Posted by
Hemos
on from the to-complete-the-set dept.
matth writes: "CNN has got an
article
which speaks of NASA thinking about sending a space craft out to Pluto,
which happens to be the only planet we have not yet been visited by an
Earth-sent space craft. Is it worth it? Should we?"
We need to visit Pluto NOW!!!
by
Skipio
·
· Score: 4
If there is any place in the solar system we should explore in the next few
years, it is Pluto. Why, you may ask?
The reason is quite simple, after 2020 or so, Pluto's atmosphere will freeze
solid. And it will be frozen for many decades. It is either now or after a very
long time that we have the possibility to do any serious research on Pluto,
the most exotic place in our Solar system. And exotic it is; for example, because
of the gravitational forces of its moon Charon, we might find volcanos there,
but not the usual ones, but rather volcanos pouring molten water, ammonia and
nitrogen. A truly alien world, if you ask me.
We can go to Mars any time but visiting Pluto is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Re:We need to visit Pluto NOW!!!
by
imipak
·
· Score: 4
On the contrary -- Pluto, although probably interesting in it's own right (what with having an enormous moon (relative to it's own size), is really just a nice bit of PR chrome. Pluto is really just a big asteroid that happened to be in roughly the right place when Clyde Tombaugh went looking for the ninth planet. (AFAIK the body causing the perturbations of the orbit of Uranus that lead him to look have still not been located - Pluto wasn't it.)
The real point of getting out there is carrying on to the Kuiper Belt.If memory serves, the Pluto mission NASA cancelled earlier this year was called the Kuiper Express.
Kuiper Belt objects would be really interesting because they're a huge cloud of proto-comets left over from the collapse of the gas cloud which eventually formed the solar system 5 billion years ago. They'd consist of virgin, primordial material the proto-stellar disk coalesced from. Although there are a couple of sample return missions to comets in the works ('Stardust' mission) they're not going out to the source.
It would be really interesting to look for complex amino acids in such material, and get another data point on the Wickramasinghe/Hoyle panspermia theory.
Once we've done the Kuiper Belt, there's only the Oort cloud between us and interstellar space. Pluto isn't going to look that different from the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, both of which will by then have been thoroughly checked out by Galileo and Cassini. --
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
we need a moon base. in the words of hienlein (I think), "once you are on the moon, you are halfway to anywhere"
I was born in 1967, by the time I was in kindergarten, we had been to the moon several times. by the time I was 10, we had driven dune buggies on the moon. now, 23 years later, we have sat around with our thumbs you know where, and we think Skylab++ is an amazing achievement, while we underfund or dont even try to fund the cool stuff which could lead to a truly spacefaring humanity.
look at the launchers that have been cancelled or delayed just in the last 5 years:
delta clipper (dc-x) (cancelled)
x-33 (delayed)
rotary rocket (died for lack of funding)
kistler k-1 (delayed - please don't kill it)
Beal BA-2 (killed by a concerted effort by 2 governments and enviro-weenies)
blackhorse (rocketplane) (lack of funding)
kellyspace (lack of funding)
most of these programs required no more than $100M to survive, but couldn't get even that, at a time when our gov't spends that much studying the effects of cow farts on the ozone layer every year.
are you pissed yet? you should be living on the moon by now, not in some crappy condo in cambridge.
[/RANT]
-- The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
Re:Pluto, Mars, The Moon...
by
Kotetsu
·
· Score: 4
There are a number of good reasons we should send a mission to Pluto.
First, Pluto is currently believed to be the largest member of the Kuiper Belt objects. We know very little about these bodies, mostly because they are very small and at great distance. They have similarities to both comets and asteroids, and study of them should tell us a great deal about the formation of our Solar System.
Pluto is unique among the planets. Studies of the other planets don't tell us much about Pluto. As such, it is a better target for research than, say, Uranus or Neptune, both of which resemble Jupiter and Saturn, planets we are studying in detail.
Prior to 1979, it was generally believed that Pluto was larger than Mercury. Since we couldn't measure the actual size directly, the size had been derived based on assumptions that it was similar to the Moon or Mercury - basically a dark, rocky surface. In 1979 there was a series of eclipses of Pluto by Charon, and it was determined that the planet is significantly smaller than previously thought. The significance of this is that the surface of Pluto is probably ices, not rock. Other than (maybe) some of the moons of the outer planets, this means that Pluto is a better target than most objects in the Solar System for study to learn the basics about icy bodies. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to study well without sending a spacecraft.
As far as life, it is so cold there that any life would probably not resemble anything we would ordinarily recognize as life. In any event, searching for life would require a landing, and nobody is planning anything like that.
The moon landings had far more significance than "because it's there." In science, it's necessary to verify theories by actual observation. At some point we had to actually have rock samples, and direct, close up observations of the surface. People were sent mostly because it was politically easier to get money to send astronauts than unmanned probes. Unfortunately, the same fools who think using encryption should increase the penalties for crime are the ones who decide the budgets for NASA.
The article did state that the probe would also
look at Charon, Pluto's moon, as well as the
Kuiper Belt. The belt may contain clues about
how the solar system formed. These clues could
be anything, my favorite would becarbon asteroids
(there is a scientific name, but I don't remember
it).
Slashdot Mirror
If there is any place in the solar system we should explore in the next few years, it is Pluto. Why, you may ask?
The reason is quite simple, after 2020 or so, Pluto's atmosphere will freeze solid. And it will be frozen for many decades. It is either now or after a very long time that we have the possibility to do any serious research on Pluto, the most exotic place in our Solar system. And exotic it is; for example, because of the gravitational forces of its moon Charon, we might find volcanos there, but not the usual ones, but rather volcanos pouring molten water, ammonia and nitrogen. A truly alien world, if you ask me.
We can go to Mars any time but visiting Pluto is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
damnit.
[RANT]
we need a moon base. in the words of hienlein (I think), "once you are on the moon, you are halfway to anywhere"
I was born in 1967, by the time I was in kindergarten, we had been to the moon several times. by the time I was 10, we had driven dune buggies on the moon. now, 23 years later, we have sat around with our thumbs you know where, and we think Skylab++ is an amazing achievement, while we underfund or dont even try to fund the cool stuff which could lead to a truly spacefaring humanity.
look at the launchers that have been cancelled or delayed just in the last 5 years:
delta clipper (dc-x) (cancelled)
x-33 (delayed)
rotary rocket (died for lack of funding)
kistler k-1 (delayed - please don't kill it)
Beal BA-2 (killed by a concerted effort by 2 governments and enviro-weenies)
blackhorse (rocketplane) (lack of funding)
kellyspace (lack of funding)
most of these programs required no more than $100M to survive, but couldn't get even that, at a time when our gov't spends that much studying the effects of cow farts on the ozone layer every year.
are you pissed yet? you should be living on the moon by now, not in some crappy condo in cambridge.
[/RANT]
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
There are a number of good reasons we should send a mission to Pluto.
First, Pluto is currently believed to be the largest member of the Kuiper Belt objects. We know very little about these bodies, mostly because they are very small and at great distance. They have similarities to both comets and asteroids, and study of them should tell us a great deal about the formation of our Solar System.
Pluto is unique among the planets. Studies of the other planets don't tell us much about Pluto. As such, it is a better target for research than, say, Uranus or Neptune, both of which resemble Jupiter and Saturn, planets we are studying in detail.
Prior to 1979, it was generally believed that Pluto was larger than Mercury. Since we couldn't measure the actual size directly, the size had been derived based on assumptions that it was similar to the Moon or Mercury - basically a dark, rocky surface. In 1979 there was a series of eclipses of Pluto by Charon, and it was determined that the planet is significantly smaller than previously thought. The significance of this is that the surface of Pluto is probably ices, not rock. Other than (maybe) some of the moons of the outer planets, this means that Pluto is a better target than most objects in the Solar System for study to learn the basics about icy bodies. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to study well without sending a spacecraft.
As far as life, it is so cold there that any life would probably not resemble anything we would ordinarily recognize as life. In any event, searching for life would require a landing, and nobody is planning anything like that.
The moon landings had far more significance than "because it's there." In science, it's necessary to verify theories by actual observation. At some point we had to actually have rock samples, and direct, close up observations of the surface. People were sent mostly because it was politically easier to get money to send astronauts than unmanned probes. Unfortunately, the same fools who think using encryption should increase the penalties for crime are the ones who decide the budgets for NASA.
"Bite me, it's fun!" - Crowe T. Robot
The article did state that the probe would also
look at Charon, Pluto's moon, as well as the
Kuiper Belt. The belt may contain clues about
how the solar system formed. These clues could
be anything, my favorite would becarbon asteroids
(there is a scientific name, but I don't remember
it).
Eric Gearman
--
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!