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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."
The probe uses a new solar electric propulsion system which converts solar energy its panels into motion via the expulsion of ions.
IMHO that is much more interesting than the mission itself. The less chemical fuel needed to get moving once in space could mean more room for payload.
Beat the weenies to the punch:
I, for one, welcome our new ion propelled masters!
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Natalie Portman could fly one of these to my house anytime!
The lengths people will go to to hurt the ego of chemical-rocket engineers!
Chemical rockets, 70, found dead in their suburban home, truly an American icon.
Obligatory goatse.cx link.
Trolling is a art,
That is just like saying "Why not collaborate with [Microsoft|Sun|etc] instead of reinventing the wheel with Linux".
The answer? Because.
To the moon Alice!
--------
Free your mind.
Why not collaborate with NASA instead of trying to re-invent the wheel?
Because NASA's wheel is square.
Did anyone else picture a TIE figher when reading that description?
... that launched the first Borg!
e.g. "On its long trek through space the cube-shaped probe..."
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!
Finally, some innovation outside of the labs. Even if the engine doesn't perform as planned, I give the EU space team high marks for developing new ideas rather than rehashing the technology that has been updated since the 60s.
WURD!!
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.
Wasn't this already accomplished back in 1992 by a Brit and his dog?
Sorry, couldn't resist. Still, 30 years later you'd think they might just skip the moon and hitch a rid with us to Mars.
--- have you healed your church website?
I say put that fuckin' talking chihuahua on the moon, sans spacesuit.
I would suggest you get a wooden boat.
do you wheely think so?
"SMART 1 will study the composition of lunar rock through X-ray observations" Can't NASA just let the ESA borrow some of their rocks?
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Plus its overpriced and not meant for travel beyond the local neighborhood.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Also, how many planets and other floating hunks of space stuff were we the first to get to?
Xaotik Designs
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
Despite decades of research, we have never fully discovered what the Moon is made of," says Manuel Grande at UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, who built the spacecraft's X-ray spectrometer.
Haha! So my cheese theory has not been disproven!
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
They've been used as thrusters on satellites for years, and of course NASA's Deep Space 1 was powered by one back in the late 90s.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Why makes oneself reliant on NASA wheels, when one could have a home grown wheel industry with all the spinoff products that it generates.
I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but NASA used ion propulsion on the Deep Space 1 mission several years ago. Yes, cool technology but like most stuff it's been researched for years and used before.
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.
x-raying the Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
IANAS, but isn't space just chock full of radiation already?....
I bet there are a lot of plutonium-rich asteroids out in space too...
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
We'll know if the USA actually went to the moon or if that was just a hoax, unless this is a hoax as well. I guess this time I can break out my telescope.
Stop fishing for crabs with electronical fishing rods. It frustrates you and it annoys the crabs.
Fish instead for steelhead and when they are electroplated with manganese by the random discharges of your capacitors, you can sell them for a premium price.Furthermore Grasshopper, do not curse your luck for the plating on your hull. Instead, give thanks for your good fortune that your fishing boat is not filled by amorous electric eels that are attracted by your discharges.
"MY hovercraft is full of eels, too!!"
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
The article mentions that it is lightweight, only 367kg but NASA's first lunar orbiter weighted 386kg. So 40 years later we have a 19kg savings and it takes 15 months to get there. I love progress...
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Elvis is very much alive.
The SMART 1 is going into Lunar polar orbit with 14 meter solar panels unfurled. With the solar wind push aiding on one side and opposing on the other will the ion engine have enough thrust to counter the effects of the solar wind?
Maybe, if they did half-turns of the solar panels on every orbit they could elongate the orbit enough to break free or perhaps make Earth one of the axis points. ???
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
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?
Wouldn't it just be easier to create a giant trebuchet and hurl the pod into space???? If anything it'd be a nifty Junkyard Wars project :)
IAAP and I can say: Yes space is naturally chock full of radiation. Astronaughts regularly come home having recieved their maximum allowable yearly dosage. In fact, there's a special exemption from these OSHA / DOE guidelines for astronaughts... Uranium is relatively abundant (rare compared to say, iron, but available in LARGE quantities) in the solar system. It stands to reason that there are trace quantities of Plutonium as well.
And while you're there, would you pick up some of that nice, green moon money for me -- Royce McCutcheon!"
Solar panels work great when you're this far into the solar system. From Mars and beyond the solar intensity is much lower and solar panels would need to be prohibitively large and heavy to provide the same amount of power as a 45 pound radioisotope thermal generator.
Then why is there space program broke and little more than a glorified delivery boy while ours is building a space station? Actually, we could have gone to space before the russians did. We had better rockets, etc and we had the technological know how. We just couldn't figure out any reason to go to space and so we didn't develope it. If our military had come up with a reason, then we would have beaten you.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
And all of Switzerland will breathe a sigh of relief, as what could have been the single biggest competitor to that lovely wholey Swiss cheese, turns out not to be after all.
The ion engine was invented at HRL Laboratories in California in 1961 funded by NASA. HRL continued to work on the engine into the 70's.
Right on. NASA really DO need the competition, given things like this.
Actually, I think the word 'land' is a bit of a misnomer. If I remember the history channel shows correctly, the word 'crash' would be the word to use.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
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 first one crashed, but most of the rest were successful.
You have to understand that there is more than one reason for using ion engines. Some include, reduced cost, reduced complexity, proving the improved technology really works and extending the mission life. The final one it important, since what usually ends a probe's mission is component failure or more often running out of fuel. As long as there is a star in our Solar system, then SMART 1's mission can last a good while. The only thing that could extend the mission even more is an xenon collector and an extended mission budget.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Fish the american way: with dynamite! Go to space the american way: with a big ass rocket. Travel through space the american way: with another big ass rocket. When your mission is doomed, die the american way: in an explosion! Better to go out with a bang!
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Sorry, but your telescope is a hoax too. It's really just a poster-mailing tube with plastic wrap over both ends.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
link to incident mentioned in other post.
the most sexp i get is my paren-mode.
Because if you refuse to listen to them they start to mime.
In space, no-one can hear you mime.
It has reachtion wheels and hydrazin thrusters (for unloading) to counter disturbances such as solar pressure.
I worked within the project....
The problem will not be contamination of space, the prblem will be if the Ariane goes kaboom again on the launchpad. Then you risk plutonium contamination allthough the quantites will be minimal. At leat comapred with Chernobal. :)
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
People have been talking about ion propulsion for decades- how's this revolutionary? I know we've had working engines for some time, and that the first probe using one was launched some time ago (sorry, I don't remember details). I also know that some high school seniors I know built a working ion propulsion engine- the output was microscopic, but that's expected. Really, though, they did; I've seen it! Apparently, it wasn't that hard for them, either. So, please remind me how an ion propulsion system is revolutionary when one can be built for little money.
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
The SMART-1 Mission will map the composition of rocks across the whole surface of the moon, not just the sites visited by Apollo (inc far side & south pole, which may have H2O). Also with higher resolution/more sensitive instruments than previous craft.
It is true that ion drives are not that exciting in terms of time for a moon mission - although it does reduce weight. An ion drive to the outer solar system could reduce payload and travel time too, because the drive can fire almost continuously..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
No hoax, but they'll find that the moon has since been colonized by the McDonalds/Starbucks joint project which reached the moon in 99 and have set up a variety of lunar franchises for mystery-meat and moccachino craving space-travellers.
I bet we will get back to the moon first. I can see it now: the EU's probe is getting close a year from now and is only 3 months away from the moon when we launch our own probe, it gets there in four days, runs through its entire mission, and returns back to earth, all before the EU's rockets gets there. Better yet, we could wait 9 months, set up a probe that does the same experiements/observations as the EU's, send it, have it run them, and get it back to earth all before the eu's probe even gets there.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Solar electric propulsion is hardly new. It's been used for getting communications satellites out to their final geosynchronous orbits for a number of years now, and NASA demonstrated using solar-powered ion engines for interplanetary primary propulsion on Deep Space 1 back in '98.
What ESA is claiming is new about this mission is that they'll be combining ion propulsion with gravity assist maneuvers. AFAIK that hasn't really been done yet (although I know some guys at JPL who're working on it), and given how difficult it can be to work out low-thrust trajectories in the first place I would imagine that successfully throwing gravity assists into the mix would be a significant acheivement.
They're launching on an Arian 5. I give them 3 to 1 odds it's vaporized before it gets past 200k feet in altitude.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
And what if its gets wiped out by micro meteors 14 months into its journey. One good pebble coudl turn one of those solar panels into a big hunk of grabage.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Yes, but you forget that we WOULD have been into space first. We had a rocket capable of it and were planning to test it. For some reason, we decided that it would threaten the Soviets. So, we disabled the last stage and filled the nose with sand. Really, we did this. Don't remember names or dates, though.
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~"The Borg can't be French. The Borg actually win battles."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Napoleone di Buonaparte. - Nuff Said
Without France, Americans would still be saying "Cheerio my good slave, old chap".
without France more U.S. soldiers are going to Die in the desert.
Time to take a long view. Freedom fries was yesterday's shits and giggles.
~~I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank...~~
Propulsion Unit...
Confusing for "Solar Powered Segway"
Actually, while uranium does exist in a relatively abundant quantity here one earth, there are only minute (read 'unusable') quantities here on earth. As such it stand to reason that while there may be supplies of uranium around the solar system, plutonium does not exist in any usuable quantities in the solar system. As such, we will most likely always have to produce as opposed to mining it.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
The reason ion engines are a good thing is because they are so efficient. But they also have their share of problems.
;) I did my senior thesis on a solar electric propulsion Mars mission, and I find it to be far more interesting than most people seem to.
The figure of merit for rocket propulsion is specific impulse (Isp). It is a measure of unit thrust per unit mass of fuel consumed per unit time. Conventional (chemical) propulsion, such as solid rocket boosters, have an Isp in the 200 - 300 range. But they generate many many thousands of kilonewtons of thrust. That's why we use them for launching things out of gravity wells.
Ion engines, on the other hand, have Isps from 2000 - 3500 (though the higher end of that range is only test-stand stuff right now). They, however, produce only millinewtons of thrust, and cannot be used for fast orbit transfers or launches. But they can be made small. Very, very small, with correspondingly small amounts of fuel, which is pure joy for aerospace engineers trying to design robotic missions.
Unfortunately, they are also power-hungry little buggers. A single ion engine can use a kilowatt of power while running...and they must be running all the time to generate enough delta-v to have an effect on the course of a spacecraft. (Delta-v is the measurement of how much of a change in a velocity vector is necessary to effect the desired change in course, and mission designers begrudge every cm/s...every maneuver burns propellant, and there are no gas stations in space.) There are only two ways to get power in space right now: solar cells, and some form of nuclear decay. Only solar cells have a good enough power/mass ratio to run ion engines, and as missions proceed farther out from the Sun, array area must be bigger, which adds mass. It's a tricky balancing act.
For this mission, however, the craft will always be close enough to the sun to generate the power it needs fairly easily. (Except when it's in shadow, but that's why we have storage batteries.)
Ion propulsion is an old technology, incidentally. It's been around in some form or another since the 60's. It's only recently that it became economical, though.
I could go on for pages, but I'm unconvinced anyone wants to see that.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
unuasable quatities of plutonium on earth
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
the prblem will be if the Ariane goes kaboom again on the launchpad.
What's the worst that could happen?
No sig
Their next probe is headed your way! Due to be launched in 2005 it should be able to make it there by mid 2379.
This sig is worse than my last.
Remember, heavy elements are made in supernovae, and elements heavier than Uranium have too short a half life to have lasted long enough to be around. Uranium is only around because it's got an enormously long half life. Radioactive elements lighter than Uranium with short half lives are found in nature only because they decayed from heavier elements with longer half lives. So no, there's no plutonium out there.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
At least if the launch fails they will have a nuclear test.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
And they are not racing anyone, they just want to get there.
Besides, it gives the joint Alien-American-Russian crew at Moon's dark side base enough time to cover up everything and go for well-deserved vacation in Phobos.
Uranium, Plutonium? In space? Sounds like WMD! INVADE!!!
DOn't worry nothing can go wrong. rememebr it's made French Tough so there's nothing to worry about.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
Maybe it can take some pictures of that American Flag and the tire tracks while it's up there.
Don't know what good it'd do, since the conspiracy theorists would simply say something about the pictures being covertly doctored by the French government after the the probe landed in order that they might get back in bed with the U.S Government..
They'd get more Fox News airtime, but at least we'd have a few converts.
Ion engines are a mature technology. They have existed since the 60's, and are currently used for stationkeeping on a great number of satellites. They performed far beyond expectations on NASA's Deep Space 1 mission in 1998, and are a logical and economical choice for any mission of relatively low mass where time is not a critical factor--which it is not in this case.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Sure the Ion drive is a really neat addition, but it's soooo slooooow.
That's why any good imperial trooper knows you use twin ion engines.
Why is the US supporting a convicted war criminal?
Because the US didn't convict him, and they don't care about what the rest of the world thinks, no?
M.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Aerobraking, similar to that imagined in Arthur C Clarke's 2010: Odyssey 2. I gather the physics is fairly sound, as NASA used it for precisely this purpose a couple of years ago.
As long as there is a star in our Solar system, then SMART 1's mission can last a good while
Unfortunately, however, our solar system contains only one star, meaning that solar powered engines lacked redundancy...
(YES, that's a JOKE...)
Life is short: void the warranty.
What exactly is innovative about this mission? It is the same mission as flown by Clementine years ago. Solar electric propulsion is commonplace. Here are some spacecraft that have flow them to date:
I don't think this story is slashdot worthy.
an ill wind that blows no good
Perhaps more useful information for those of us at high risk of mime-exposure: "In the dark, no one can see a mime."
It was about time Europe get itself a special effects industry capable of faking lunar missions. The USA perfected this technology in the late sixties and look how profitable the American movie industry is now.
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
The purpose of the mission is to flight-test technologies. for the ESA web site,
"SMART-1 is the first of a series of 'Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology' designed to test key technologies for future spacecraft. It is Europe's first mission to the Moon. Among the new technologies to be tested is the solar-electric propulsion which will power the spacecraft to its target. SMART-1 will help solve such questions as how the Moon came into being and whether there is water there."
So efficiency in getting scientific results is not a priority here...
Hate to say it dude, but the language most spoken on earth is I believe Chinese. They will probably beat us both to mars as well. In addition, if the space program isnt broke why do the russians keep saying that they will have to stop sending rockets up without immediate money from NASA. Our human grade tranpsot system, namely the shuttles, is the best on earth, even better than that cheap rip off you built. The 'hurling into space a t afraction of the cost' is only one aspect. You also have to look at how up to date the tchnology is. Our shuttles may be more expensive but with the newest upgrades, they are technologically decades ahaead of your rockets. When is the last tiem the russians did a real important experiment in space? When was the last time the russians put a good telescope into space (Hubble, Chandra, we have a whole slew of good ones)? When was the last time the russians sent a probe into space. We have had pathfinder, galileo, and that one who went to the asteroid. Where are the russian ones? We are way ahead of you in everything except the economics of getting a person into space and a little space station tech (your space station tech is over ten years old, while ours is a bit more uptodate though unproven). As to being always ahead. WHo developed the shuttle first? We did. Yours is a cheap knock off. We got to the moon? The russians haven't even done that yet. Who has an active probe program? We do, you don't. With the exception of playing around with mir, and becoming glorified delivery boys, your space program is a joke. As to the language of the solar system, it will be mathematics. Either that or chinese and english. Our space program is pushing the boundaries of science, your spacve program is pushing the warrenties of your equipment.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Actually, Ion engines have been used in space since early 90's but primarly as station keeping thrusters for satilites. You are correct that competition is good for NASA, but at this very moment, the Air Force is funding the Ion Space Propulsion Lab where I am currently doing my PhD research.
Are they going to use the same stage sets that were used for the Apollo project? Seems like it would be important to look consistent.
I hope they add some special effects, maybe some living rocks that shoot lasers, or holes in the surface that suck astronauts up in plumes of moon dust.
I love sequels!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
It means that they can launch a vehicle on top of a commerical GEO booster, and that the vehicle can make its own way out of geostationary orbit into lunar orbit.
I don't think any launches will be done exactly this way - it's more efficient to use thrust deeper inside a gravity well, so you can get more deltaV from the same fuel by boosting into a highly elliptical orbit (e.g. a geosynchronous transfer orbit) and then do all your burns near perigee, which raises your apogee but keeps your perigee down at LEO altitudes until you finally hit escape velocity or a lunar capture trajectory.
finally, we get to look at the alien bases on the other side of the moon.
I know, and I would like to correct everyone on that issue too. But with the kind of thinking that anything NASA have done, no one else should do since it's already been done, would make it pointless to have competition in any area. And what could hurt if research is taking place in more than one place? Perhaps new ideas and more experience would follow. Soviet was the first to carry out manned space missions - should no one else do it, then? Or should they, only not with rockets?
"(Astronauts on five Apollo missions left RTG units on the lunar surface to power the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Packages.)"s /npsm3. htm
You can read more about it here:
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/ianu
Thanks for using up all of the obligitory ./ responses you insensitive clod!
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Why is this insightful? This is funny.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I hear they aren't really going, they are just using the USA's sound stage from the last "missions".
--replacning tin foil hat.
Really, we did this. Don't remember names or dates, though.
I really don't know much about the matter, except that the only thing you could have done to make your post even less credible was to post it as an Anonymous Coward.
Keep this up and the other guy don't even have to say anything to win the argument...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
What's more interesting is the intense amount of ignorance.
SMART 1 is going to the Moon not Jupiter or Neptune. NASA does not load the extra weight of an RTG (Radioisotope Thermal Generator) unless a probe like Gailileo or Cassini is headed out beyond Mars orbit, where sunlight diminishes past the point in which solar panels are no longer practical for spacecraft power (due to that pesky inverse square law).
For inner planet missions i.e. Mercury through Mars, NASA uses solar panels as in the recent NEAR mission.
They must! Cause last I checked NASA already had an ION engine probe that visited a meteor (to lazy to find link). The mission is already complete, and they actually landed the probe on the meteor (asteroid whatever) at the end of the mission. So I don't know how the ESA can claim to be the first, must be some fun little technicality they're using. And the NASA one had automatic onboard navigation too. Using pictures of the stars to figure out position.
*Remember, heavy elements are made in supernovae*
Then how do we make Plutonium? Last I checked, we don't routinely create supernovae on Earth.
The fact is, Plutonium is very easily made by firing neutrons into Uranium 238. That's what Fast Breeder reactors do.
Since decaying Uranium is a neutron emitter, Plutonium can be created in nature when the concentration of Uranium is high enough. Trace amounts of Plutonium are found routinely in nature.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
If SMART 1's ion engine is of long duration, i.e. a sufficiently long power supply it may make something possible that's never been done before, an extended Lunar orbit.
What most people aren't aware of is that orbiting the Moon is an inherently unstable proposition. An orbit close enough so that the Moon can actually prevail over solar or Earth influence runs into the problem of mascons, mass concentrations that tend to accelerate and then drag any object in a lunar orbit. The end result is that without regular correction the object would lose orbital velocity and crash into the lunar surface within a month.
NASA used Ion propusion in their Deep Space 1 craft, and used it to take pictures of an asteroid, back in 1998. Maybe new for Europe, but it's been tried and tested already.
Sorry, but all the ignorance is your own. Nasa has sent a *lot* of RTGs to the moon. You can read more about it here: http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/ianus/npsm3. "(Astronauts on five Apollo missions left RTG units on the lunar surface to power the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Packages.)"
Also, Viking used RTG. Also, RTG isnt the only type of Nuculear power. Nasa has Nuculear heaters on the recient Mars mission.
It's true that to go to the outer planets requires nuclear power, that doesn't mean that we are forced to use it. There is another option: simply don't send any probes there. I know the science is cool and all, but you have to assume some sort of responsibity to the general health of this planet. There will always be a risk of a accendent, it's happened before and it'll happen again.
I don't want to be a dick,
but you mean weight would be a problem lifing off, not once in space...right?
WTF? Over?
One of my thesis advisors is a technical consultant on Genesis. I heard this from *her* supervisor, who is one of the project leads.
Genesis is going to capture a bunch of particles, and return to Earth so that they can be analyzed. It has a lid which is open now, collecting ions and such, which will snap shut for the flight back to Earth and reentry. The spacecraft body is of a similar design to other missions, and the contractor only had to make minor changes to it for this mission.
Shortly after Genesis launched, a NASA employee asked a contractor how to they were going to open the lid to get the samples out. The contractor was confused, then alarmed after he found out that the NASA employee was serious. Turns out that there is no provision for getting the spacecraft open...the latches are on the inside of the lid, and spring-loaded. They snap into place, and are not designed to be opened.
So now NASA is working on ways to cut the aluminum latches that *don't* generate all kinds of heat, electricity, and/or aluminum powder to contaminate the samples....
Truly an "oh, shit" moment in engineering.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Actually this might encourage investment by the government in Space Technology. After all the American and Russian on the Space Station might resist. They'll have to send up hundreds of rockets for the "Shock and Awe" phase.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
Even though there are million of rocks floating in the general area from Earth to the moon, the chances of a small probe hitting a large enough chunk would be close to nothing.
Space is large with very little inbetween.
You'd think that by this point someone at NASA would have been geeky enough to name a lunar probe Alice.
I don't even want to here name submissions for probes to Uranus.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
Hehe..
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Not a surprise - the US is a capitalist nation, and would prefer to sell the technology if the EU wants it and not just give it away for the benefit of all - after all, the US spent billions developing it (you know, the old Open Source vs Closed Source argument).
I like to think of NASA like Microsoft - bloated, inefficient, and owner of a _LOT_ of patents and trade secrets they'd love to share for a couple of billion yearly.
but you mean weight would be a problem lifing off, not once in space...right?
No, weight is still a problem in space. (Unless you're trying to make a pedantic joke based on the irrelevant of any "weight" outside a gravity field)
If a vehicle is heavy on the earth, that means it's massive, and although weight "vanishes" in space, the mass remains.
That mass will fight against the manuverbility of the vehicle for the rest of it's life. Every thrust it makes will need to be proportionally bigger to account for any additional mass.
Ahh... none of the US probes ever sent to the moon used plutonium either. In fact, only the USSR has ever placed radioactive material into an earth orbit (they placed small nuclear reactors on some LEO radar sattelites since at the low orbits they occupied the normal solar panels would have exerted too much drag on the very thin atmosphere and decayed the orbits too fast).
The US has only ever used plutonium for deep space missions that go beyond Martian orbit, Voyagers I&II, Galileo, and Cassini are some examples. The reason for this is that available solar energy drops off as a square of the distance from the sun, beyond Martian orbit the solar panels could not deliver nearly enough power to run the onboard instruments. If the Europeans wanted to send a probe into deep space, they would do the exact same thing the Americans have done and use Plutonium.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
No need to design a complicated solar array when a simple RTG will do. They are essentially solid state with no moving parts at all, making them very easy to assemble on the surface of the moon.
Additionally I am unfamiliar with the efficiency and durability of Lunar era solar cells, it may well be that the RTG was a more reliable power source.
I'll just say I have more trust in NASA engineers than in someone that mentions ignorance and then manages to produce that horrible rant.
karma capped
The US doesn't want to sell the technology. They want to keep it to themselves since they can make more money selling shuttle flights than selling the technology, mush like MS can make more money selling copies of Windows than they ever could selling a comprehensive source code licence. The EU gets nothing out of that apart from putting their satellites and probes in space. Building your own means you get satellites into space, and something to sell
The outside view is really poor, but the inside was rated the best space resort in the quadrant for three consecutive decades.
Put another man on the moon, then I'll stifle the yawn.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
I was called ignorant by the previous poster, which made claims about RTGs that were completely incorrect. I supply links to back up my facts. So that's hardly a rant. More likely that you simply don't like the facts
In fact, only the USSR has ever placed radioactive material into an earth orbit The US Navy has sent 11 nuclear satellites into orbit so far. 7 remain in orbit, two burned up in orbit releasing the plutonium, and two reentered with RTG intact, although a lot of the information is classified, so we don't know for sure.
You are right though the USSR have put an enormous quantity of nuclear waste into orbit, a lot more than the US.
The US has only ever used plutonium for deep space missions that go beyond Martian orbit, Voyagers I&II, Galileo, and Cassini are some examples Don't forget the Viking missions had RTGs
Source
If the Europeans wanted to send a probe into deep space, they would do the exact same thing the Americans have done and use Plutonium.
Maybe they're just happy enough to restrict theirselves to what can be explored safely
The nuclear heaters ARE RTGs. probe craft are a bit small to do the whole chamber pipeworks fission routine. And yes you are right about the RTGs, but that was a neccessity as the build up of lunar dust coats solar panels rather rapidly. (When the Apollo 12 astronauts checked out Surveyer 3, they found it coated with lunar dust.
And personally the dangers of RTG's such as the ones on Galileo were overblown by sensationalism. While I will be the first to point out the present impractibility of a manned mission to Mars, I do believe that that planetary science has enough merit to outweigh the risks involved. And no serious accidents have happened with RTG's at least, not on American craft.
This isn't mean they're safe... we got away with it the last time, doesn't mean we'll necessarily get away with it the next time.
Remember the Galileo probe (which contained 78 pound of plutonium) was due to go up on next the Shuttle right after the Challanger that blew up.
The US Navy SNAP-9A satellite burned up in the atmosphere in 1964 and deposited more Plutonium 238 on the earth surface, than the entire amount given off by all nuclear arms atmospheric testing, nuclear reprocessing plants and the Chernobyl accident combined.
It only had 4.5 pounds of plutonium in its RTG.
I think they more think 'europe' in the disguise of ESA. And russia/good ol' soviet was *entirely* europe, it was asia as well
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
RTG cores are designed to survive even catastrophic failures which include the termination of the launch vehicle. If Galileo had been on board the worst that would have happened is that the RTG would have been lost at sea, far from any inhabited area.
I don't have the details on SNAP-9A and would appreciate a detailed URL that I could comment on further.
I know the RTGs are encased in iridium alloy, and that gives them a high chance of surviving a crash, but the forces of a launch explosion and a free fall impact are huge. I would doubt that it is possible to make anything 100% guaranteed to survive intact, no matter how much armour you put around it.s /npsm3. htm
Heres that link:
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/ianu
I didn't say usable, I said "trace quantities" Anywhere there's Uranium, there's a possiblility of some trace quantities of Plutonium being created. It's a very very small quantity. If you insist on using Plutonium, it's easier to create it...
There would be "trace quantities" Think about it. If a quantity of U238 is bombarded by neutrons with random velocities, some of that U238 will be transmutted to Pu239. I'm not talking about a large amount -- A few atoms here and there... if you're looking to actually use Plutonium then it's much easier to make it than it is to try and find any.
Nothing is 100 percent but given the fact that NASA launches over the open ocean, I consider the risk factor to be acceptable given the importance of deep space planetary science. Also remember it's not a true freefall impact air drag does slow down so once you hit terminal velocity it does not matter from how high a given object falls.