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NASA Deep Space 1 Mission Is Over
Ashran writes "The Nasa DS1 site has the blurb: 'With highly successful primary, extended, and hyperextended missions behind it, the Deep Space 1 mission is over. The spacecraft continues to function, but engineers held a bittersweet retirement party for the veteran explorer today. The guest of honor was, of course, unable to attend because of travel commitments.'"
I was living in florida at the time it was launched, and myself and some friends of mine took an impromptu trip to go see the launch. It was a very cloudy morning, but man, even still it was an awsome experience. The light from the rocket was very bright, so much that you had to shield your eyes, and the sound, even from five miles away was so loud it shook your chest. If you ever get the chance to see a launch, go for it. It is worth seeing.
Guys, read the page more closely, or go to here. DS1 was retired in 2001!
Is that the news. "This message was logged at 2:45 pm Pacific Time on Tuesday, December 18." That was last year, and they considered "an ultraextended mission, which would have targeted an encounter in August 2002 with an asteroid tantalizingly named 1999 KK1" but didn't.
So the news is A year ago we finished this mission... Well Congrats again, I guess.
The date on the page referanced in the Slashdot article is dynamic, it displays whatever todays date it. And you are correct, this occured one year ago today.
Reading that farewell brought to mind the first Star Trek movie, the one where a Voyager probe is recovered by an alien robot society and comes back to earth.
When Slashdot had the, "Which was the best Star Trek movie?" poll up recently, I thought they should have the put that first movie up for consideration. While it had it's failings, at least it didn't degenerate into the Space Westerns of the rest of the series.
With all the attention given to technical details of physic and engineering, with DS1, it was also human love and curiousity that ultimately drove it as much as its ion drive.
evanchik.net
This message was logged at 2:45 pm Pacific Time on Tuesday, December 18.
;)
Uhhh, unless there is a magic time machine involved this time hasn't occured yet, as for Tuesday, hmmmm would tell me it probably happened last year, as the 18th falls on a Wednesday in 2002
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA After we bitch about the quality of cnn's reporting...
-- Insert wisdom here:
That aside, what's the point of the "bittersweet"? The probe did it's job, did everything they wanted, and everyone did their jobs well. What's there to be bitter-sweet about?
One year old story posts YOU!
they found the aliens
In light of several posts made regarding several space-exploration-related articles in recent weeks, I thought this comment was particularly insightful:
Now with no further technology objectives and no further science objectives, there is not sufficient justification for keeping the spacecraft operating.
In the comments posted regarding the recent space-station article, for example, several posters alleged that NASA simply chooses to throw good money after bad. The italicized quote from the above-linked article indicates that just isn't reality. When the science for a particular project is complete and no further useful information can be gleaned, the project is abandoned.
This continues to give me hope for the space program. As much as the penny pinchers do have a say over things, the scientists still obviously manage to make good decisions and carry through with them.
eight to go.
how that guy from "Benson" is going to live long enough to be on DS9...
Hmm, do anyone also think that all these abandoned space probes out there are a big waste of resources? I'm curious if there is any initiative which wants to control & support all these old machines... They're flying out there, wouldn't that be a good opportunity for e.G. rich ham radio activists (building these big dish antennas that are required for the uplink to the space craft...)? Maybe other antenna types being developed (phased array etc.) could do the job. Has anyone a pointer to such an initiative? Does one exist? This would boost the interesting in unmanned space exploration, I think...
I am a cocktease.