something just to throw it away for no good reason. Sure, they make mistakes, but NASA is still ran by humans, and humans make 'human errors.' The technological feats that they have done (and are still doing) boggles the mind. (I'd like to see you calculate the exact vector to break orbit and travel to Jupiter over the course of 2 years with only 2 minutes of burn-time)
NASA is still going strong and I feel quite happy that my tax-dollars are being pourned into it. (Besides they brought us TANG!
Cheers.
--
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies? Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?
whoa, whoa. calm, cool, collected.
If your post was meant to be funny, it didn't contain enough hyperbole to be blatently tongue-in-cheek. So I'll just treat it as ignorance.
You know what Jupiter's made of, right? 92% hydrogen, 7% helium, mostly methane for the rest, those sorts of things. At the upper atmosphere, it's more than a thousand degrees celcius, and it's all whipping about rather harshly. And oh yeah, no water. If there is life there, it doesn't resemble anything we have on earth, and whatever we bring from earth wouldn't be able to survive if it got there. And then there's the little problem about how the spacecraft will burn up once it enters the planet's atmosphere, which is after all, all of it (except perhaps for the metalic hydrogen core, which if it exists wouldn't make a lick of difference here). This is in stark contrast to Europa, which doesn't have an appreciable atmosphere and so if we lob something at it, it'll remain intact until it hits the surface.
Soooooo.....What happens if the crash site is currently occupied with Life Forms that we DON'T suspect, hmm? So in an ironic ending to the life of Galileo, it crashes into a planet with life forms and introduces extra-Jupiterian life to divide and conquer.
Yes, it'd be perfeclty ironic, since it'd crap all over lots of our biological and astronomical theories, but that doesn't mean it's possible. You're also forgetting the little bit about how there is no "landing site" per se -- just a spot floating in the outer atmosphere.
Or, we could send it off into deep space, and discover it 300 years from now as a tremendous space probe named G'leo.
Except the whole problem in the first place is that this thing doesn't have any extra fuel lying around for such a purpose. If we could just go ahead and send it off into deep space, it'd still be useful and we'd use it for that. Heck, the Voyager 2 is still sending back data from outside the solar system, and we're praying it'll last another twenty years and make it to measure the helioshock out there. But escaping the gravity of Jupiter is not a simple thing to do without any propulsion. Have you stopped to wonder why Jupiter has so many moons and trojan asteroids in the first place?
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes