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NASA's Mars Odyssey Enters Orbit
maddmike writes "Nasa's Mars explorer Odyssey is scheduled to brake and orbit about Mars today at 7:30PDT. Among the mission's objectives are to understand Mars' climate and geological history and to search for signs of life sustaining environments including water. Main web site is at the JPL website." Update: 10/24 13:12 GMT by T : The BrownFury writes cites a Space.com summary which says "The Mars Odyssey spacecraft appears to have succeeded Tuesday night in one of the most tricky and critical parts of its missions by slipping into orbit around the Red Planet."
You would trade one gravity well for another?
Mars is interesting, but space habitats are the future my man. :)
Power to the Peaceful
Why does Congress resent paying for NASA? Pretty good question. Think about it though.
The short answer is that NASA happens to be demonstrating that it's rather incompetant. Flamebait? Karma killer? Perhaps, but think about it.
Shuttle? Years delayed and expensive as h*ll to operate. Space station? Ditto.
X Vehicles? Let's take a look there!
X-33 was cancelled for starting to run down that same route, and they picked the winning Lockmart proposal because it was full of nifty tech, not based on the stated goals of the X program (much cheaper access to orbit using SSTO technologies).
X-34 was killed because MSFC wanted to incorporate THEIR engine instead of the original one (*GASP* it was delayed and overbudget...)
X-30? The National Aerospace Plane fell the way of the X-33, but back in the early 90's.
Manned spacflight at NASA has been an embarassment for some time for its screwups.
On the bright side, look at the unmanned probes recently. Sehr gut! Pathfinder, Global Surveyor, DS-1, Lunar Prospector, etc, etc...
BUT...when NASA f*cks up like say with the Mars 98 missions: English to metric unit conversion problems crash one probe into Mars. WTF!?! These are supposed to be the best and brightest and make THAT stupid a mistake! The royal screwups in the lander mission are ...ummm...amazing.
Good and bad, Goldin did get one thing right in that he said that for NASA to be trusted any time soon with the budget to go to Mars manned style they'd have to fix - budgetwise - the ISS program. It didn't happen.
On sci.space.policy, Gary Hudson, of Rotary Rocket and more fame, made the following remark when someone suggested that he be nominated to take over NASA. . .and politically, that's about as likely as slashdot deciding that they're going to run IIS.
In short, NASA is a wreck.
Now. Why do you think Congress resents spending money on NASA? Money isn't the main problem here...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Even though there's more important things going on in the world right now, nothing disappears into the news black hole faster than a successful space mission. A failed mission, on the other hand...
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
In short, NASA is a wreck.
NASA is no different from any other sci/tech organization. However, they have the combined disadvantages of very high risk projects and intense public scrutiny.
Example:
NASA engineer writes a bug in code: $300 million spacecraft pancakes into the Martian plains; elected officials demand answers; public wonders why NASA is full of buffoons who can't do something as "simple" as launching a spacecraft into orbit around another heavenly body on a shoestring budget.
Microsoft engineer writes a bug in code: Another MS engineer is assigned to write a Service Release; yet another engineer is assigned to correct the bugs in the Service Release. Resulting security holes lead to viruses costing billions in lost productivity, according to some estimates. Elected officials defend free enterprise; public doesn't care.
Linuk kernel hacker writes a bug: Another hacker finds and corrects the bug; elected officials and public don't give a rat's ass.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.