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Whisper Heard From Pioneer 10
Irishman writes "NASA has heard from the Pioneer 10 spacecraft for the first time since March. Unfortunately, it is too faint to get scientific data from the craft. CNN has the story here.
Considering that the craft is twice the distance from the Sun as Pluto is and that it has spent 30 years subjected to space, this is amazing! Now if only computer manufacturers could make equipment even remotely this sturdy."
"Khaaaaaaaan!"
sorry, I'll quit now.
Now if only computer manufacturers could make equipment even remotely this sturdy."
They can, you just don't want to pay for it.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I've got a working C-64 that's been through a dozen moves, an infinite number of Jumpman inspired rages, and two boys' adolescensce. Space? Hah!
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
...and still being productive. What is your excuse?
You raise a child, send them off, and they don't even call home that often, and when they do, they can't even understand them...
It must be a man, it waited this long to ask for directions...and then it had to whisper.
From the Pioneer Status web page:
Pioneer 10 distance from Sun : 81.86 AU Speed relative to the Sun: 12.228km/sec (27,355 mph) Distance from Earth: 12.10 billion kilometers (7.52 billion miles) Round-trip Light Time: 22 hours 25 minutes
There was one more Pioneer 10 contact on 12/5/02. The Deep Space Station (DSS) near Madrid (DSS-63) found the signal but could not lock onto the receiver, and so no telemetry was received. The signal level was just under the threshold value. The uplink from DSS-14 at Goldstone, sent 12/4/02 at a power level of 325 kw, confirmed that the spacecraft signal is still there (Round Trip Light Time = 22 hr 24 min).
Project Phoenix also picked up the signal from Pioneer 10 at Arecibo in Puerto Rico.
LARRY LASHER, PIONEER PROJECT MANAGER
(Copyright NASA)
simple reason
Coordination.
Besides having a large dish on earth do communication is one thing... and having communications system based on a remote probe is another.
Moreover the Voyager serves the purpose too. It is farther than Pioneer... infact it is the farthest man made object. It is working perfectly right now. Rather than send repeaters after the sent out probes what is preffered is to send better probes in another direction.
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Actually, that would be a great idea. Launch a series of repeaters every few years.... one right behind another...
Eventually we'll have this long trail of little probes, each sending very weak signals to the next in line. One day, the one in the front will get to some alien planet and it's message of peace will be delivered.
Then, all they have to do is follow the trail of junk back to earth and wipe us out.
Okay, no, seriously. This IS a good idea. It would allow us to listen to a probe no matter how far away it traveled, as long as the probes all stayed aligned, and nothing broke. They wouldn't even really have to be that "close" for it to work, either.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
In about 2 million years it'll be in the vicinity of Aldebaran. It was sent out originally as a deep space probe.
Sending out probes is cool when we can collect info, but it's not really useful if the data isn't able to be processed.Just finding it is useful information. From this, physicists can map its path and start to make observations of what space is actually like out there. They have used the some sparse readings in the past to investigate everything from cosmic rays to gravitational mechanics.
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send out another multi-million dollar spacecraft out toward Pioneer 10 that will send a signal yelling "WHAT????"
Apart from all the moronic comments about sturdy computers (Nice going Irishman, trolling in the story), Isn't this a clue about the silence in space? You know, the Drake equation? How strong must a signal be, to be heard? Pioneer is only 2x orbit of Pluto away from the Sun, and already impossible to listen to. Nearest star is 4.2 light years away, and nearest galaxy is "just" 75,000 light years away. How strong signal would be needed to communicate these distances. I know the Pioneer signal is only a few milli (micro?) watts, but still...
J.
If we don't even bother to look, how do we know there's nothing worth looking at? :-)
"Now if only computer manufacturers could make equipment even remotely this sturdy."
It's called the Compaq Nonstop Himalaya. Each processor runs every calculation twice, in parallel, and compares the answers when done--if they do not match, it tries again. If they do not match again, the processor state is saved then restored in one of the "hotspare" processors. The memory uses a special, extra high-reliability (and extra slow) ECC algorithm. The server itself has integrated battery backup, variable speed fans which adjust for the death of other fans, and each system is immensely expandable without ever being rebooted or shut down.
An acquaintance of mine works for a company which has a Nonstop with an uptime of nearly ten years.
Remember the Tandem?
Note that the Nonstop isn't much more reliable than IBM's Z series mainframes, which basically never die either.
Ironic, isn't it, that a company famous for making desktops which are essentially crap, makes one of the most reliable servers on earth?
Er, back on topic, isn't Voyager significantly farther from the sun than Pioneer 10?
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
It would be nice to know when it hits heliopause, or the point in space where the sun's magnetic field ends. That way it would no longer be in the solar system, but truly an interstellar craft. Not only would that give us useful scientific data with which we can revise our solar model and dynamo theory, but it would also be a historical achievement for man.
Oh, then you've the temperature thing. Commercial grade components won't handle sub-zero celcius. Industrial grade goes to -40 and military/space will support -50.
Space is 5'K, which is -268 celcius. The difference in rates of thermal expansion of metals and plastics would be enough to shatter most components, at that temperature.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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Since Deep Space 1 is going alot faster than either Pioneer 10 or 11, I wonder how long before it becomes the farthest object away?
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The transputer, for example, was mathematically proven correct, and cost $15 a chip. Given that a T400 was as powerful as an 80486, several years before Intel made any, it's pretty obvious cost isn't the reason.
(The transputer was a marvel, for its time - it was linearly scalable, regardless of number. 1000 of them would give you the same performance as a Cray 1, for 1% of the cost.)
The reason is complexity. Mathematical proofs aren't trivial, so few chip companies bother. It's simpler to ship defective goods, and hope nobody notices. Notice I'm saying "simpler", not "cheaper". Mathematicians aren't much more expensive than good VLSI engineers.
Why is simple important? Because of PR. If you can get a product out fast, or a new press release out fast, then that's Good Business. Taking your time to get it right doesn't fill newspaper columns. Nobody ever wrote an editorial on how so-and-so proved the ALU free of bugs. They =WILL= write plenty on Intel/whoever releasing the latest nth generation processor, even if their last release was the month before.
The cost of replacement is about the same as the cost of getting it right, but the PR life-cycle is much faster, and so gets more attention & higher stock value.
For those of you who have chosen "popular" over "quality" in any part of your life, you know the lure, even though you know the real price you'll pay in the end.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I sense a disturbance in the force...millions of Slashdot "comedians" all crying out with bad jokes and ill puns and then silenced.
Yes, the satellites you refer to are LEO and are thus still within and protected from solar radiation by the Earth's magnetic fields. Also the expected lifetime for LEO satellites is short because there is enough atmospheric drag at LEO to assure reentry in just a few years (the central cost flaw with Teledesic, BTW). NASA's push to use off-the-shelf parts is based on the assumption that most satellite projects can and will exist at LEO and will be cheap enough to be disposable with shorter lifespans. Remove these assumptions and you will have trouble using commerical parts.
Anything in a higher orbit, with longer life or unusual mission will be exposed to direct solar or other radiation. Over time through the sun spot cycle (12 years), solar flares will raise total dose levels typically 1-2 orders of magnitude over sunspot minimums.
Most commercial ICs are laughably soft. When I was in the business of testing such we tried commercial Intel uP's in our radiation chambers; they'd die in a matter of minutes while the space-grade equivalents lasted much longer (I could tell you how long but I'd have to kill you :-) ). Pioneer's lifespan using space-grade parts gives a clue though.
JGSki
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Imagine, please, that you have a pipe 1m in diameter stretching from just past Earth's atmosphere to the Alpha Centauri system. (Ignore the engineering difficulties, please.)
Can you guess how much all the contents of that pipe would weigh?
Less than a kilogram.
Considerably less than a kilogram.
I would tell you just how tiny, but you wouldn't believe me. I'll let you do the math: the observed density of the universe is 2.1 * 10**-29 kilograms per cubic meter. From here to Alpha Centauri is about 4.5 lightyears, and each lightyear is 9.5 * 10**15 meters.
So we're looking at a total distance of about 4*10**16m to Alpha Centauri. Multiply that by the cross-sectional area of our pipe (.6m) and you get... 2.4 * 10**16m**3 of volume.
Multiply that by the observed density of the universe and you get...
5 * 10**-13 kilograms.
Yeah. Like I said. Considerably less than a kilogram.
Your post shows a severe lack of understanding about space. One, it's freaking cold. Two, once you get past Saturn you can pretty much write off solar flares and activity. Three, sure, there are energetic cosmic rays--but they're here on Earth, too, so Earth's no better off. (No, our atmosphere doesn't protect us in any substantial way from cosmic rays.)
If you were to stand on Pluto and turn on a cell phone, the radio signal from your cell phone would be the brightest electromagnetic signal in the sky--by orders of magnitude.
Space is overwhelmingly small, dark and quiet. Yes, there is the occasional bit of matter which can be a real royal pain in the ass... but the odds of a collision are, well, astronomical.
I don't think you understand a damn word of what you just posted, and it astonishes me that you can get a +4 moderation for being totally flipping wrong.