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Pioneer 10 Still Running After 30 years
evilempireinc writes "According to this article in Scientific American, Pioneer 10 is still functioning 30 years after it was launched in 1972, and is still sending back scientific data. The article mentions that two other old space craft, Voyager, and IMP-8 are still functioning after over 20 years as well due to overbuilt construction and redundant systems. Can't help but wonder if the present generation of "faster, better, cheaper" probes will ever live this long though."
As we all know, Voyager will still work in 200 years, when Kirk has to rescue Earth from it returning... ;)
So when will V'ger return, disguised as overblown special effects? Will we have to sacrifice a bald headed woman to it?
just wanted to say it, probably doesn't apply here though
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
is self delusion Due to Y2K issues it thinks it's still 1972, so it's way too young to burn out and die
http://fsfeurope.org/
Any kind of software on these? Well...until MS write stuff that will be propulsed in space, things will last longer then expected.
Anyone who went to elementary school in the 70's ought to remember the cafeteria milk cartons with little factoids about Pioneer, Voyager, and a bunch of other spacecraft. I wonder if anyone has pictures of those old things?
I can't help but notice that some of these older space probes may have cost more in 1970's dollar's when adjusted for inflation, but if they last for 30 years there was the potential to get more for you money over the years. It certainly seem more care went into the planning than some recent missions.
I mean.. of how much use is a 30 year old probe? I think I'd probably want to send out cheaper probes more frequently than still be getting data from an old one. I know it takes a while to get stuff out that far and all, but doesn't newer mean better?
It would be nice if I could have some of their fuel to power my car for the next 30 years without having to gas up.
Okay.. I read the article. It was an interesting mix between pat on the back science and good old "Hey, aint NASA GREAT!" enthusiasm.
My question.. which I did not see answered, are where ARE they right now? I know they havent cleared the SS yet, but where exactly are they? ARe we going to get pictures Pluto and Neptune back? (Which would be GREAT.. and would solve that long running question of whether Pluto is even a planet, a bit asteroid, or a half a planet that got pulled into the gravity well here).
Does it even have the transmitting power to send real data back anymore? or simply to weakly croak "I am here".
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Failure is an interesting field of study.
Lets say after 5 years you want a 99% chance it still works, or 1% chance of failure. If look at it after 10, or 20 years you'd only have a 2% or 3% chance of failure.
Basically if something is VERY reliable in the short term, it will have a LONG life before you would expect it to wear out.
Weibull statistics are pretty good for predicting life, you can read up on it. In many industries it is the accepted standard approach to predict life.
Everyone knows Pioneer makes the best sound equipment for us audiophiles!
doesn't survive 30 seconds of a
Most of these cheap probes are meant for suicide missions. It's hard to keep sending back info when you're slamming into a hellish atmosphere, or weathering the sandstorms of Mars.
It's like comparing dispisable watches to a Rolex.
New Scientist this week are covering the Pioneer craft as well, albeit with regard to their unexpected slowing down (or 'anomalous acceleration' to use the phrase of choice).
Great magazine, New Scientist, even if it's no longer available online. Shame, that. Anyway, I'm not providing a link. Google for the above phrase and you'll encounter a plethora of theories, most of them, ahem, idiosyncratic.
Makes sense to me, if they want to reproduce the successes of the past. "Faster, better, cheaper" is a myth -- you can't just spout a slogan and get everything you want. If you want better stuff, you've got to be prepared to spend more time or money on it, period. It's like the old programmer's motto: "Fast, cheap, good. Pick two."
Really, there are a lot of analogies between how NASA works and how software dev houses work, and perhaps the two could learn from each other's successes. Code reviews, as was discussed not so long ago on Slashdot, are by far the most cost-effective use of developers' time because of the enormous amount of bugs they prevent. But it's also a very frequently skimped-on area, due to penny pinching and programmer hubris (nothing wrong with MY code!).
My deviantArt site
My cellphone does the same thing, it sends signals through air. Although its battery lasts only couple of days.. I wonder if they have any of those Pioneer 10 batteries left at NASA second hand store?
NASA was thinking about turning off IMP-8 over 20 years ago, it was considered to be an old spacecraft back then. It's amazing that it is still working and providing useful data.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Poor Pioneer 10. I don't know what it did 30 years ago, but I'm sure the period for prosecution must have expired by now. Let bygones be bygones and stop chasing the poor thing.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
..."Can you hear me now?"
Error: Success
"their radioactive power sources should keep them chugging along until at least 2020. And Pioneer 10? It's on course to reach the Taurus constellation in about two million years. "
Meanwhile, on Planet Zydeca, near the Taurus constellation, around 2019...
"Captain! Incoming primitive radio active missle from the Human sector, Earth!"
"Send Bill Gates a snippet of AI code. That should wreck their social and economic systems. Hrm.. and make their Sun a few degrees warmer for shits and giggles"
Live web cams
This is probably the best argument I've heard for feature bloat in a long, long time. Overspending can be a good thing, kids.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
But you'll be glowing in a night: it uses radioactive power sources :)
Aren't the newer missions more specifically focused than the old missions? Ie, they have a small, highly defined endpoint they have to get to and the designs are built to do that one mission.
Seems that the older missions ("Fly that way until your battery runs out") were purposefully vague and required a spacecraft with a higher amount of durability due to the squishiness of the mission.
What I want to know is, why does the plaque showing humanity in all its naked glory have the man waving hello? How are aliens supposed to interpret this? For all we know that could be the intergalactic symbol for 'come and eat my species, we taste really yummy'...
Mation
I think it is ... but you were right about it being a good read!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
The whole article is a bit long to post here, but the gist lies along the lines of;
/.ing other websites!
Pioneer 10, the first space probe to go through the kupier belt of asteroids between Mars & Jupiter was originally slated for a four year trek to the edge of our solar system, but because of the strong design used in it's manufacture it continues sending data back to earth every-so-often with a signal that has roughly the power of a nightlight.
The probe is now around 30 years old, but is not the farthest man-made object from earth, that honor goes to Voyager 1, which overtook pioneer in Feb. 1998.
Pioneer will hopefully reach the Heilopause boundry before it's life ceases, which is where the pressure of the solar wind becomes equal to that of interstellar wind of cosmic rays. It is thought to be preceeded by the termination shock, which is where the solar wind suddenly slows from supersonic speeds to subsonic speeds (which I fail to find the relevance of in space, because mach-speeds have relevance based on the media through which they flow). However, if the probes reach this far, they may be able to beam back data confirming scientific theory about interstellar cosmic radiation.
The other spacecraft-which-refuses to die is IMP-8, a satellite orbiting earth at around 2/3rds the distance between the earth and the moon. It was used to collect data about long-scale solar processes. It had no magnetic drum onboard (hey, it was launched in 1973) but was made to beam data back to earth at the whopping fast rate of 6000-bits per second (whopping for the 70s anyway). Unfortunately, this data stream is in the VHF band, and as such, is becoming increasingly obsolete for data transmission. However, even though the satellite cannot be used for it's primary function anymore (the Magnetometer finally failed) it is still used to collect data about cosmic radiation densities, which is of help to know when finding times to launch long distance probes like the Voyagers & Pioneer.
Pioneer 10 is slated to eventually reach the Taurus constellation... in roughly two million years. The Voyagers will chug along for a few more years anyway, their nuclear power sources should keep them happy until at least 2020. And old IMP-8? He'll be used until at least 2005. "Pioneer 10, the Voyager twins and IMP-8 show you just can't keep a good spacecraft down."
Now! Back to
- Jones
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
I concur with your and the poster's premise on that. You can't even by a toaster these days that lasts more than 4 years. People had a toaster for life back in the day.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the older NASA equipment will end up being the longest lasting and best equipment ever made for space.
Perhaps it won't just be due to the times (there was probably more of an emphasis on needing things to work back then when there was competition with the then Soviet Union) but that's probably part of it.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
Cant help but think of Star Trek - The Motion Picture..
"VYGER"
Searching for it's creator.
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
Pioneer 10 has been running for ages and ages in the depths of space, thanks to its mega-reliable design. However, will the "bow shock" and "termination shock" be strong enough to destroy the craft, or break it?
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
[2002-07-23]
Pioneer 10
Distance from Sun (AU) 80.858
Speed relative to Sun (km/s) 12.255
Speed relative to Sun (AU/year) 2.585
Ecliptic Latitude 3.0
Declination (J2000) 25.78
Right Ascension (J2000) 5.012 hrs
One-way light time (hours) 11.31
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Older technology works and is very rohbust wheras newer more fancy technology has a shorter lifespan and just breaks when a granny within a 1 mile radius farts.
As an example, look at mobile devices, older devices can take a huge beating, whereas newer devices just disentigrate on impact.
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
I'm sure it's quite a point of pride for the engineers who worked on those marvelous spacecraft... it would be for me. Bravo. That said, this is a story for two reasons. First and foremost, it is cute... a valient satellite greatly exceeds its creators expectations. Second, it reflects how impressive NASA used to be. Now I don't doubt that there are many very smart people working there nowadays, but if nothing else, I can't imagine there being the enthusiam there once was and that inevitably effects the quality of work. I really do want NASA to continue, provided that it pushes boundries. Keeping a satellite alive and kicking is neat, but it, or more satellites for a different purpose in earth orbit should not be all NASA has to offer.
but I think older machines were built better then newer ones we have today (as in workmanship). but thats my two cents.
If we don't end war, War will end us. - H.G. Wells
. Or that it is real stable because the OS crashes only once a day.
Fight Spammers!
Booyah!
I doubt anything built today will last as long as those die hards. Hell, we can't even send a probe to Mars without it "disappearing".
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Does anyone know what sort of brains those birds have? I used to work with the RCA-1802 chip in late 70's, and someone told me that such a chip was on board one of the spacecrafts. Unfortunately I can not remember which one.
In Murphy We Turst
I seriously question the long-term of any semiconductor electronics built today. No, there are no moving parts - except the electrons and any atoms they may knock about as they scurry on their way from source to drain and through the wires.
Shipping reliable semiconductors has always been a lifetime issue. There is a "bathtub curve" of failures, with a higher number of early fallout, then a very reliable main lifetime, then failures rise again at wearout. Wearout happens through mechanisms like electromigration, where the electrons physically knock the metalization atoms out of place. In addition, all of the hot process steps like diffusion continue to happen, just at much slower rates. High reliability semiconductors are "burned in", run at higher temperatures and voltages than normal, to force them past that early fallout and throw those parts away.
So what does this mean to space electronics? First, radiation just doesn't help. You can design rad-hard, but the crystal lattice is still taking damage, and it's cumulative. The low temperature helps to slow down wearout mechanisms.
But the big problem is modern technology. The smaller geometries will simply wear out faster. Finer wires are more subject to electromigration, though using copper is an improvement because the atoms are heavier than aluminum. But gates are thinner, as are diffusions and spacings, non of which helps long life. When designing a burn-in regimen, it's getting tougher to get past early failures without approaching wearout. While frequency can be reduced to increase lifetime, scaling voltage down is getting tougher, because we're running darned close to minimums, already.
One of my pet thoughts is the idea of electronics for a multi-generation starship. Other than slowing it down, stopping as much as possible, reducing voltages, etc, it's a tough problem. Maybe the best way is to scrape the bargain bins for old technology.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Pioneer 10 has also recently divorced its wife, a Tandy TRS-80, and has been seen tooling around town with a perky young AMD. Scientists have theorized that Pioneer 10 may soon take up skydiving in a vain effort to prove that it is still young. "We hope that Pioneer 10 will just admit to its age and settle down, possibly move to florida and play some golf" said Dr. James Tooly of NASA, "It's just disgraceful..."
This is not the sig you're looking for
I am still giving back data, though whether it is useful or not is definitely a matter of opinion. Sadly, international scientists don't seem to contact me much these days, but I would hope to be able to continue to learn and provide information to others for a few more decades at least...
Cheers,
Ian
The B52 combat aircraft that are working in afganistan today were delivered in 1962. I agree that they might have recieved some maintence in the interim, but the airframes are older than tha pilots in almost all cases. Now thats reliability.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Well, there you have the same conflict that the consumer industry has. Let's take car manufacturers as an example:
- Engineer/Designer: Let's make it as good as possible
- Project Leader: Let's have the results as fast as possible
- Controller: Let's make it as cheap as possible
- Service Dept: Let's make it as serviceable as possible but with a limited maintenance period
- Product Planning: Let's include all the cool features the competitor has
- Marketing & Sales: Let's limit the expected life time, so that we can sell a replacement as soon as possible...
See? Everybody wants to make money, but in a different way - and has therefore everybody has different ideas about how the product is going to be. I'd say that in the Space Industry, this is valid too, at least the first 3 items... So, since missions are planned for a certain amount of time, I'd be surprised if the probes aren't designed for roughly the same time (times 1.5 times pi as safety margin or so)...
Point is: Today we know more about life time of parts and are therefore able to optimise costs by reducing margins. Shortsighted project management then forces most of us, to do exactly this...
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
Forrest Gump, is it you?!!
I think exploration equipment like the Pioneer are excellent investments and in the long run will benefit mankind immensely.
That makes it all the more painful that it is named after such a terrible period in American history. The pioneers swept across the West, killing Indians and the now nearly-extinct buffalo that had lived here since before white man knew the continent existed. They cut down old trees and ripped up fertile farmland, grabbing all they could in an Imperialist drive to acquire the world for the fledgling nation.
In contrast, the Pioneer 10 explores in a mission of peace and benevolence. I would find it humorous if it weren't so disturbing.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Can't help but wonder if the present generation of "faster, better, cheaper" probes will ever live this long though.
We just have to send them away from Earth at speeds closer and closer to the speed of light!
It's "far" outside the solar system, twice as far away from the sun as Pluto, floating around in a void. 11.31 lighthours away from the sun, and 4.3 lightyears (less 11.31 hours) from the next star. Unless there's a flying saucer passing by, don't expect this to ever become more than a radio beacon. Works yes, but useful? No.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It just makes me wonder how well we'd be getting on in space if the planet stopped buying weapons and built spacecraft instead. When Pioneer and Voyager were built NASA had a much larger percentage of the US budget...
... things were made more solid because the technology was new. They didn't really know how strong they had to build things to make it do what it's supposed to do. Now we know. A modern probe or sattellite will therefor not last for 20+ years. They will - stupid enough - only last as long as they are supposed to.
Look a monkey!
Ahh I can see it now..
YOU HAVE REACHED HTTP://UWW.PIONEER.SOL - WE ARE CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION
The Pioneers and Voyagers are the only man-made objects to have left our solar system. Even though the spacecraft are sending little more information than "I'm not dead yet," physicists can use those signals to determine where the influence of the solar wind (the heliopause) ends, and whether or not gravity behaves as expected at large distances. (See, for example, this article.)
Pioneer 10 is still functioning 30 years after it was launched in 1972, and is still sending back scientific data. The article mentions that two other old space craft, Voyager, and IMP-8 are still functioning after over 20 years...
Even numbered releases always were the stable ones.
For near earth stuff, it would make more sense to build it just good enough and save the money for the next project. For far flung stuff (like voyager and pioneer), is the data useful? If not, what a waste of resources.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Nu-cu-lar, Marge. It's pronounced 'nu-cu-lar.'
I wish I could punch you for saying that.
...some fifteen years later, it'll be used as intragalatic skeet shoot by a trigger-happy Klingon captain.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
...correct. Nobody gives a rat's ass about the quality of their work anymore.
And according to this week's New Scientist are still producing 'new science'.
Apparently they are slowing down relative to the sun, due to the action of some unknown force, which may be linked to dark matter.
Synopsis here:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/search/dosearc
Though you'll have to buy an issue or wait a week to view the full text.
NASA still publishes semi-regular status reports on both Voyagers here.
--
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
Pioneer 10 is powered by a device called an "RTG", which stands for "radioisotopic thermoelectric generator." A chunk of Plutonium-238 heats up one side of a thermocouple, generating electricity. Since the Pu-238 has a half-life of 88 years, the power supplied by the RTG decreases over decades. At this point, there is barely enough power to run one or two particle detectors or send back a message to Earth.
For a detailed history of RTGs, check out this Miamisburg Environmental Management Project report.
Current solar panels are pretty much useless beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
Michael Richmond "This is the heart that broke my finger."
mwrsps@rit.edu http://stupendous.rit.edu
Please check it out! http://www.Pioneer10.waythehelloutthere.org
Sorry about the lag. I'm working on it.
Read a little closer perhaps.
I don't think anyone is saying that everything made back then was quality. That's obviously not the case and never will be the case. There is always going to be some crappy stuff being made.
If there was no crappy stuff then there would be nothing to use to compare against and the word "quality" or "long lasting" would have no meaning.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
I'd say there is a difference between "high quality" and "more durable"...
"Today, most cheap stuff is made of plastic. Even if it breaks, you'll still have the faded, ungluable pieces to look at many decades from now."
Durable yes. High quality? If you want a wasteland of non-biodegradable trash.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
I assume that the longevity of the instrument is much reduced when it is forced to rely upon solar power rather than nuclear batteries. This is a necessary evil, as it is just too dangerous to send this material into orbit with NASA's safety record.
Why am I glad that the Challenger blew up? Why should YOU be? Because the NEXT planned shuttle mission was going to carry LOTS of nuclear material.
OK, random query:
what is the exact line of demarcation between Gen X and Gen Y? How long do Generations last?
I know Gen X and Gen Y are marketing demographics etc. but I'd like to know.
I remember reading once that, officially, a generation lasts 20 years.
So if The Boomers started with the first wave of soldiers coming home in '45, gen X begins in 65 and gen Y begins in 85, which gets me out of being Gen Y by a few years.
and honestly I feel much more associated with Gen X culture, Nirvana, the Simpsons, etc. etc. than what's out there now. I'm not some bleach blonde, Abercrombie, SUV driving partier. And I'm not listening to Staind or Puddle of Mudd, or whatever fourth generation Pearl Jam ripoff that passes for "alternative" now.
I'm just becoming more and more hostile to the vast majority of my agegroup (or at least to the media images thereof) Is it too much to ask that they like one good band or one decent movie?
At least Gen X slacked with some style before they all became web billionares or whatever. Gen Y is a bunch of over-monied brand-name losers.
Perhaps NASA does have a theory to explain the anomalies in the flight paths of Pioneer 10 & 11, but it's classified?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. But go ahead and believe what you want, hell - believe what the government scientists tell you. I won't.
What's a second? An hour? A day?
It has much more to do with
the Earth's rotation than with cesium.
I've got a Volkswagen that old, and it's still running, and it was designed in the 1940's, and retailed for about $4000 in 1972.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
(* if they want to reproduce the successes of the past. "Faster, better, cheaper" is a myth -- you can't just spout a slogan and get everything you want. If you want better stuff, you've got to be prepared to spend more... *)
The probe failure rate in the faster/better/cheaper (FBC) times was about the same as prior probes. Marineer's 3 and 8 took a dump IIRC. The Viking probes had an instrument or 2 that did not work, and Galellio had a big antenna problem that prevented most images from being sent.
Exploring space technology is just as important as exploring space. You have to learn by doing. A lot was learned in the FBC era.
Eventually a balance can be reached, but you have to try before you find out where that balance is and learn new techniques on the way.
I applaud NASA for trying something bold with cost cutting. They tried to go where no Gov agency has gone before.
Table-ized A.I.
if i recall correctly, there was alot of debate as to wether or not they should send galelio to europa, as it contained a nuclear power plant... did voyager 1 and 2 have the same environmentalists bitching and moaning? also, voyager 1 and 2 should continue operating till 2020 if all goes well; assuming galeleio survives, how long is it's reactor good for?
moox. for a new generation.
...old probes, the 70's and mysterious forces gives me the willies. Perhaps it's just a flashback to Cartman gets an anal probe...
Pearl Jam? The biggest bunch of pretensious wankers since the Who. A real band was the Pixies, the most rocking band since Zeppelin.
Too bad music only got worse. My god, Linkin Park sucks.
exactly like my search for my next girlfriend...faster...better...cheaper...
That tech support that does not kill me...drives me crazier
What I want to know is, why does the plaque showing humanity in all its naked glory have the man waving hello? How are aliens supposed to interpret this? For all we know that could be the intergalactic symbol for 'come and eat my species, we taste really yummy'...
:P
Certain NASA officials of old have been indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of 'distributing pornography to beings of indeterminate age or species.'
Maybe we should have put a sign on the door that says: "You must be 18 years of age to proceed, if not go back!"
I apparently forgot that sig != uptime...
"Ahhh die cast metal...don't make them quite like they used to, energron hungy tanks...asaposed to self replicated enegron starved junk...ahem YEEESSSSSS."
-MegaTron
Thanks for clearing that up. I was getting a headache trying to figure out how/why one would send a probe past Venus on it's way to Jupiter, etc.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
That was REALLY funny.
I can't stop laughing.
Mod me who cares.. what else can this worthless karma get me.
The Russians splattered plutonium in the href="http://www.jamesoberg.com/articles/plutonium .html">Andes, thanks to the failed Mars96 probe. The RTGs are probably intact, but you'd think that people would at least try to find out.
I think jovlinger means that the (reduced mission) ISS will not have accomplished very much compared to a rail gun launcher that could have been built here on earth instead using that money. IMHO, this is another casualty of our success with the space shuttle program: meaning the investment in shuttles means that (politically) we have to use them instead of making something better and cheaper.
I'm sure he doesn't mean a rail gun ON the ISS, it would probably push the ISS out of orbit with that equal and opposite reaction thing.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
How many of these "faster, better, cheaper" probes have lasted long enough to reach their objective, let alone lasting long after.
I know, it's mean, but NASA really needs to work on its quality control.
BlackGriffen
The most likely place for Pioneer 10 to be in a few hundred years is Washington, D.C. -- hanging from the ceiling in the Smithsonian...
So it wasn't made in the US after all. Russian Components, American Components, All are made in China!!! (Or in this case, Japan!!)
And after the dust settles and the Aliens have stomped every major city flat with their Giant Destructo Beams (useable only if hovering directly above said city) and have enslaved the entire population, the remenants of Man will wonder how... How in the world those monsterous aliens found them? And they'll reply, "How could we not? You gave us a written invitation from that dinky little dish-rocket we found as well as pictures of all your cities and yourselves and your language! We thought to ourselves, 'this is gonna be cake.'"
Vote YES on proposotion 645: The "Visit them with vastly superior firepower before they visit us" initiative. Every vote counts!
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Did you happen to work for the Gore campaign?
The probes are gradually dying because their plutonium fuel is running out
I thought it was more the degration of the thermocouples.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
IIRC Mariner 1 failed as well. Celebrated case where someone left off a full stop (aka period) in a Fortran program.
The early Ranger moon probes (the ones covered in balsa that were intended to bounce; I kid you not!) also all failed as I remember.
Surely someone else besides me has noticed the much more compelling article in the current edition of New scientist detailing how the probes (more than one) are not where they should be according to calculations - and that this may have some rather large implications possibly even as far reaching as requiring a modification to gravity. Dark matter rates a mention too.
The probes have inexplicably experienced an acceleration of unknown origin that has remained linear over a timescale of decades.
Numerous sources of acceleration are ruled out in the article such as energy leakage from the probe.
Others will do a better job on this topic than me. I read it a few days ago now...
Or maybe because all the shitty stuff from way-back-then has already broken, and only the quality stuff remains. That way we only have evidence of old quality stuff. That doesn't mean only quality stuff was made.
Yeah, absolutely. Remember 8-tracks? Even the media's design inherently didn't allow it to be quality-built, no matter how well engineered your 8-track player might have been. (Plastic "shaft" cast into the shell, holding up the pinch roller - wow and flutter galore, and as the shaft wore, it got worse.)
Commodore 64s and Vic-20s often used chromed cardboard as RFI shielding over the motherboard, and an overall cheap (under-rated components) design. I think they survive because there were so many of them made, and so many people have memories that they've become cult items.
The Volkswagen car was similar; it was Hitler's People's Car, part of the German government's campaign to assure all its people that they would have a radio and a car and a few other things we now consider to be essential. Ferdinand Porsche designed a durable car, extraordinarily innovative and high-tech for its day (late 1930s), but it was a mega-cheap car even then.
Similar, was the Volksempfanger, the German radio of the people. Bakelite cabinet (cheap and easy to make). On some of the cheaper models, the chassis - to which tube sockets and a large transformer was mounted - was *cardboard*.
Cheap has always existed, but, to quote the old cliche, "Quality remains long after price is forgotten".
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I concur with your and the poster's premise on that. You can't even by a toaster these days that lasts more than 4 years. People had a toaster for life back in the day.
Overheard recently at a church in Pat Buchanan country:
It's not them nation-destroying ho-mo-sex-shuls who are sending us to hell!
It's not them weird Catholic priests diddling little boys!
It's not even them communists with the long hair telling us that we should sell the church's Chevy Tahoe and make the poor children ride to Sunday School in a car with a silly furrin' name like hon-duh!
It's Computer-Aided Design! Calculators! They ARE the Great Satan!
When I was a boy in Theology school, and we was designing Pulpit-warmers (you know, to keep our hands warm as we preach), we used sliderules for all them complicated technical numbers.
We used logarithm tables in big books to come up with the numbers we added and subtracted on our sliderules to multiply and divide.
I wasn't one of them fancy pretty-boy engineering students, NO! I could not afford a 16" sliderule with a leather belt case like those pretty-boys with their pocket protectors and horn-rimmed glasses! All I could afford was a 10" long Keuffel and Esser sliderule! When I got beyond two decimal places of accuracy, all the little lines was too tiny for me to see!
My logarithm table book included all my sines and cosines as well! Them fancy-pants engineering students had four decimal places of accuracy in their books, but I had only THREE!
So you see, ladies and gentlemen, I had to learn to make do! I had to learn to round up and down, allowing for the imprecision of my calculating devices! And now, here I am, 40 years later, my hands kept WARM! by the very same pulpit-heater I built back then!
Now today! All those children, designing things, and the computer does it for them! 15 places of accuracy! 20 if they demand it! Carried through every stage of calculuation, all the way to ultimate strength. Things just ain't overbuilt the way they used to be!
Look at this. The Saturn V rocket, which got man to the moon and back on Apollo, it was built with sliderules and log tables! The shuttle? CAD and calculators. Guess which one is in the shop more often? Guess which one blowed up?
My own machine gun for when the damned commies come for my car keys and cigarettes, it keeps on breaking too. Them round advance arms keep breaking because the metal's too flimsy and miscalculated strength! It's a conspiracy! They'll run us over and replace that there cross with a PICTURE OF STALIN! Is that what you want? "In Lenin We Trust" on the money?
Computers and CAD and calculators are The Great Satan! They are the tools of OVERTHROW being used to put GODLESS COMMUNISTS in power!
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Contrary to popular myth, the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes may not have been powered by the intel 4004 after all. Anyone know what the actual CPU used was and better yet, anyone know the source code?
Here are the official specs on the Pioneer 10/11 probes:
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-349/ch3.htm
If Pioneer 10 were running Microsloft Windows, how many times would it have to be rebooted on the trip?
Gives in-flight reboot new meaning.
And yes, I know that Windows wasn't around when it was launched...
-Jeff
Or did Scientific American factor that in?
Somewhere the quantum machanic theorists
will back me on this one..