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Pioneer 10 Still Running After 30 years

Posted by michael on from the overdue-for-tuneup-and-brake-job dept.

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."

119 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. VGER by perreira · · Score: 5, Funny

    As we all know, Voyager will still work in 200 years, when Kirk has to rescue Earth from it returning... ;)

    1. Re:VGER by Buran · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, that was Voyager VI. Except we were told of only two: Voyager I and Voyager II (actually launched first, if I recall correctly, due to a faster trajectory.) Hmmm... Wonder if the Men in Black were involved in that cover-up. ;)

      --
      i am a soviet space shuttle
  2. they don't make them like they used to by SystematicPsycho · · Score: 4, Funny

    just wanted to say it, probably doesn't apply here though

    --
    Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
  3. The secret of its success .. by Derwen · · Score: 5, Funny

    is self delusion

    Pioneer 10 is still functioning 30 years after it was launched in 1972,
    Due to Y2K issues it thinks it's still 1972, so it's way too young to burn out and die ;-)

    --
    http://fsfeurope.org/
  4. Milk Cartons? by mister7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

    1. Re:Milk Cartons? by AJWM · · Score: 5, Funny

      And underneath the picture, the words:
      "Missing. Have you seen this spacecraft?"

      --
      -- Alastair
    2. Re:Milk Cartons? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      (* 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? *)

      Now they just have missing children on them.

      Hey! I wonder if in Martian cafeterias they have milk cartons that say, "Have you seen this probe?" next to a picture of the missing Mars Polar Lander.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:Milk Cartons? by Maniakes · · Score: 2, Funny

      And underneath the picture, the words:
      "Missing. Have you seen this spacecraft?"

      Only for Mars Observer.

      --
      A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
    4. Re:Milk Cartons? by markmoss · · Score: 2

      No, the Martian milk cartons say "If you see an Earthian terrorist device like this, report it to the Home Planet Security Office right away."

  5. Newer, cheaper, unreliable? by Picass0 · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:Newer, cheaper, unreliable? by jovlinger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No!

      you don't want the probes to survive longer than planned. You want them to be like F1 race cars: ideally, the engine should explode _just_ over the finish line. Only then have you maximized tolerances. However, due to uncertainty, you engineer in a margin of safety.

      A 30 year margin doesn't indicate good design, it indicates a MASSIVE misjudgemnt of the tolerances involved. Fine. these were the first probes built, so noone knew the margins needed.

      It's misguided to continue insisting on such ludicrous margins. If you want a long-living probe, then that becomes a design consideration, but this _moves the finish line_, rather than increasing the margins necessary.

      The long life of the probes is indicative of good engineers making conservative choices in the face of uncertainty rather than good design.

      aside:

      the only reason why fast-cheap-cheerful isn't a handsdown winner is that each probe's cost is augmented by the cost of launch, which makes even a free probe an expensive mission. Thus, there is economic gain from a bit of overengineering, as the cost of the hardware isn't really a large part of the total cost, so any bonus functionality you get is worth the price, to a limit.

      The real loss if the ISS is shut down will be that they could have built a rail-gun to fire largely unpowered probes on long-term missions for basically free.

    2. Re:Newer, cheaper, unreliable? by BigZaphod · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "The real loss if the ISS is shut down will be that they could have built a rail-gun to fire largely unpowered probes on long-term missions for basically free."

      Well, except they need to get materials there somehow.

      --
      Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
    3. Re:Newer, cheaper, unreliable? by RickHunter · · Score: 2

      Materials? You're in orbit. You've got lots of big space rocks nearby that you can get to with relatively little cost. These should, theoretically, be able to give you everything you need to make a probe factory.

      Besides, then there's savings #2: that you only have to carry up the probe itself. The (reusable) long-range launch equipment's already sitting there in orbit.

    4. Re:Newer, cheaper, unreliable? by jaoswald · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Are you out of your mind?

      ISS is in low earth orbit. There certainly aren't a lot of "big space rocks" nearby that can be easily gotten to. If there were, you'd be hearing about it on CNN. Even getting a probe (NEAR) to one was a pretty big achievement in itself, and nothing compared to mining and refining the materials you would find there. Last time I checked, even a 1970's era probe like Pioneer wasn't made out of brick and gravel.

      You'd be a lot more credible if you talked about grabbing already-launched satellites out of their orbits and recycling them. Which is not very credible.

    5. Re:Newer, cheaper, unreliable? by RickHunter · · Score: 2

      Once you're to orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.

      Low Earth orbit is a hell of a lot less expensive to get to other places from than Earth itself is. And I seem to remember that we do have at least a few rocks in the leading and trailing Lunar lagrange points, which aren't that hard to get to from Earth.

  6. How special is that.. by XaXXon · · Score: 3, Funny

    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?

    1. Re:How special is that.. by ReidMaynard · · Score: 4, Funny
      I mean.. of how much use is a 30 year old probe?

      My probe is 44 years old and works just fine, thank you.

      --
      -- www.globaltics.net

      Political discussion for a new world

    2. Re:How special is that.. by dalassa · · Score: 2

      Well since it took us thirty years to get out there and I don't we could get there much faster today. Plus the cost of making a probe with enough power to last the journey. I'd say we've gotten not only our money's worth but that these are damn useful probes. If nothing else they can give us an idea of what to look for with our next probes. This is assuming that we can get the money for the next generation of deep space probes which I highly doubt.

      To bad that Pioneer 10's ultimate demise will come at the hands of the Klingons.

      --
      Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
  7. To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Maeryk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?
    1. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Cheeko · · Score: 2

      The Voyager probes and Pioneer 10 are all well outside the orbit of pluto and Neptune was observed in like 1988 by Voyager 2. As for analyzing Pluto. There is currently a mission being planned, but it is in danger of being cut for financial reasons. This article covers a little bit about the Pluto probe.

    2. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by linderdm · · Score: 5, Informative

      This graphic from The Telegraph article shows where Pioneer 10 is (outside of our Solar System). It also shows pictures it took of Jupiter (1973), Saturn (1979) and Pluto (1983). It has been almost 20 years since it left our Solar System. Apparently it is heading towards the "Eye" of the Taurus Bull constellation, and will take 2 million years to reach it. however it is slowing down by some "mysterious" force.

    3. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Zathrus · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 have both cleared the solar system... well, depending on what you define as the solar system.

      Pioneer 10 crossed the orbit of Neptune and passed beyond the (at the time) furthest orbiting planet on June 13, 1983 (see this page). It hasn't passed the heliopause yet (distance where the solar wind ceases), at least not that anyone can determine.

      Pioneer 10 is not the probe furthest from the sun, however. Apparantly that honor goes to Voyager 1, which is moving faster and exceeded Pioneer 10's heliocentric distance on Feb 17, 1998, but it's still well over 7 billion miles away. (see http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/p ioneer/PNhome.html).

      One interesting thing I found while looking for this is that only Pioneer 10 is moving in the opposite direction from our solar system (relative to the galactic core). Voyager 1 & 2, as well as Pioneer 11 are moving "in front of" us, while Pioneer 10 is moving the opposite direction. This could result in some really useful information about the edges of the solar system -- except that apparantly Pioneer 10's power system is going to run out of juice in a few years (solar powered I guess - the W/m^2 will probably be too low to power the probe at that point).

      And no, we're not getting pictures of Neptune or Pluto. You determine these things at time of launch -- we've been doing astronomical calculations for a few hundred years and know where the planets are going to be far ahead of time. Pioneer 10 wasn't scheduled to make a flyby of anything but Jupiter because the orbits were wrong.

      And yes, it is still sending back data. As is Pioneer 6, which is still orbiting the sun at about 74 million miles (inside the Earth's orbit). But, like I said, apparantly that's not going to be much longer for Pioneer 10. Shame... but one heck of a legacy to its designers. And just think - in a couple million years we'll be able to pick it up in the vicinity of Aldebaran.

    4. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by jeff_bond · · Score: 2, Interesting
      linderdm wrote:

      however it is slowing down by some "mysterious" force

      I read in this weeks New Scientist mag about this. Apparently it is 400,000km nearer to earth than it should be. I believe the doppler shift of its return signal is used to calculate its speed, and hence its distance

      This shortfall in distance might suggest that gravity doesn't obey the inverse square law at large distances. If this is true, it might be a reason for the anomalous motions of galaxies, and the speculation about the existance of dark matter.

      Jeff

      --
      stty erase ^H
    5. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by little1973 · · Score: 2, Informative

      The long running question of whether Pluto is a planet or not was solved a few years ago. Pluto is just a big asteroid from the Kuiper-belt or the Oort cloud. As for its status, it is still a planet for tradition's sake. At least this was the decision of astronomers at their annual meeting in 1999.

      --
      Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
    6. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Buran · · Score: 5, Informative

      (solar powered I guess - the W/m^2 will probably be too low to power the probe at that point).

      Nope. Actually, solar panels are not a practical means of powering a spacecraft beyond the asteroid belt, and these probes go far, far beyond that.

      Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, Ulysses, Galileo, and Cassini (to name many of the "big" and famous probes that are out there right now) are all nuclear powered. They carry radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that carry plutonium as a fuel source. Surprisingly (?), the Viking I and II landers that touched down on Mars in 1976 are also nuclear-powered.

      The probes are gradually dying because their plutonium fuel is running out, not because the sun is fading away. At the distances at which many of these probes travel, the Sun appears (from their location) simply as a bright start among many other stars.

      --
      i am a soviet space shuttle
    7. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by jaoswald · · Score: 3, Informative

      This could result in some really useful information about the edges of the solar system -- except that apparantly Pioneer 10's power system is going to run out of juice in a few years (solar powered I guess - the W/m^2 will probably be too low to power the probe at that point).

      The Pioneer 10 & 11 probes are not solar powered. They use RTG (radiothermal generation) power sources, which are hot lumps of radioactive material and the heat is converted into electricity. Solar power would be far too weak even at Jupiter or Saturn, much less at the distances that Pioneer 10 & 11 are at.

      The radioactive source is continually decaying, so it will lose power over time.

    8. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Pfhreakaz0id · · Score: 2

      interesting... found a link on cnn and an interesting summary on something called the solar storm monitor

      --
      DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
    9. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by JCholewa · · Score: 2, Informative

      > Okay.. I read the article. It was an interesting mix between pat on the back science
      > and good old "Hey, aint NASA GREAT!" enthusiasm.

      Well, at least that's a good counter to the constant "scientific research doesn't help people, so it's better to spend twenty times on the military than on space research" FUD that seethes through popular media.

      > 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?

      http://www.vttoth.com/probes/probes.html

      That's an okay list of current space probe locations, though it's not in any kind of detail.

      None of the deep space probes are anywhere even remotely near Pluto or Neptune.

      http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/flteam/weekly-rpts/c ur rent.html
      http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space _Projects/p ioneer/PNStat.html
      http://www.schools.ash.org.au/ rochedale/solar9.htm

      The above URLs should show you that both Voyagers as well as Pioneer 10 are at least ten billion kilometers away from the Sun, and they are leaving the solar system at greater than minimal escape velocity. Pluto, when furthest from Sol, is 7.4 billion kilometers away. So the probes are anywhere between 2.6 and 17.4 billion (or more) billion kilometers away from Pluto. Which means that we won't learn much from them about our little wanna-be planet.

      > (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).

      The long-running question is not science based, really. We already know the mass and diameter of Pluto. Heck, we even have a
      (http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/09.html) surface map of Pluto, thanks to Hubble (the satellite, not the man). The debate over whether Pluto is a planet is dependent on two things: (1) we don't really have a specific definition of the word "Planet", and (2) the common masses would get pissed off if Pluto got demoted, even if it was a rightful demotion, since they were taught as children that Pluto is a planet

      > Does it even have the transmitting power to send real data back anymore?
      > or simply to weakly croak "I am here".

      Well, Pioneer still performs maneuvering commands when requested. I don't know if its scientific resources are useable, but the Voyagers have nominal science instrument performance. I do recall that they are using these probes to determine where the point between solar wind and its stellar equivalent become equivalent in strength. I can't tell you much more, as I'm a bit busy at work today. :)

      -JC
      http://www.jc-news.com/

    10. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by dpille · · Score: 3, Informative
      This is probably the best up-to-date source for exactly where they are, given that it predicts future location. The actual mission status stats seem to get updated only occassionally, and I think what's up there is about three months old.

      Anyway, Voyager 1 appears to be just short of 8 billion miles from the sun rather than "well over 7" as mentioned below.

    11. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by AJWM · · Score: 2

      The ALSEPs (Apollo Lunar Scientific Experiment Packages) deployed on the Moon by the Apollo 12 and 14-17 missions were also RTG powered.

      They might be operating yet if they hadn't all been remotely switched off (including the receivers, so no way to turn them back on) by NASA back in 1977 because they didn't want to fund the ground support team any longer.

      (Sigh. At least the passive laser reflectors -- used for precise range measurements from Earth -- still work.)

      --
      -- Alastair
    12. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by loconet · · Score: 2

      "VOYAGER 1 is currently more than 7.7 billion miles from Earth, and Voyager 2 is at a distance of more than 6 billion miles."

      --
      [alk]
    13. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by jaoswald · · Score: 3, Informative

      My post needs to be slightly corrected: the cause of the power loss is mostly due to aging of the thermal couple, not the decay of the radioactivity.

      More information from Pioneer home page:

      Electrical power is provided by four radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG), each providing 40 watts of power at launch. Two three-rod trusses, 120 degrees apart, project from the equipment compartment to deploy the RTG power sources about 10 feet from the center of the spacecraft. A third boom, 120 degrees from the others, projects from the experiments compartment and positions the helium vector magnetometer sensor 20 feet from the spacecraft center.

      and from the FAQ

      Question:Why does the RTG power decrease?
      Answer: Power for the Pioneer 10 is generated by the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG's). Heat from the decay of the plutonium 238 isotope is converted by thermoelectric couples into electrical current. The electrical output depends on the hot junction temperature, the thermal path to the radiator fins, and the cold junction temperature. It is the degradation of the thermoelectric junction that has the major effect in decreasing the power output of the RTG. In the 30-year time scale operation of Pioneer 10, the 92 year half-life of the isotope does not appreciably affect the RTG operation. The nuclear decay heat will keep the hot junction temperature hot for many years but unfortunately will not be able to be converted into enough electricity to power the transmitter for much longer.

      As an aside, this type of power source is behind the plutonium scare-mongering that surrounded Cassini.

    14. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      The ALSEPs (Apollo Lunar Scientific Experiment Packages) deployed on the Moon by the Apollo 12 and 14-17 missions were also RTG [nuclear] powered.....been remotely switched off....by NASA back in 1977 because they didn't want to fund...no way to turn them back on...

      The acronym is mighty close to ASLEEP, how fitting.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    15. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by roman_mir · · Score: 2

      No, it just reached the "end" of our universe simulation program. Didn't you watch the 13'th floor?

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    16. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Yunzil · · Score: 2

      ARe we going to get pictures Pluto and Neptune back?

      Um, Voyager 2 passed Neptune in 1989 and took some nice pictures.

      None of them are headed anywhere near Pluto.

    17. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by NanoGator · · Score: 2

      "...and will take 2 million years to reach it. however it is slowing down by some "mysterious" force."

      Hmm.. You know.. given the speed of light, and a few other factors.. there's a very real possibility we'll get this picture back from it.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    18. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Art+Tatum · · Score: 2, Funny

      And, of course, Pluto expressed his opinion on the whole matter here.

    19. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by dmiller · · Score: 2

      And just think - in a couple million years we'll be able to pick it up in the vicinity of Aldebaran.

      Not if the Klingons use it for target practice first.

    20. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by ender81b · · Score: 2

      I believe the reasoning for Viking I and II to be RTG powered was due to the martian dust storms which can last for months and block out the sun - possibly interfering with the probe's operation.

      BTW, the RTG's are powered by the decay of the Plutonium - specifically that decay gives off heat which is converted into electrcity (vastly oversimplified of course). The 'fuel' is indeed running out - it is decaying and soon won't generate enough ehat to power the spacecraft.

    21. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by jelle · · Score: 2

      It's not a mysterious force. We've all felt this force when we were away from home for a long time.

      Poineer 10 is homesick.

      --
      --- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
  8. Design for Reliability by nuggz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  9. Big Deal by jvl001 · · Score: 5, Funny
    I'm still running after I was launched in 1972.

    --
    /. is to journalism as graffiti is to a bathroom wall
    1. Re:Big Deal by NanoGator · · Score: 2

      "I'm still running after I was launched in 1972."

      Which is proof that he isn't solar powered.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  10. Of course they won't by Saint+Fnordius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Of course they won't by swb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's like comparing dispisable watches to a Rolex.

      I have a Timex Marathon 100 digital watch I bought in 1986 for $35. I have worn it daily since then and have only changed the battery 4 times and it works fine.

      Someone I know who has a Rolex paid over $2000 for it and they are "supposed" to send it in for cleaning every 3-5 years (which runs about $500).

      What was that about disposable watches and Rolexes?

    2. Re:Of course they won't by mosch · · Score: 5, Funny

      You not only know how much you paid for a watch you bought in 1986, but you also wear a digital watch all the time? Go take a shower, go out and get laid. It's clear that your wife isn't doing it right.

    3. Re:Of course they won't by dillon_rinker · · Score: 2

      You report four downtimes for your watch.

      You report no downtimes for your friend's watch.

      What was your point?

    4. Re:Of course they won't by Pierre · · Score: 2

      Don't listen to this guy. The 80s are back!

      It's retro, you could sell it on EBay for a fortune :)

  11. Quality Control by Myco · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I read an article a while back on NASA's mission failures from the last few years (Sci Am maybe? I dunno). One interviewee working there affirmed that quality control was a big area for cutbacks, and in the light of the failures that have been happening they're seeking to spend a lot more time and money on quality control.

    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
    1. Re:Quality Control by jht · · Score: 2

      What NASA's been able to do over the last decade or so since starting up on this new philosophy is accomplish a whole lot of useful science on a significantly lower budget than they had in the cold war, race to the moon era. Unfortunately, in this era Big Science is just economically impractical.

      Sure, they've had mission failures, but on average they've gotten a whole lot of stuff done at a relatively low cost. It's more a "faster, cheaper, more" that NASA does nowadays (with the exception of the still-running Shuttle and the ISS).

      --
      -- Josh Turiel
      "2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
    2. Re: Quality Control by Buran · · Score: 2

      Partly correct... Mars Global Surveyor was lost because a contractor failed to correctly understand that NASA was specifying units in metric and processed the computations for in-flight trajectory corrections using standard English units. So the probe simply burned up in Mars' atmosphere.

      A shame; I was there to see the launch.

      It's kind of like my recent trip to Canada: During the trip, my Canadian friend and I crossed the border back into the US to attend a convention. If he had failed to recognize that US road signs are in miles per hour, he would have been travelling too slowly (i.e. 70 kph is slower than 70 mph) and concievably have caused a crash if an unwary driver had plowed into the back of our car.

      Correctly recognizing the proper units used and adjusting for the difference is an elemental part of operating a motor vehicle across the US/Canada border -- or of operating a multimillion dollar interplanetary spacecraft as it travels to Mars.

      Just another reason, I think, that the US should join just about every other country and switch to metric for everything -- road signs and food packaging should just be the beginning.

      Eh. Like Joe Public will ever care. But hey, if it saves a few space probes, I'm all for it.

      --
      i am a soviet space shuttle
    3. Re:Quality Control by andymac · · Score: 2, Informative
      Actually, there are some great NASA websites that deal with SQA and Test:

      I particularly like the *FREE* ARM (Automated Requirements Measurement) tool from the SATC (first link). Granted it only runs on Windoze, but you can get it to parse a 300+ page req doc and count all the requirements, weak phrases, etc. for you. Handy tool.

      --
      "Content's a bitch."
  12. Energizer Bunny by Detritus · · Score: 2

    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
  13. Pioneer 10 Still Running After 30 years by Seehund · · Score: 3, Funny

    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
  14. Houston to Pioneer.... by tcm614ce · · Score: 2, Funny

    ..."Can you hear me now?"

    --
    Error: Success
  15. Incoming! by Frank+of+Earth · · Score: 2, Funny

    "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
  16. You can by af_robot · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But you'll be glowing in a night: it uses radioactive power sources :)

    1. Re:You can by ShavenYak · · Score: 2

      Also, needless to say, your car uses far more power than one of these probes. But once electric and/or fuel-cell cars start becoming popular, we may wind up building more nuclear power plants, so the dream of a nuclear car might not be far off.

      My best guess, though, is we won't have a Mr. Fusion in the trunk anytime soon.

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
    2. Re:You can by ShavenYak · · Score: 2

      I never saw Part III all the way through. In retrospect, it was pretty obvious even in the first one that the gasoline engine was still powering the vehicle on the ground. But, there's no logical reason why you couldn't put an electric motor in the car and power it completely with the Mr. Fusion. After all, you've got at least 1.21 gigawatts at your disposal.

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
  17. Re:Cellphone by Detritus · · Score: 2

    Ring up the Department of Energy and tell them that you would like to buy a Pu238 thermoelectric generator. There are Pu238 powered heart pacemakers in some people's chests.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  18. Mission focus by swb · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:Mission focus by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 2

      Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Venus

      Preemptive correction to avoid flamers. I *know* you meant Neptune.

      And the OP is right. The "Grand Tour" is a once in 200 year event. IIRC, there was some debate whether or not they'd get funding to do it (kind of like the P-K Express today).

      --
      Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
  19. Mysterious force.... by Mation · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This article from The Telegraph in February has a bit more detail on the path Pioneer 10 has taken, and also on the 'mysterious force' pulling it back toward Earth...

    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

    1. Re:Mysterious force.... by Sheridan · · Score: 2
      What's strangest about this mysterious force is that Jon Katz is writing academic papers about it.

      (yes I know it's not the same Jon Katz, at least I think I know it's not the same Jon Katz - the writing style sure looks different). ;)

    2. Re:Mysterious force.... by Johnny+Mnemonic · · Score: 2


      The discovery of that "mysterious force" is the first that I've heard of it--and it's freaking me out a little bit. If there is indeed some kind of force or effect that decelerates objects in what would otherwise be a non-decelerating state, that's going to screw up a LOT of calculations. So much for Newton's First.

      Does anyone else with a better understanding of Einstein's physics have any conjecture what this is? I don't know what they've already corrected for to come up with the "error", but I wonder if this isn't something like the rate of expansion of the Universe, accounting for a relative speed decrease. Any better ideas?

      --

      --
      $tar -xvf .sig.tar
    3. Re:Mysterious force.... by vitaflo · · Score: 2

      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?

      I was always under the impression that this was not a man waving hello, but rather showing humans to have 5 fingers and aposable thumbs. You raise a good point howerver.

    4. Re:Mysterious force.... by ghjm · · Score: 2

      Perhaps the interstellar vacuum is less empty than we thought, leading to friction/drag effects?

    5. Re:Mysterious force.... by dillon_rinker · · Score: 2

      why does the plaque...
      True. Why doesn't it display pi and e in binary?

    6. Re:Mysterious force.... by kalidasa · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hm, there's the dark force that accelerates the universe's expansion, and now there's the "mysterious force" that deccelerates a space probe? What's next: the Irresponsible Force, which is what causes events to take place (interstellar eruptions, interplanetary collisions, graduate students' completion of their dissertations) at the last possible moment before they become impossible?

    7. Re:Mysterious force.... by Artificer · · Score: 2, Funny

      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'...

      Yeah, they should have inscribed the Universal Greeting from Transformers instead: "Bah Weep Granah Weep Ni Ni Bong."

    8. Re:Mysterious force.... by shd99004 · · Score: 2

      Maybe there are Kuipier objects tugging at the space crafts? It's about 80 AU away from Earth, and the Kuipier belt is believed to reach from 30 to 100 AU from Sol.

      --
      Will work for bandwidth
    9. Re:Mysterious force.... by Bake · · Score: 2

      No, I actually believe it to be the Improbability Force. Which will be used to drive Improbability Drives.

    10. Re:Mysterious force.... by ashitaka · · Score: 2

      That was done in the 70's. You know, pre-women's lib, etc.

      These days they would be dressed in some politically correct, non-cultural clothing both the same height and both waving.

      --
      If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
  20. Er, New Scientist online ... by AGMW · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think it is ... but you were right about it being a good read!

    --
    Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
    handmadehands.co.uk
  21. Today's Pioneer 10 info by msheppard · · Score: 3, Informative

    [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
    1. Re:Today's Pioneer 10 info by Rayonic · · Score: 2

      > 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

      Boosting NASA's public image: PRICELESS.

      --
      [PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
  22. It may be old, but at least it works. by ZaneMcAuley · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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
  23. Thoughts on NASA by Yogs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  24. Written by a real programmer by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 4, Informative
    That is because the software on Voyager was written by a real programmer when 64k was considered a huge amount of memory. Not by these people who think that they are real cool because they only need 64mb of ram and 12 Active X objects print "Hello World."

    . Or that it is real stable because the OS crashes only once a day.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
    1. Re:Written by a real programmer by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 3, Informative
      That is because the software on Voyager was written by a real programmer...

      Too true. The IMP-8 processor in use on the probe was a real bear to program, too. The main issue was that it used an internal stack that was a fixed depth and had no stack overflow signal until it dropped the last address in the stack on the floor. We ended up shoving a fake sentinel address onto the stack every time we had to empty it. OTOH, that just turned that bug into others (too many operands on the stack, too many pops popping funny data,...). Definitely a bear to program.

      --
      That is all.
  25. Not likely by dfn5 · · Score: 2

    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.
    1. Re:Not likely by snake_dad · · Score: 2
      Hell, we can't even send a probe to Mars without it "disappearing".

      "We" can't?

      --
      karma capped .sig seeking available Slashdot poster for long-term relationship.
    2. Re:Not likely by gol64738 · · Score: 2

      oh? are you russian? they've sent some 14 landing probes to mars in the last 15 years. all of them failed. i'm just surprised they didn't decide to throw a man on one of 'em for shits and grins.

      or did they?

  26. Brains by heikkile · · Score: 2

    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

  27. Long-term semiconductor electronics reliability by dpilot · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:Long-term semiconductor electronics reliability by shoppa · · Score: 2
      I seriously question the long-term of any semiconductor electronics built today.

      I agree entirely with your concern, but I'm not so worried myself. Most semiconductor failures (other than those caused by overvoltage/overcurrent/overtemperature conditions, which are not "normal operation") are packaging failures. e.g. the hermetic seal on breaks and contaminants leak in, physical stress disturbs the wire bonds, etc. Closely related are impurities that were introduced during manufacturing.

      In my experience, quality control has increased greatly in the semiconductor industry since the early 70's. It's not just the production environment which has improved, it's knowledge about the overall process (including testing and burn-in) that has advanced. The regimens that were being applied to mil-spec parts in the 70's have been greatly improved and are applied to consumer-grade parts today, in quantities of billions of units.

      I agree that at some point the scaling/geometry issues and radiation tolerance begin to become the dominant factor. But IMHO we aren't at that point yet; packaging failures still dominate.

    2. Re:Long-term semiconductor electronics reliability by topham · · Score: 2

      I find people commenting on the long-term viability of current components funny.

      Most of these people have burned out a motherboard, or componenets, etc by doing stuff like OVERCLOCKING. While those in the industries intending to have something last for a period of time know better. (And quite often underclock).

      I've never had electronic hardware fail under normal use. Only under abuse. (Harddrives excluded, in 15 years I've lost one to hardware failure).

    3. Re:Long-term semiconductor electronics reliability by be-fan · · Score: 2

      Overclocking vs underclocking is something far out of the range of this discussion. These probes use chips specially designed for the purpose (like those radiation hardened Pentiums you heard about a while back). At that level, there is no underclocking or overclocking. You run it a the clock frequency it was designed to go, not questions.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    4. Re:Long-term semiconductor electronics reliability by markmoss · · Score: 2

      In the 1950's, semiconductors had that bathtub curve. The US military spent a lot of bucks researching the failure mechanisms and figuring out how to estimate the wearout point by inducing early failure by overheating, overloading, etc. The bad news is, the failure modes that the military researched so well back then are pretty much irrelevant now. We've improved the electronics until they just don't fail in those ways - they fail in other ways, and any claim that if a stress test shows them failing in x months, this scales to y years in recommended operating conditions is simply a wild-ass-guess that different failure modes will scale the same.

      You might see the bathtub curve with circuits that push the technology to the limits (Pentium CPU's, miniaturized power supplies, etc.), but most components in most circuits are running nowhere near hard enough for for wearout under normal conditions to ever be observed on Earth. Of course, just one of about 300 parts on a motherboard has to die to turn it into scrap. Something gets static zapped, or the CPU or P/S dies when it's sufficiently old that they are not worth replacing, or it's completely obsolete but working perfectly fine until it's dropped into the trash compacter. Or, in the tropics fungus will eat the circuit board, near the sea salt spray will corrode the leads, etc. Military systems may run longer - but usually they keep the major structural parts and change out the electronics every ten years or so to stay current. (Not always true - the F-111D avionics were built in 1968. They were a bleeding edge design at that time - and very unreliable. The test equipment was replaced at about 20 years just after I got out of the service, but AFAIK most of the electronics on the plane was still built to the original design when they scrapped the planes in 1991. But note - it wasn't the original electronics, everything had been replaced many times, and at 23 years old the design apparently wasn't considered capable of facing even Iraqis. The "D" avionics package should have been scrapped a whole lot earlier...)

      So space is going to be where you'll find out how long circuitry can _really_ last. GHz CPU's won't last - as you say, these things are made with wires so thin and current density so high that aluminum atoms get dragged along with the electrons, and this of course results in shorts and opens. Anything that runs very hot won't last (2nd strike against the P3 & P4). But stay behind the leading edge and design conservatively (e.g., use nothing beyond the 486-66MHz CPU's - in beowulf clusters if needed), and 20+ year average life ought to be quite possible now.

      There is one more aspect to space missions that I don't know how to assess - the electronics get pelted by a _lot_ more radiation than the control systems at 3 Mile Island ever saw. This can cause both flipped bits (requiring reboot from a cosmic-ray proof memory) and cumulative damage leading to eventual total failure. I'm not sure about this, but I suspect your starship is going to have to carry along a small silicon foundry.

  28. Pioneer 10, now 30 years old and driving a Porsche by Reverend+Beaker · · Score: 3, Funny

    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
  29. So I am... by mccalli · · Score: 2
    I also was launched thirty years ago, and have continued to function more or less as intended since 1972.

    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

  30. That's nothing by stinkydog · · Score: 2

    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
  31. still running?! by af_robot · · Score: 2, Funny

    Forrest Gump, is it you?!!

  32. Translation: Nowhere by Kjella · · Score: 2

    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
  33. In the old days ... by halftrack · · Score: 2

    ... 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!
  34. That "beep, beep, beep" is pretty important... by Peter+T+Ermit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.)

  35. Not suprised by af_robot · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  36. Re:I believe we've /.ed SciAm. by Gordonjcp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You probably could have a Mach number in space. Consider this: The speed of sound through a medium is dependant on the density of that medium. Now space isn't a perfectly hard vacuum - there's a tiny amount of very, very thin gas. So, if you work out the density of the gas in the heliopause, you can work out the speed of sound.
    Since vibration travels slowly through less dense media, I suspect the speed of sound in space would be very slow indeed. And you'd need a really loud sound...

  37. How long is too long? or long enough? by room101 · · Score: 2
    Can't help but wonder if the present generation of "faster, better, cheaper" probes will ever live this long though.
    Interesting point, but do they need to? How long is long enough. Is it a waste of money/time to build it to last for 30 years?

    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)
  38. Re:Too true by wheany · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  39. Yeah, but.... by LittleGuy · · Score: 2

    ...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.
  40. & Still producing 'new science' by Martin+S. · · Score: 4, Interesting


    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/dosearch .j sp?advsearch=pioneer+&searchtype=all&x=18& y=1

    Though you'll have to buy an issue or wait a week to view the full text.

  41. Voyager Status reports online by erik_fredricks · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

  42. Not solar power, RTG by StupendousMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    apparantly Pioneer 10's power system is going to run out of juice in a few years (solar powered I guess - the W/m^2 will probably be too low to power the probe at that point).

    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
  43. Re:Too true by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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.

    I remind my mother of this line of reasoning every time she asserts that everything made back in the old days was high quality, and everything made now is flimsy. It just never seems to sink in, though.

    I'd argue that most things made today are more durable. A lot of old cheap stuff was made out of cardboard, wood, or rustable metal, and it eventually disintegrated without leaving a trace. 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.

  44. Re:Too true by colmore · · Score: 2

    Actually, you can still get a toaster that will last you for decades. It just cost three times as much as the cheap, mostly-plastic thing you got from target.

    "Back in the day" everything cost this much (in adjusted dollars) people owned many fewer appliances, but those that they did owned were built to last.

    You can still live like this, of course, but unless you've got mad $$$, it requires that you give up some excess.

    --
    In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
  45. Re:Too true by colmore · · Score: 2

    "those that they did owned"

    sheeeeesh! i need to get out of this office. it's rotting my brain.

    --
    In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
  46. Re:Feature bloat by jamie · · Score: 2
    "I think the reason they worked so well is that they were basically very highly evolved versions of the Ranger probes to the Moon ... There's some interesting stuff on these probes in a book called 'Beyond Selene'"

    Jeffrey Kluger's Journey Beyond Selene is a great book (thanks for lending it to me Daniel, I still need to get it back to you :). Here's its best info on the Pioneer spacecraft, pp. 174-5:

    In March 1972 and April 1973 -- years before the Voyagers were even scheduled to leave the ground -- the aptly named Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 blasted off the pad in Cape Canaveral and into space toward their own planned rendezvous with Jupiter and Saturn. The ships were not designed and built by one of the grand NASA facilities in Houston or Florida or Pasadena, but rather, by the comparatively obscure Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. Ames, like JPL, was an old facility, having been in operation for years before joining the NASA family in 1958. Unlike JPL, however, Ames did not begin its life as an academic institution, but rather as a military one, serving as a research base and a training ground where new airplanes were developed and tested.

    With its more modest scientific credentials, Ames was never considered one of NASA's frontline labs and was rarely given the glamorous mission-planning and spacecraft-building jobs JPL was. ... It thus came as something of a surprise in the early 1970s when Ames announced that it was planning to strike out on its own, building a pair of brand-new spacecraft and flying them to the same two planets that were the Voyager mission's prime targets.

    The ambition -- to say nothing of the presumptuousness -- of the project took the space community by surprise. For all its derring-do, however, the Pioneer project was a relatively simple one, mostly because the spacecraft themselves were simple, too. The ships Ames were building were spindly little things, weighing barely 570 pounds apiece. Lightweight ships could carry only lightweight hardware, and the Pioneers would not be carrying much at all -- a camera, a few Geiger counter-like sensors, a radio, and a computer. A putt-putt spacecraft like this could be built on the cheap, and when the Ames researchers presented their plan to NASA and Congress, the administrators and lawmakers quickly approved it. If the Pioneers failed, there'd be little in the way of resources lost; if by chance they succeeded, much would be gained scientifically. Meanwhile, JPL could continue working on its own, more ambitious project scheduled for later in the decade.

    ... Ames, abiding by the compulsory esprit de corps NASA expected of its labs, shared all of its Jupiter findings with the scientists at JPL, who thanked their fellow engineers for their data, and then promptly put the information to use, adjusting their asteroid-belt flight path to follow Pioneer's own, and reinforcing their spacecraft with radiation shielding that would prevent the ships from growing sick the way Ames's had.

  47. Pioneer nuthin by jafac · · Score: 2

    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.
  48. Probing technology as well as planets by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    (* 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.
  49. sounds like... by joshuarat · · Score: 2, Funny

    exactly like my search for my next girlfriend...faster...better...cheaper...

    --
    That tech support that does not kill me...drives me crazier
  50. Re:I believe we've /.ed SciAm. by Gordonjcp · · Score: 2

    Unless the thing producing the sound is bouncing those few atoms per cubic metre hard enough to hit each other. This would be an extremely energetic vibration, though.

  51. Re:nuclear reactors? by superdan2k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know if there was any bitching and moaning re: Voyager 1 and 2, but I do know that the RTB (radiothermal battery) is largely the same in Galileo as it was in the Voyagers and Apollos. Hell, the Apollo 13 LEM is sitting at the bottom of the Pacific with a RTB in it, and it hasn't leaked yet. They're durable. I don't know why the environmentalists are so twitchy.

    --
    blog |
  52. railgun by phriedom · · Score: 2

    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.
  53. Won't make it to the stars... by Dr.+Zowie · · Score: 2
    As a friend of mine pointed out while we were looking at the flight-spare Voyager plaque in the Smithsonian, none of those probes are likely to make it to the distant stars.

    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...

  54. Re:Even worse incident... by superdan2k · · Score: 2

    So America should spend millions of dollars hunting for a RTB that may or may not be in the area and might -- just possibly -- produce an exposure level equal to what a radioactive materials handler is allowed to receive in a year. That's if the RTB is held against the skin for a WHOLE YEAR? Give me a break.

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    blog |
  55. Which way to Earth? by Mulletproof · · Score: 2

    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!

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    You need a FREE iPod Nano
  56. Volksempfanger - Hitler's Radio for the People by BigBlockMopar · · Score: 2

    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".

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    Fire and Meat. Yummy.
  57. CAD and Calculators are The Great Satan! by BigBlockMopar · · Score: 2

    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!

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    Fire and Meat. Yummy.