Deep Space One Mission Comes To An End

jfoust writes "NASA's Deep Space One mission will officially end this week, according to published reports. The spacecraft was launched over three years ago to test advanced technologies like ion drives and, despite the failure of its star tracker, was able to make a successful flyby of the comet Borrelly in September. The project tried to extend the mission by several months to fly by an asteroid, but could not coax the funding needed for the mission extension out of NASA. There's a short summary about the mission's end at spacetoday.net, and more details from the AP and the JPL Universe employee newspaper."

Comments

Time on dishes

[freeweed]

Dish time can be hideously expensive, and keep in mind your average home pizza dish doesn't quite cut the mustard in communicating with a small transponder millions of miles away.

For example, there are many people who would willingly donate their time and expertise to the SETI program. But for years they had to fight for funding. Why? Radio telescope time doesn't come cheap. And building your own isn't exactly feasible, either.

Reflections on a successful mission

[Ethidium]

When DS 1 launched in 1998, I was in my junior year of high school, and taking physics, which is now one of my three undergraduate majors. There was a girl in my class whose mother is a JPL scientist, and she and I would always spend our lab times talking about the mission. I remember reading that the ion engine created only as much force as a sheet of paper exerts on the hand of the person holding it, and wondered how in the world they expected anything to come of this. But F = ma, and in space there is practically no friction, so with the hours-long burns that the team discovered they could do, the acceleration added up. (For those of you who have asked, the ion engine is just another Newton's-third-law technology, with the big nuance being that rather than relying on the expansion of hot gases from the burning of fuel to provide the counter-force, the spacecraft uses an electified grid to propel tiny charged ions out the back).

When the star tracker failed in 1999, I wept, for I was sure that the mission was doomed. When the ground crew, in a long stroke of genius, kept it going, I wept for joy.

In the past year and a half or so, DS 1 hasn't been doing so much. WIth most of its objectives achieved, the mission became largely a test of how long it would last. Nevertheless, it was always fun to read Dr. Marc Rayman's mission logs, "widely thought of and commonly spoken of in the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy as the most reliable source of information on this bold mission of exploration."

This fall, the probe paid a visit to comet Borrelley. Nobody knew where in the tail the rock itself was, but DS 1's job was to get as close to it as possible, and send back pictures. Nobody expected it to work. If anything, this was supposed to be a dignified death for the bird, which the September 9 log referred to as being "kept flying with duct tape and good wishes." The chances that the probe would do anything but smash into the comet and die, or be pommeled to death by the microdust in the coma, were astronomically slim. But somehow, miraculously, it survived, and with the pictures to prove it.

DS 1 was the stuff of science fiction, and that so many things went right is simply amazing. While I , like Dr. Rayman, am happy that it lived so long, I think we are all somewhat sad to see it go. But we can be consoled by the fact that the funding, the DSN time, the space, and the positively brilliant staff that have kept DS 1 running will now move on to projects that have even more excitement and adventure to offer us, and science will march on, at a steadily accelerating tempo.

Re:This is socialism in action

[Corgha]

If people wanted to do that, we could easily finance a private (or government funded) space program, under any system of government.

It is worth noting that there are some important differences between private and government-funded space programs (read: "allow me to rant in a half-asleep stupor for a while"). While I happily contribute whatever small percentage of my income taxes goes to NASA, and wish that percentage were greater, I'm not sure if I'd feel the same way about giving that same amount of money to some private space program.

First of all, at least NASA is to some degree accountable and is unlikely to go out of business, taking my money with it. When I look around at Excite and Enron and all sorts of other companies starting with 'E' that have flushed their shareholders' money down the toilet over the past few years in (relatively) down-to-earth businesses, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable giving money to some firm whose business plan consisted of space exploration. NASA may not do everything exactly how I would like them to, but at least they get something up into space every once in a while (which is more than can be said for, say, the Rotary Rocket corporation).

Second, were I to give some money to a private space exploration initiative, it would be a necessarily individual act. If no one else contributed, I'd feel like a sucker, and might even feel a little resentment about the affair. Have you ever been the first one to step forward out of a line and volunteer for some unpleasant task? It's a real scary feeling that quickly becomes less scary if others start stepping up. For public initiatives, there is none of that anxiety, and there is something good about knowing that we're all in it together (darn pesky emotions). Now, tax policy is a matter for another time, but at least I know that most people are contributing something, even if it's not the same amount.

The things that NASA does are things that we can all be proud of, because they are things we, the public, were all involved. I, for one, would like to see them keep doing them (and more of them), because people will, years from now, probably remember what Neil Armstrong said when he landed on the Moon a lot better than they will remember all the other crap we worry about.

That's about all I can think up at this hour, but I guess what I'm trying to say is this: For some things (and for now I think space exploration is one of them), public initiatives are a good thing precisely because they are public. Space exploration might not happen as much without NASA, and in my mind, that would suck.

Sometimes government-funded initiatives are not a bad thing -- those who feel otherwise can build their own rockets and launch themselves somewhere where they won't have to worry about the Man anymore. ;)