NASA Contour Probe May Not Be Broken After All

RedPhoenix writes "A few friends & I got together this morning to visit the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Communication station open day, just outside of Canberra Australia. One of the NASA team mentioned that there have been indications early this morning (AESTime) of a contact with the 'Contour' probe, that has been reported to have broken in two. Perhaps some cause for optimism? The most interesting part of the day though, was probably the little old wooden crate out the back of one of the warehouses, stamped with 'NASA Voyager 1 Mission' ... Now that would look nice as a geek coffee-table."

Comments

Re:NASA's "faster, cheaper" experiments

[Tablizer]

(* NASA sends robot probes knowing some will fail. I wish there wasn't all this criticism when it happens. *)

It is all about cost/benefit analysis. At some point there is an optimum spending per probe where the extra costs are not worth reducing failure risk. I don't know where that point is, but it seems like bad press tends to push the costs up a bit too high on this curve.

One approach is to do what they did in the 1960's: launch 2 identical probes at the same time. Mariner 4's partner and I think Mariner 9's partner failed, but people only remember the successful twin.

The cost of a twin probe is not double the cost of one because much of the effort is research and control software rather than just manufacturing.

Perhaps they could make the probes half-size, put 1/2 the instruments on one, and 1/2 on the other. That way if one fails you still get half the science rather than all or nothing. (Put cameras on both, however, or you have nothing for the papers if the eyed one fails.)

NASA has to also think about managing expectations, regardless of whether such expectations are rational or not. That is just part of life living with humans.