Cassini's First Glimpse of Saturn

EccentricAnomaly writes "The Cassini spacecraft has snapped its first picture of Saturn from 177 million miles away. Cassini is due to arrive at Saturn in July 2004, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn (Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2 just did quick flybys of Saturn). Cassini carries the Huygens probe which will land on Saturn's moon Titan in January 2005."

Comments

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know Columbus, this new world thing is cool and all, but, we have so many problems here in Spain...Shouldn't we solve those first? I mean I have no problem with explorer playing with the crown's money(peoples' taxes), but shouldn't the aristocrocy (and the people) get something out of it as well??

Re:Great

[Christopher Thomas]

PR, but what's the use? Detailed pics of Saturn and rings, yay, but nothing we don't have. Although, the huygens probe actually looks useful, I think NASA should be more ambitious.

Pretty pictures of Saturn are the least of what's coming back. Go to the mission objectives page for the probe to see all of the experiments that will be done.

What, exactly, do you _want_ them to do? Bear in mind that sending humans *anywhere* costs at least 20 times what a probe with comparable scientific capabilities costs.

Re:Why

[Christopher Thomas]

I don't know Columbus, this new world thing is cool and all, but, we have so many problems here in Spain...Shouldn't we solve those first? I mean I have no problem with explorer playing with the crown's money(peoples' taxes), but shouldn't the aristocrocy (and the people) get something out of it as well?

Columbus's trip actually had a justifiable business purpose - he was looking for a more economical trade route to India (hence the whole "indians" misnomer that's plagued us ever since). My understanding - which may be incorrect on a few points - is that it was well-known by the aristocracy that the earth was round (and so that such a trip was theoretically possible), but it was thought that the ships of the time wouldn't be able to make such a long trip (and they might have been right; Columbus only had to make it part way around before finding the New World).

Space exploration is blue-sky research. It does not have a strong business case for it. That doesn't mean it shouldn't happen; it just means that it's unlikely to ever be directly profitable.

Possible justifications include:

• It stimulates high tech R&D, and spreads money around the high tech industries, which has direct and indirect spinoff benefits for the rest of the economy.
  
  
• It will provide unforseen payoffs down the road (blue-sky research often does; remember the laser?).
  
  
• People like it. If enough people think it's cool, it's worth spending money on even without a direct payback mechanism (it's the cultural equivalent of playing an arcade game).
  

I personally feel that it is in our best interests as a species to have a good understanding of space and to exist on multiple worlds (as our outlook for surviving in geologic time at any single location is not so good). This, in addition to it being cool and stimulating R&D, justifies it as far as I'm concerned. YMMV.

Re:Why

[waveclaw]

shouldn't the common men[sic] get seomthing out of it as well??

One of my favorite quotes:

"Cutting the space budget really restores
my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams,
goals, and ideals and lets us get straight
to the business of hate, debauchery, and
self-annihilation."
-- Johnny Hart