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Stardust Probe Enters Comet's Tail Tomorrow
Tortured Potato writes "NASA's Stardust probe is about to pass through the tail of Comet Wild 2 at 11:40am PST, January 2nd. If all goes well, the probe will return the material to earth for research in 2006-- the first extraterrestrial material captured from outside the moon's orbit."
Why does this sound like the beginning to a bad sci fi movie:
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This could be very interesting in that there are rumblings that the "tail" of a comet may not actually be melting ice, etc (the dirty snowball model that is the current accepted theory). James McCanney has an interesting theory called the Plasma Discharge Comet Model.
From the website http://www.usinternet.com/users/jmccanney/
"The work showed among other things that comets were not dirty snow balls sublimating (vaporizing) in the solar environment, but were a complex plasma discharge interaction involving an asteroidal comet nucleus with the "solar capacitor", the capacitor being the result of a differential flow in the solar wind of high energy particles leaving the sun. The balance of charge in the solar system and a myriad of of other previously unknown effects were predicted by the theory, including the existence of an electron sheet arriving from the sun at a cometary nucleus and resulting x-rays. Only recently have these been verified by observation. The new comet theory also explained that the tail matter was not moving away from the comet nucleus, but was being drawn in by electrical forces millions of times more powerful than gravity or solar wind forces alone. Essentially a comet was now seen as a huge "cosmic vacuum cleaner". Comets were being captured into the solar system by the existing planets and the comet "tail drag" helped to circularize their orbits. Many commonly stated beliefs regarding the nature of the solar system were being dispelled with more subtle explanations. "
The implications of this theory are intriguing as it may explain how Mars lost its atmosphere as well as such bizarre things as the LaBrea tar pits and all of the trapped creatures in it. (Under this theory a larger body can pull elements from a smaller body if it gets close enough such that things such as oil may not be decomposed dinosaurs, but instead gets "rained" down when a smaller planetary body moves close enough).
Interesting stuff.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Albert Einstein
While I don't completely agree with the parent, I do disagree with you. We can spend money constantly trying to inject money into it, but in the end it won't help anything. You get a temporary gain, but at the end of the day you will always have the poor and the uneducated and the underprivileged. It's unfortunate, but it's true. Space programs are kinda a high risk gamble, for relatively little cost. It's like buying a lottery ticket, you know the odds are against you, but you don't miss the $1 anyway, and you got a chance. Space exploration has the chance of forever changing the human condition for the better. As long as we sit on the earth we will slowly burn through it's natural resources whatever we do. The space program is a tiny speck in the federal budget, and most of the cost overruns have been caused by petty politics, not the program itself. A quick glance at google showed me the NASA budget is around 15 billion. The Federal budget is around 2-3 trillion dollars. What great change will another 15 billion do? A small increase in another federal system, and we lose a symbol of our nation, a motivation for technological improvement ( Virtually every product you use, somewhere along the line, was impacted by technology developed for or because of the space program), and hope for a better tommorow. You can throw dirt into a fast moving river forever, and never have it fill up, or start building a bridge. The real probelm with NASA is they have to constantly fight to get their meager budget and are at the mercy of the whims of congress. The politicians need to do their job and give NASA a goal, like Kennedy did, and but out. A smart man knows the areas that arent his strengths, and most politicians couldn't tell a space shuttle from a episode of star trek.
This has never been done before. Any time we wander into the unknown, we are likely to be surprised and learn something unexpected. Historically, this has proven to be very productive.
In this case specifically, it's interesting because we're collecting information and material from a new type of solar system object, one of very few that are within easy reach. There are theories based on indirect observations which suggest what will be found. Comparing what is found to what was predicted will help to test and refine (or invalidate) those theories.
There are good reasons to believe that comets are leftover raw material from the formation of our solar system, objects which did not get gobbled up by larger objects and have spent most of their time since those early days orbiting out beyond Pluto's orbit. Then some chance encounter in the frigid boondocks of the outer solar system bent their orbit in toward the inner solar system.
So, the Stardust probe is hopefully collecting a sample of pre-solar system material that's been in deep freeze storage for 4 or 5 billion years. That material is believed to be composed at least partly of fragments blown off from stellar explosions even farther back in time. It is literally star dust. This is an opportunity to get our hands on material that may be the same stuff that the Hubble and other telescopes look at from across light-years of space, all without leaving the neighborhood.
No one knows what we'll find, but it's bound to be interesting, adding another piece to our understanding of the universe.
``The World Health Organization (WHO) and other UN bodies estimate the cost of providing treatment and prevention services in developing countries for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria at $12 billion a year '' (The Black Vault).
I happen to agree with you, that we could cut other, far more expensive programs and do a lot more good. Cut corporate welfare, cut fat contracts to Halliburton (who has previously been convicted of embezzling millions in government funds), cut spending on weapons the military say they don't need simply because it gives money to some senator's constituents.
Hell, if we took the billions spent on ousting Saddam and spent them on providing humanitarian aid around the world (see how far it could go), I don't think there would be very many terrorists still out to get us, and I doubt they'd have nearly as much support.
So yeah. I think you're right about priorities. But saying we could cut other programs instead doesn't mean a thing. That money could be doing far more good--in terms of concrete improvements like health care and food as well as abstracts like literacy and education--than it does now.
And despite it all, I do like the space program.