He may have been moderated as funny (and I hope that was his aim) but there are people that actually believe this kind of thing.<br><br>
Speaking of which, why is there no moderation tag called Sad?
Datalink Flaw in Titan Probe: European Space Agency engineers have
discovered that there is not enough bandwidth in the link between its
Huygens probe and NASA's Cassini spacecraft to handle the Doppler shift
between the two as the ESA probe parachutes toward the surface of Titan,
triggering an inquiry into why the shortfall wasn't discovered before NASA
launched Cassini and Huygens to Saturn and how to get around it now. As it
stands, ESA said, the "probe data relay subsystem" (PDRS) won't be able to
recover all the data generated by Huygens' six instruments as it descends
into the moon's dense atmosphere of nitrogen and methane and settles on the
surface. NASA launched Cassini and Huygens together on Oct. 15, 1997. The
flaw lies in the European receiver aboard Cassini that will receive data
from Huygens. ESA said an end-to-end in-flight test series in February
suggested there was a problem, and extensive ground testing early last month
at ESA's Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, confirmed "that the
existing link would not support full data recovery under the currently
planned mission scenario." (Aviation Now)
If you want to find out more about the Cassini-Huygens mission, you should check the NASA web page on the mission. (Was it just me, or was the story as posted need more info?)
Re:The peak? certainly the furthermost point
by
HeghmoH
·
· Score: 4
Can we replicate the Great Pyramid today? You bet we couldn't. Maybe with a lot of time and more money than God, but then the same holds true for the Saturn V. Could we build a V-2 today? Nope. How about a Titanic? A Fulton steamship?
Here's a good site. I assume you know of the Me-262, the German WWII-era jet fighter. A lot of them were built, and under wartime conditions with heavy bombing from the allies. Now a company in Texas is building some replicas. It's taken them seven years to make just a handful, and they're not done yet. It's still not a perfect copy, since they're using commercially-available engines instead of the original design. The link is here.
Does that mean that the aircraft industry has been in a decline since 1945? Of course not. That would be silly. A modern jet fighter is superior in every concievable way to the Me-262. We can't build a Saturn V. We wouldn't if we could. If we wanted to go to the moon, we'd redo it, with the benefit of thirty more years of experience in space flight, and we'd end up with something better.
As far as our direct reach with human beings is concerned, we have pulled back since 1972. However, we now send something like fifty people a year into orbit. You can launch your own satellite into space without needing enough money to buy a medium-sized country. Our time is coming, not going. Apollo was an amazing achievement, but in the end it was basically a stunt. Soon enough we will have something more significant than just sending two people to the surface for a day.
The math on air travel and satellites was just as horrible when those were impractical as the math on interstellar travel is now. Don't doubt the abilities of your children's children's children's children.
-- Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I recall there was a lot of controversy about the Cassini probe, prior to its launch. Most of this concerned its fuel, which I think was plutonium.
The funniest thing I heard about the controversy was when some idiot in the fashion industry called the JPL to complain about using the designer, Cassini's name without permission. The idiot was politely informed the spacecraft was named after a 15th. century astronomer and not the sycophant's boss.
-- I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I really wanted was a club sandwich. --Homer J.
Slashdot Mirror
He may have been moderated as funny (and I hope that was his aim) but there are people that actually believe this kind of thing.<br><br>
Speaking of which, why is there no moderation tag called Sad?
Bite my yammer.
Datalink Flaw in Titan Probe: European Space Agency engineers have discovered that there is not enough bandwidth in the link between its Huygens probe and NASA's Cassini spacecraft to handle the Doppler shift between the two as the ESA probe parachutes toward the surface of Titan, triggering an inquiry into why the shortfall wasn't discovered before NASA launched Cassini and Huygens to Saturn and how to get around it now. As it stands, ESA said, the "probe data relay subsystem" (PDRS) won't be able to recover all the data generated by Huygens' six instruments as it descends into the moon's dense atmosphere of nitrogen and methane and settles on the surface. NASA launched Cassini and Huygens together on Oct. 15, 1997. The flaw lies in the European receiver aboard Cassini that will receive data from Huygens. ESA said an end-to-end in-flight test series in February suggested there was a problem, and extensive ground testing early last month at ESA's Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, confirmed "that the existing link would not support full data recovery under the currently planned mission scenario." (Aviation Now)
If you want to find out more about the Cassini-Huygens mission, you should check the NASA web page on the mission. (Was it just me, or was the story as posted need more info?)
P.S. Can anybody figure out why the links on the Challenging 1/37th paper model of Cassini seem to be broken? I want to build one of these puppies!
Can we replicate the Great Pyramid today? You bet we couldn't. Maybe with a lot of time and more money than God, but then the same holds true for the Saturn V. Could we build a V-2 today? Nope. How about a Titanic? A Fulton steamship?
Here's a good site. I assume you know of the Me-262, the German WWII-era jet fighter. A lot of them were built, and under wartime conditions with heavy bombing from the allies. Now a company in Texas is building some replicas. It's taken them seven years to make just a handful, and they're not done yet. It's still not a perfect copy, since they're using commercially-available engines instead of the original design. The link is here.
Does that mean that the aircraft industry has been in a decline since 1945? Of course not. That would be silly. A modern jet fighter is superior in every concievable way to the Me-262. We can't build a Saturn V. We wouldn't if we could. If we wanted to go to the moon, we'd redo it, with the benefit of thirty more years of experience in space flight, and we'd end up with something better.
As far as our direct reach with human beings is concerned, we have pulled back since 1972. However, we now send something like fifty people a year into orbit. You can launch your own satellite into space without needing enough money to buy a medium-sized country. Our time is coming, not going. Apollo was an amazing achievement, but in the end it was basically a stunt. Soon enough we will have something more significant than just sending two people to the surface for a day.
The math on air travel and satellites was just as horrible when those were impractical as the math on interstellar travel is now. Don't doubt the abilities of your children's children's children's children.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I recall there was a lot of controversy about the Cassini probe, prior to its launch. Most of this concerned its fuel, which I think was plutonium.
The funniest thing I heard about the controversy was when some idiot in the fashion industry called the JPL to complain about using the designer, Cassini's name without permission. The idiot was politely informed the spacecraft was named after a 15th. century astronomer and not the sycophant's boss.
I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I really wanted was a club sandwich. --Homer J.