NASA Sending Probe to Saturn

Plissken writes "Nasa along with the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency have launched a towards Saturn in hopes of obtaining vital data to help understand the mysterious, vast region. The Cassini-Huygens mission is composed of two elements: The Cassini orbiter that will orbit Saturn and it's moons for four years, and the Huygens probe will dive into the depths of Titan and land on it's surface. If all goes well, more than 200 scientists worldwide will study the data collected."

Comments

Re:200 scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

All the data from NASA missions is normally
released in the public domain after 12 months.
The delay is to give their scientists a head
start in the publicating their work.

In some cases the data is witheld like in the
case of the almost global world RADAR map with
30 m resolution

Re:200 scientists

[JimPooley]

So what exactly would you do with the raw data from the probe? They're probably just giving it out to people who are actually capable of using it. There'd be no point NASA being slashdotted by people who have absolutely no use for raw data just going in to have a look...

here's a more interesting story...

[g4dget]

Japan just launched a space probe for a sample return mission from an asteroid. Here is a home page for the mission (but rather outdated). Apparently, it also uses electric propulsion.

Cassini

[xaaronx]

Yeah, as many have already pointed out, this is not new news. But it is worth discussing. Why? Because Cassini is the last real NASA probe, made in the old way. None of that cheaper/faster/destroyed on entry/by miscommunication/flat out lost in space crap. It should give us some good data to chew on and maybe, but not probably, inspire NASA to cut the crap and get back to real space exploration.

Re:Why all the fuss over finding primordial life?

[xaaronx]

Well, that's not the only reason Titan is interesting.

But if we do find even single celled organisms, it is a HUGE F'ING DEAL! Besides the simple proof that we aren't alone, finding life in our own solar system implies that life is probably neither uncommon or insanely spread out. And, if life is that common, intelligent life can't be all that rare.

The reason we look in Earth-like places for Earth-like life is that we know life like us is possible in conditions like ours. We know how to recognize it and where it might possibly exist. To look for something unlike us in weird environments leaves us flailing about and unlikely to find anything, even if it's there.

And Titan would be one of (and possibly THE) most hospitable place for humans in the solar system. The air pressure is such that we would need only simple breathing gear and drysuits to keep us warm, which could be augmented by small bleed valves allowing small amounts of oxygen to burn against the methane atmosphere. It also has lots of readily available carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. These, and other, advantages are discussed in obert Zubrin's Entering Space. The only problem with Titan is its distance from us.

And if you're not excited by Cassini, what space exploration does interest you? It's well short of what we could have accomplished if the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and other things done in the late sixties and early seventies to slow down the space program hadn't happened (not to mention the stagnant shuttle program and cheaper/faster/mia), but we have to work with what's available and build upon it.