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Stardust Apparently Successful
Naomi_the_butterfly writes "The Stardust mission, a craft launched in February 1999, just concluded its encounter with comet Wild 2 at 11:40:35 am PST. The encounter went without a hitch, with about 72 images taken and comet coma (tail) dust collected! The first images will be downloaded to JPL over between 1:30 and 2:30 pm, in time for a press conference at 3:00 pm PST. Today a comet, tomorrow Mars!" Space.com has a picture taken by the spacecraft.
[A note of explanation: In the spring of 1967, my book Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal was published by Beacon Press. It was the first book on the war to call for immediate withdrawal, no conditions. Many liberals were saying: "Yes, we should leave Vietnam, but President Johnson can't just do it; it would be very hard to explain to the American people." My response, in the last chapter of my book, was to write a speech for Lyndon Johnson, explaining to the American people why he was ordering the immediate evacuation of American armed forces from Vietnam. No, Johnson did not make that speech, and the war went on. But I am undaunted, and willing to make my second attempt at speech writing. This time, I am writing a speech for whichever candidate emerges as Democratic Party nominee for President. My supposition is that the nation is ready for an all-out challenge to the Bush Administration, for its war policy and its assault on the well-being of the American people. And only such a forthright, courageous approach to the nation can win the election and save us from another four years of an Administration that is reckless with American lives and American values.]
My fellow Americans, I ask for your vote for President because I believe we are at a point in the history of our country where we have a serious decision to make. That decision will deeply affect not only our lives, but also the lives of our children and grandchildren.
At this moment in our nation's history, we are on a very dangerous course. We can remain on that course, or we can turn onto a bold new path to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence, which guarantees everyone an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The danger we are in today is that the war--a war without any foreseeable end--is not only taking the lives of our young but exhausting the great wealth of our nation. That wealth could be used to create prosperity for every American but is now being squandered on military interventions abroad that have nothing to do with making us more secure.
We should listen carefully to the men serving in this war.
Tim Predmore is a five-year veteran of the army. He is just finishing his tour of duty in Iraq. He writes: "We have all faced death in Iraq without reason or justification. How many more must die? How many more tears must be shed before Americans awake and demand the return of the men and women whose job it is to protect them rather than their leader's interest?"
What is national security? This Administration defines national security as sending our young men and women around the world to wage war on country after country--none of them strong enough to threaten us. I define national security as making sure every American has health care, employment, decent housing, a clean environment. I define national security as taking care of our people who are losing jobs, taking care of our senior citizens, taking care of our children.
Our current military budget is $400 billion a year, the largest in our history, larger even than when we were in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. And now we will be spending an additional $87 billion for the war in Iraq. At the same time, we are told that the government has cut funds for health care, education, the environment, and even school lunches for children. Most shocking of all is the cut, in billions of dollars, for veterans' benefits.
If I became President, I would immediately begin to use the great wealth of our nation to provide those things, which represent true security.
Immediately on taking office, I would propose to Congress, and use all my power to ensure that this legislation passes, that we institute a brand new health care system, one that builds on the success of our Medicare program, and that has been used effectively in other countries in the world.
I would call it Health Security, because it would guarantee to every man, woman, and child free medical care, including prescription drugs, paid fo
Thousands died while science looked to the stars.
sig not found
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Join the jihad today!Oops, I was going to use that line when we landed on Mars.
Since I have karma to burn, I shall speak my mind...
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.
Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/
"It's such a tragedy," said Bam mayor Ali Akhbar al-Farabi. "Many of our young terrorists never got a chance to indiscriminately kill innocent Jews and Christians. We've lost the ultra-violent core of our community."
Maryam ibn-Wacqi, principal of Martyrs' Middle School in the fashionable suburb of Khomeini Heights, seconded the Mayor's distress. "Our school's Little League Suicide Bombing Team was all set to attack day-care centers and cafes in Jerusalem and now this. Gone forever the patter of tiny feet as they scamper aboard buses in order to kill rush hour crowds. Oh, the humanity."
Singer Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens before his conversion to the Muslim faith, has organized a charity concert called "Jam for Bam" that will be broadcast on the Al-Jazeera Network next Saturday evening at 9pm Iranian Daylight Savings Time. All proceeds from the concert will go towards purchasing explosives, rifles and rocket-propelled grenades for the victims of the earthquake.
so what
They spent HOW much to only get THAT little bit of TAIL?
Landing a probe on Mars is easy. getting it to communicate after it's done so is not so easy.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Images of dust? ... Sooo, how is that different from what we got off CNN in April?
See subject line.
DO NOT mod this down!!!
To protect Stardust against the blast of expected cometary particles and rocks, the spacecraft rotated so it was flying in the shadow of its "Whipple Shields"
Please don't squeeze the Charmin!
I dont remember reading about a mission that collected commet dust....
This mission has almost nothing to do with propulsion you twit.
It is merely a means to an end.
The point was to collect some physical material from a comet and see what we can learn from it. Which could be a whole lot, or very little.
Seriously, this is pretty damn cool.
Images of the enounter may be found here along with live updated status reports here. Looking closely at the overexposed image on the bottom of the first page you can actually make out vapor jets emanating from the surface of Wild produced by the vaporizing ice and dust heated by the sun.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
why use video when you can use......
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/040102a.gif
ANIMATED GIFS!
seriously thats like the longest one ive ever seen. i could only get as far as the guy in the blue shirt and the old people in congress.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
This is the first time a space mission has collected any material besides moon rocks. We will finally be able to analyis real space objects.
I can't begin to imagine how much of an impact this truly will have on the industry.
To other naysayers in this thread, can you name another time NASA has successfully grabbed SPACE DUST from a flying comet? Thought not.
I, for one, am truly excited about the Stardust mission. You should be, too.
Karma: Eh, could be worse.
Just thought I'd ask...lol
I'm posting anonymously to avoid getting modded down to -5 troll. But here goes...
Astronomy may not be rocket science, but I still want to know who the genius is who decided to name a comet's tail a "coma". And who were the people who went along with this brilliant idea?
OK, fine, coma is Latin for hair. But what's the point of using a dead language to make some obscure allusion? Granted scientists do this all the time, but it's still silly and pretentious.
(that pic of the comet looks suspiciously like the comet from the star trek intro!... :)
--
Power to the Peaceful
Apparently? It returned pictures, but was only apparently successful?
Are we suggesting that the Stardust mission was faked, like the moon landing?
Shocking. Will the lies never stop? Even more damning evidence found here.
philcrissman.com.
"Apparently successful"?
One of the most brilliant albums in history!
-----
Give back your stolen domain, Michael.
Here's a CNN article that describes the substance that NASA is using to capture samples from the comet's tail.
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
It's kewl.
Have a look:
Approximated 3D stereoscopic view of the comet
The fact that the comet was photographed from two slightly different angles makes it possible to create a stereoscopic view of the object. I enhanced the left-hand image a little bit to help bring out the depth of the object. The original image is way too washed out to make it a good fit.
In order to view it, sit squarely infront of your monitor at a distance of a few feet, cross your eyes gently, and try to merge both sides of the images into a "single image" in the center. If you're having trouble, try using the two red birds as a visual guide. Once the birds overlap, the rest of the picture will as well.
Ahhhh, I love stereoscopy.
Bowie J. Poag
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Very funny, NASA.
It's big news because like someone else said, they're the first samples we've ever gotten that didn't come from the moon, and aren't inter-planetary dust particles. Plus, they're actually -returned- to earth, and not just measured/observed like all the other previous satelites have done. Wild 2 is presumed to be composed of the same substances that were present at the begining of the universe, and will contribute to a better understanding of how everything was back then. Since it's mostly just a dirty snowball floating in space, it's presumed to have been relatively unchanged for billions of years. The scientists will go wild over actual samples of particles that are this old.
What's also cool, is that the same stunt helicopter guys that they used in the matrix will be the ones that snag the returning samples's capsule/heatshield out of the air over utah.
My dad is the V.P. of Civil Space at lockheed martin (this project was under his management), so the family and I got to go and watch the final approach and the turning of the satelite (not that we could see anything other than people at workstations at JPL and Waterton) and see the first images. It was kinda neat to see all the scientists at JPL get excited that they were receiving data. And cooler to see the engineers here in Denver breathe a sigh of relief that it worked, and that it didn't get nailed by a rock going 36,000 miles an hour.
The probe was able to take 72 pictures, but they are still in the process of receiving those pictures since they aren't sent here in real time.
Here
just wanted to say a quick congrats to all the hard working people at nasa. keep up the good work.
The linux hacker
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Never let it fade away
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day
For love may come and tap you on the shoulder
some starless night
Just in case you feel you want to hold her
You'll have a pocketful of starlight
(Okay, so it's comet dust, not a falling star/meteorite. [ObHomer] Stupid geeks, be more romantic!)
Just for safety I hope NASA has a clean room containing an old drunk and a crying baby. They'll be our only hope if there's any space-born virus brought back!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
There seems to be a lot of celebrating just for catching the dust.
Two years before its returned to Earth, if everything goes as planned. THEN I'll chear.
For now, just a tepid thumbs up.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
A face! I see a face!
Call the National Enquirer !
You're forgetting one key fact-
There are no Martians on comets, so there was no one to shoot this one down.
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
I can't wait to see these pictures. It was getting time to change wallpaper anyway, this looks like they will do just fine
This space intentionally left blank.
You'd think anything with a name like WILD2 would have a tail made of empty beer cans.
> Read how radiation should have turned the Astro-nots into crispy space bacon.
Hmmm bacon......
"We will finally be able to analyis real space objects" hundreds of meteorites reach the earths surface every year. aren't these real space objects?
Who did space.com pay to put the caption right in the URL?!
g _d isplay.php?pic=h_wild2-comet_02.jpg&cap=Your%20Bal ls%20Are%20Filthy%20---%20Go%20Wash%20Them%20Beavi s
I like this caption to the WILD2 photo over the original:
http://space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/im
------------------------------
Ray Raspberry
raspberry@b3l33t.org
I'm also looking forward to Deep Impact, a mission in which a NASA probe will shoot a large copper projectile into a comet, and observe the various ejecta that result.
http://www.mobileasses.com/display.php
And what rating will it get?
Take a look here:
http://www.blogjam.com/neil_armstrong/
fuck you spammer. you're invading those womens' right to privacy!
It looks surprised to see the spacecraft.
o o
O
Aliens have left us a message in the image caption. Be afraid.
Yeah, I know...lame joke. *sigh*
and that it didn't get nailed by a rock going 36,000 miles an hour.
Like mars?? LOL
that spacedust is costing a few hundred millions dollar for less than 0.1gram. Probably the most expensive dirt ever. I hope when it get back to Earth that someone didnt sneeze and blow off all the dust.
When will this industry ever learn?
g _d isplay.php?pic=h_wild2-comet_02.jpg&cap=<script>al ert('Dirty XSS Balls')</script>
http://space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/im
(Don't forget to delete the spaces)
Damn.
It all goes downhill from first post
Can anyone say Andromeda Strain?
I'm being serious. That's absolutely fucking amazing. How they know where the comet is going to be in space at a particular time and get another object going over 13,000 miles an hour to pass through its tail and snap pictures from a mere 200 miles away and all that by remote control when it takes an hour for instructions to get to the craft. Astounding. The shit we take for granted.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Ahhhh! My eyes!
after testing the sample scientists figure out how to make the comet more efficient by running Linux.
I was all set for a short John Carter fiction peice about the disappearance of Stardust.
So, of course, this is one probe that's successful!
Damnit! Sure, Stardust is worth the millions NASA spent, but I lost a few +1 Funny mod points!
for those of you who have never heard of it, google it. by far one of the more interesting things i learned from reading about this mission.
The comet image looks a lot like the comet in the intro to Deep Space Nine. (Coincidently, there's a banner ad for DS9 on DVD...)
"Derp de derp."
Has the comet been hacked yet?
How long before I can run Linux on the comet?
Can we turn the Ort Cloud into a Beowulf Cluster?
OMG! That would be soooooooooo kewl! *SCREAMS*
... and in the DRM, bind them.
The idea that the names of those fallen soldiers are mixing with stardust today, has been giving me a warm fuzzy feeling. :)
One could extend this loophole even further, I think. (So to speak.)
For example, here is a great picture of the comet's anus.
Look, I've beaten the Slashdot domain-feature-thing! Woot!
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
Today a comet, tomorrow Mars!
Today, a space probe ran into a comet.
NASA has been sending space probes *into* Mars for quite a long time...
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Aaaaack! [space.com]
on another note, an article of mine got posted! woohoo!
There's a nice PDF link which gives some excellent background on the Stardust mission.
/.ers:
Some points of interest for
1) They use Aerogel to collect the dust for return
2) The Dust Analyzer was based on a design used for the ESA's Giotto probe
3) The navigation camera used was left-over from the Voyager mission of 1977, combined with a left-over sensor head from the Gallileo mission launched in 1989
4) The CPU is a hardened version of the Macintosh PowerPC chip, known as the RAD6000, which runs at between 5 and 20 MHz. It has 128 Mb of RAM, and 3 Mb of PROM.
5) The operating system uses only 20% of its RAM for its own use -- the rest is dedicated to experiments, including 75 Mb for images from the navigation camera
6) The radio transponder is a relict of the Cassini mission to Saturn
Follow the first link for lots more nice tech details.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
Launch vehicles and satellites have sophisticated telemetry systems that collect a wide variety of information from on-board sensors and systems. This information is often crucial in diagnosing faults and failures, since physical evidence is usually unavailable.
The problem is that there has to be a satellite tracking ground station, or special satellite with similar capabilities, with a line-of-sight to the probe to receive and record the telemetry for later analysis.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Until now, I did not know it was possible to get an eye cramp. :-o
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
and all I could think was, "That's Wild!"
It's funny 'cause it's true.
People keep telling me there is a sailboat in the picture...
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Sure, but what will be said when we discover that this meteor is actually a frozen chunk of fecal matter dumped from a passing Alien Cruise Ship?
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
...they'll lose contact with the capsule as it aerobrakes into Utah, never to regain it.
Later, traces of it will be found in the UnixWare source (well, hey, the supporting documentation they've filed doesn't leave much else out), and D'ohl will start charging people USD$1500 a grain for the use of his dust.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...discovers DNA similar to D'ohl MacBarratry's"?
That's the headlines, anyway. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I side with Z, except on the point of NASA's efficiency. NASA's middle name is "Efficiency", but sadly their first name is "Lacks".
Giving mankind any firm target for research is a win, because otherwise we'd never get off our collective asses to achieve anything that didn't produce an immediate profit. Welcome to Human Nature 101.
If you take an Atheistic viewpoint, that would be bad because the first sizeable rock to come and kiss us means the end of all sapient life on Earth. If you take a concensus religious point of view, that would be bad because we're failing to live up to our responsiblities (to housekeep Gaia, or manage God's little preserve for us, or whatever).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
And now, with the mars lander apparently dead....
sig not found
Ack, I hardly meant to imply NASA was some sort of efficient thing, short of their early days. I know the NASA lately has had all the efficiency of.. uh.. something that really, really doesn't have much of it.
I've had something of an opinion for awhile that we tend to slip into periods of stagnation when the cynicism valve gets clogged up and people start focusing on the fact that everything sucks, rather than making any pretenses to dreaming. The past ten years or so has been a particularly bad one of those, and with the death knell for American manned spaceflight this past February it's gone up quite a bit.
People need to realize that what's been done in space so far is far from the limit. The problem is getting past that cynicism; people with any kind of vision are labelled as crackpots not worthy of notice just because they come up with something new or moderately difficult. Add onto that the "but but but TERRORISM!" fear these days, and you get a culture that's not in the mood to do a whole hell of a lot. :P
Really though, we're gonna be around for a lot longer than the next fifty years or so (I hope), but our stake here isn't permenant. People have this apres moi, le deluge mindset that's sorely limiting, and are rejecting the idea that they have any sort of obligation or responsibility to future generations. I'm inclined to think they do, and I'll gladly accept whatever variant of "leftist dumbass" people are going to throw at me for daring to think that.
We've got to get some presence off this rock if just for the sake of the species as a whole, because right now our eggs are all in one basket. I'm not dumb enough to think it's just a matter of saying "Okay, let's do it" and hurling millions of people out into the great beyond, but it's hardly the insurmountable task people believe it to be. The problem is that initial, admittedly huge investment. It will take a lot of time, money, and yes, even lives, to get something out of space programs, but the moment you stop thinking in terms of the next fiscal year and start thinking in terms of your grandchildren it becomes a lot more worthwhile. Once people actually start doing something Up There beyond probes and the ISS boondoggle, opportunities in just about every scientific field, coupled with industrial or power-generation possibilities, will more than pay us back for our efforts, making that initial investment seem paltry by comparison.
It's one of those things that's worth it if people can get the will to admit that very true fact.
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Whaddaya know... Stardust returns to Earth on my birthday. I guess I'll be able to wish on a (falling) star for sure that day.
Shutting them down just once would probably be enough. But there would inevitably be a replacement - would it be better or worse than what we have? Why?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
At least one par in there sounded very... Pratchett. Nice speech. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
... if they had included Vietnamese people's names as well.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.