Galileo Nearing Its End

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Posted by michael on Monday February 10, 2003 @09:58AM from the look-out-below dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "Mission operations for the Galileo space probe, currently orbiting Jupiter, are scheduled to be shut down at the end of this month. Once a month thereafter scientists will check on the probe until September when the probe will be ordered to crash into Jupiter. The $1.5 billion mission met 70 percent of its science objectives and made a number of serendipitous discoveries along the way -- despite a range of problems."

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FP by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 10:01 · Score: 0

first post well, one productive nasa project"!
Why crash? by DonFinch · 2003-02-10 10:02 · Score: 1

Why crach it into jupiter? Why not just send it out there. who knows? Maybe it could attract 'attention'. Of course if the Irken Armada shows up I never said this...

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-- Insert wisdom here:
1. Re:Why crash? by Simon+Field · 2003-02-10 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt it has the fuel to escape Jupiter.
  They want to crash it so that it won't contaminate one of the moons by accidentally crashing there, possibly releasing earthly microbes.
  That possibility seems like a long shot to me. It also makes me a little sad to see a spacecraft crash, even intentionally, but that's just a sentimental spot I have.
  On the other hand, maybe the Jovian atmosphere will finally open the high gain antenna, if only for a moment. ;-)
  
  --
  Free book: Science Toys You Can Make
2. Re:Why crash? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 22:15 · Score: 0
  
  In their mailing list they talked about letting Galileo fly through the eye of the storm.
  The red spot on Jupiter.
3. Re:Why crash? by anubi · 2003-02-10 22:26 · Score: 1
  
  I hate the thought of crashing too.. I do have strong tendencies to develop emotional attachment to things.. even machines - especially ones that have done what this one has.
  Jupiter is a "gas giant".
  I wonder if it will ever find a solid surface to "land" on, or just sink deeper and deeper into ever higher compressed gases.
  Wasn't Voyager powered by a nuclear-powered thermopile generator? If so, what kind of chance is there that we may ignite Jupiter's compressed core (thermonuclearly speaking). If so, we may have another distant sun in a few months.
  
  --
  "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
The answer to all your questions is... by Froze · 2003-02-10 10:10 · Score: 4, Informative

R...T...F...A...

And I quote
" Galileo could be allowed to simply remain in orbit, but scientists feared it might collide with Europa and contaminate that body with microbes from Earth, possibly damaging its environment. "

This is an entirely valid concern, think the andromeda strain only inverted.

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-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
1. Re:The answer to all your questions is... by Simon+Field · 2003-02-10 10:20 · Score: 1
  
  It would seem to me that there are lower orbits the craft could be put into, where there would be no chance of a crash with the larger moons.
  On the other hand, such an orbit would probably soon decay anyway.
  Any speculation on whether the crash will yield any data that we didn't get from the probe sent into the atmosphere earlier?
  
  --
  Free book: Science Toys You Can Make
2. Re:The answer to all your questions is... by Bobas · 2003-02-10 10:24 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I just wonder how much we might have "contaminated" already. Dozen of probes have been to Mars and Venus.
3. Re:The answer to all your questions is... by MutantEnemy · 2003-02-10 11:02 · Score: 1
  
  I just wonder how much we might have "contaminated" already. Dozen of probes have been to Mars and Venus.
  Well, yes. But with Europa, there's some (perhaps miniscule) chance that there could actually be life there...
  According to Nineplanets, Europa may be the only body besides Earth that has significan't quantities of water.
  
  --
  Grr! Arg!
4. Re:The answer to all your questions is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 11:19 · Score: 0
  
  What worries me is that we might be missing a chance to spread life there. NASA and others always assume there's lots of life, but I worry there isn't and maybe we should try to spread it before we are gone.
5. Re:The answer to all your questions is... by dunedan · 2003-02-10 11:23 · Score: 1
  
  contaminating venus would be rather interesting.
  
  If we put stuff on those probes that can withstand an atmosphere of sulpheric acid and temperatures hot enough to boil lead I think we would probably be using them here for research already.
6. Re:The answer to all your questions is... by geek42 · 2003-02-10 11:47 · Score: 1
  
  maybe we should try to spread it before we are gone
  I've got to agree with you here. Mars seems like a more obvious choice as a destination though, given its proximity (and relative similarity) to earth. Difficult to observe our garden when it's so far away.
Expensive. by pmz · 2003-02-10 10:15 · Score: 1

I'm not going to debate cost effectiveness or anything (space science is quite over my head), but it is interesting that 30% of 1.5 billion dollars is 450 million dollars (imagine what I could do with even 1 percent of that...).

--
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
1. Re:Expensive. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:23 · Score: 0
  
  Look, animals like you were never meant to have $4.5 million. You wouldn't know how to spend it. Just like the other nouveau riche, having that much money is too much for you and will ruin your life.
  Didn't you little fools learn your lesson in the dot com implosion? Leave being rich to those who are better than you, and go back to swilling your beer and discussing with Chuck about how Jordan had his glory stolen from him in the NBA All Star game. Oh for shame, I forgot you were Nerds. Maybe you'll understand this better: go back to drinking your Jolt Cola and watching Cowboy Bebop in your jammies; we don't want you joining our little club, unless its as a servant.
  -- H.G. Pennypacker, wealthy american industrialist, of 'old money', and one of the last true aristocrats
2. Re:Expensive. by Tackhead · 2003-02-10 12:35 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  > I'm not going to debate cost effectiveness or anything (space science is quite over my head), but it is interesting that 30% of 1.5 billion dollars is 450 million dollars (imagine what I could do with even 1 percent of that...).
  Cheap.
  $1.5B - three shuttle launches to put some ISS modules together. Of the three ISS crew members, 2.5 person-days are required to keep the thing up, leaving one guy able to spend four hours a day... doing very little science.
  $1.5B - plunk a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, find out what's below the cloud tops, make multiple passes by every moon, and get pictures/magnetometer data of everything around Jupiter and each of its moons. Prove the existence of liquid water beneath Europa, demonstrate a liquid/slush ocean on Callisto, observe volcanoes on Io, and if you're just after pretty pictures, keep in mind that had Galileo's high-gain antenna actually worked, we'd have gotten thousands of times as many pictures as we did.
  Naw, scrap that science stuff. It's only good for a couple of years of billion-dollar pork while it's under construction, but once it's in the air, it's just a few million bucks worth of lousy scientists. Screw that. We need more shuttle/ISS flights, because they're the only things that can keep that gigadollar NASA contractor pork flowing for decades.
This sounds an awful lot like... by devphil · 2003-02-10 10:28 · Score: 3, Funny

...the way my cars usually go. They run and run and run, and eventually start falling apart so fast that I just check on them once every so often, and eventually crash them into something just to finish the damn thing off.

--
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
ST by QEDog · 2003-02-10 10:50 · Score: 4, Funny

they have to crash it... haven't you seen the Star Trek movie about Vger?

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"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Only 70%? by EvilSporkMan · 2003-02-10 10:56 · Score: 0, Flamebait

70% is simply not good enough. Imagine if you only made correct change 70% of the time, or tried to get into college with a 70% average. More evidence that our government is incompetent.

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-insert a witty something-
1. Re:Only 70%? by abradsn · 2003-02-10 11:06 · Score: 1
  
  Become an engineer, then we'll talk.
2. Re:Only 70%? by EvilSporkMan · 2003-02-10 11:09 · Score: 1
  
  No need - I'm 15, and I know engineering. ;)
  
  --
  -insert a witty something-
3. Re:Only 70%? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 11:24 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Once you've grown up a bit more, you find out that sometimes 70% is just amazingly good. I've had college classes were the top scores were under 50%. They just lob soft balls to high school kids, because they don't want them to get frustrated and quit.
  If Galileo has achieved 100% of it goals, it would be clear they hadn't planned a hard enough mission. Just like if too many students get 100%, the test isn't hard enough to tell you which students are better.
4. Re:Only 70%? by Smidge204 · 2003-02-10 11:41 · Score: 1
  
  I'll bite...
  
  First, I'd like to ask the obvious question: How is this the government's fault, exactly? You sound as if you found some way to link this with GW Bush botching one of his speeches.
  
  Second, I'd like to ask how blasting an unmanned probe billions of miles into space and having it send back useful information for 14 years despite severe damage to just about every part of it is anything remotely like making change at the corner drug store.
  
  Maybe if you were blind, had no arms or legs, and could only access the cash register by holding a 10-foot pole in your teeth with a stick of chewing gum on the end, it might be a slightly better analogy... but you'ld still have more of an advantage that that probe.
  =Smidge=
5. Re:Only 70%? by curious.corn · 2003-02-10 12:28 · Score: 1
  
  Cool it. I don't think anyone here thinks Bush had any fault in the probe's misfortunes; I'd be surprised if the man had anything to do with such a blasphemous ordeal. I mean shooting a probe up into the Heavens (oh!), to gather Scientific Data (save us!) and having the gall to crash it into one of God almighty's firmament stars! (amen!) ;-) No, no. Nobody thinks Bush is a man of such things.
  
  Cià,
  Edo
  
  --
  Mi domando chi Ã il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
6. Re:Only 70%? by EvilSporkMan · 2003-02-10 14:24 · Score: 1
  
  Well, NASA is part of the government, isn't it? And they're responsible for space launchy things like probes, aren't they? Therefore, this was a government endeavour. Note that this is the only part of my post I'm willing to defend...^^;
  
  --
  -insert a witty something-
Someones gonna get angry by jak0b · 2003-02-10 11:04 · Score: 3, Funny

I just know that this is going crash into the mayor of Jupiteria's house and start an intergalactic war. (or would that be inter-solarsystemic war?)
1. Re:Someones gonna get angry by EvilSporkMan · 2003-02-10 11:12 · Score: 1
  
  If anything, it'd be an intrasystem war, since it'd be within this single solar system.
  
  --
  -insert a witty something-
2. Re:Someones gonna get angry by no+reason+to+be+here · 2003-02-10 11:28 · Score: 1
  
  i prefer the term inter-planetary, since it's between planets.
  
  i'm reminded of the words of jack handy:
  
  Even if there are no signs of intelligent life there, I still think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet.
  
  --
  my pet machine
Galileo Nearing Its End by dynoman7 · 2003-02-10 11:11 · Score: 1

He's dead, Jim.

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Blarf.
Re:Neither by Bastian · 2003-02-10 14:44 · Score: 1

It would be intra-solarsystemic war.
We want manned missions!!! by mdielmann · 2003-02-10 19:17 · Score: 1

I'm tired of hearing of all these 'scientific' missions being carried out by robots! We need real people at the controls! That's way more sexy than being able to have multiple probes that can do remote research. After all, who applies for the patent when a miniature front-end loader does all the work?

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Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
but will this cause Jupiter to go supernova? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-11 12:55 · Score: 1, Funny

Gotta make *2010* really happen....perpetual light for mankind...and more tax revenue for California!