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European Moon Mission Ready for Launch
merryprankster writes "Europe's first mission to the Moon is set for blast off from Kourou in French Guiana just after midnight, local time, on Sunday. SMART
1 will study the composition of lunar rock through X-ray observations. The probe uses a new solar electric propulsion system which converts solar energy its panels into motion via the expulsion of ions. Details at the ESA mission site."
Because otherwise things like this will happen. Competition is always healthy and there's no point leaving NASA with the monopoly on space travel.
What's so bad about offering another perspective toward the whole of the universe?
Turkeyphant
Sure the Ion drive is a really neat addition, but it's soooo slooooow. It's going to take them 15 MONTHS to get there! And the payload isn't really greater at all. It takes longer to get any large loads going. The US space program got people to the moon and back in what...2 weeks? It may be slightly more economical, but it just doesn't seem practical.
Hopefully they can perfect the ion drive, however through this to increase the speed and payload capacity. Then we might have something really cool... (until the anti-matter reactor comes online...)
---- Move SIG...For great justice!
Because our specific wheel is old and busted. Also we don't look outside the wheel-way of doing things. It was a good wheel for the time it was built. However, we seem to be too fixated on repairing the wheel. There is a whole industry in wheel repair, wheel protocol, wheel contracts etc..
To use your symbolism, instead of building a wheel they are building a sledge - having discovered through wheel-driven exploration Space is covered in snow and bumpy so a sledge is a good option. Yes, the wheel works and is important. But they are under no obligation to bog down thier sledge building team with wheel thinkers.
"new solar electric propulsion system which converts solar energy its panels into motion via the expulsion of ions."
Wouldnt solar powered ion engine be easier to say?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
More players means more ways of doing things. Cooperation can be good -- but so can competition. Competition allows various new technologies and ideas to be tried. A cooperative monopoly can strangle a field.
Possibly the biggest problem with NASA is that it has stifled innovation in the field. When one organization dominates a field the way NASA does, it's difficult to get alternative ways of doing things developed. The dominant group dismisses out of hand any thing they haven't developed. They tend to drive off independently minded people. Problems go unnoticed for longer periods of time.
Many of us welcome competition for NASA -- be it private or governmental. I salute ESA for it's independence -- and for trying out ion propulsion.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
Why makes oneself reliant on NASA wheels, when one could have a home grown wheel industry with all the spinoff products that it generates.
We tried that before. The US doesn't like sharing its technology. The result is that trhe EU would get none of the fringe benefits of developing spacecraft.
While it is nice to see ION engines gain more momentum in the industry do they really have a place in short duration/distance missions?
If its passed off a as a proof of concept it would make more sense but the article doesn't imply that.
Considering the limited distance it would probably been more efficient to use an established propulsion system and get the scientific results sooner. Now, because of their choice any findings are unnecessarily delayed.
On a high note, its good to see they are not replicating the work done by the previous NASA probe - seems scienctists are much better at getting along than their governments.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
We just have to give it time. Yeah, right now, ion propulsion isn't the most efficient or fastest way of travel. But given more use, more people will be interested in perfecting it. Remember when solar panels had such low energy converstion rates? They're much better now. I could give a million other examples, but you get my point. We can't rely on the old methods of travel forever.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Yes, ESA is very nationalistic. It consists of many nations... Anyway, who is reinventing what wheel? Should we not test ion propulsion simply because Nasa did it before already? Did it work so badly that we should avoid it?
Actually, the Soviets had a pretty advanced solar system exploration program. They spent a lot of time on Venus in the 1970s, and even were able to land several probes on the surface that took environmental readings and sent back pictures. When you consider that the atmospheric pressure on Venus is 100 times greater than Earth's, and that the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead, and that it rains sulfuric acid, that's a pretty damned impressive engineering achievement. Environments such as Mars and the Moon are positively benign in comparison.
The American and Soviet space programs both had great successes (and failures.) Discounting somebody else's accomplishments simply because they were accomplished by somebody else is the height of jingoism and arrogance.
The US is getting back into the space program and rehashing apollo, america's space penis (aka, ego) has been threatened by europe and various other countries willing to get into space.. The US doesnt want to be outshone by some 3rd world nations, it wants to be the king of the ring again, and wants to keep dominance in space, I made a post like this before on the apollo news thread.
like I've said, whatever gives us new and improved technology, if it werent for the last space race, we wouldnt have the internet or modern day computers, or velcro..
because technically, right now, we're still using old technology in the computer field and internet field.. we should be years ahead of what we're currently at, but thanks to monopolies like microsoft, we havent, it's like how the aerospace industry works.. a company with technology years ahead of everyone else get muscled and bullied by the monopolizing companies (northrop, boeing, etc) and usually dont get any attention, there's this one company that uses new technology and aircraft years ahead of anything boeing or northrop can make and they get the cold shoulder, mainly do to the fact that their technology doesnt blow up 3rd world countries in an efficient manner, so politicians and the military ignore such technology, sad fact really, what's used in aerospace is technology that is 50 years old, but it's still peddled..the SR-71 was a leap in technology, but after that, we dropped back in technology... new things scare people too, maybe that's it too, who knows..
anyways, let's pray that we dont get another ego race and hatred towards each other over this.
moderators.
Why do you mod a picture like that funny? You sick perverted bastards almost made me empty my stomach on the keyboard.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
> Will the European nations be the first to mine the moon?
No - we've all ratified the Ottowa Convention.