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Cassini Alters Path. Phoebe Now In Sight!
Anonymous Explorer writes "This week the Cassini-Huygens
Spacecraft finally entered
the Saturn system and made its first
main-engine burn in five years in preparation of for the Phoebe flyby. This long
journey
has been one filled with much promise and peril. Launched in 1997,
Cassini is expected to have a rendezvous with
the moon Phoebe
on June 11. For those of us who are lazy, that's just a tad under two
weeks away. After the Phoebe flyby, it's on to the ringed planet, with an
anticipated July 1
ground orbit insertion. The ESA's
Huygens probe will descend into the atmosphere of Titan a few months
after Cassini is inserted into orbit. This mission
promises to be
one that brings a very psychedelic and beautiful area of our solar
system into clearer focus. This multinational
mission is one the
most ambitious scientific explorations yet undertaken and promises some
truly otherworldly images in the near future. With 31 moons/natural
satellites thus far discovered orbiting Saturn, there should be a lot
to keep us occupied. Anyone else excited about the journey
to a ringed world? Lets all enjoy this ride. It promises to
be a unique one as much as for the scenery as for the science. Informal
discussion regarding the Cassini-Huygens mission can be found at
#cassini on irc.freenode.net."
IMHO quality images do more to create and maintain public enthusiasm for space exploration than all the statistics in the world about the benefits of the space program; far too many geeks and/or scientists underestimate and underutilize the best of all marketing tools we have for getting funding and support for the space program. I hope they don't forget about the value of a pretty picture.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Funny, I never post AC. It says something about a person's character when they will only be controversial when they are not held accountable.
Anyway, I didn't say "environmentalists" are stupid. Most mean well, and some are even well informed and productive. Unfortunately, many mistake passion for evidence, and can't be bothered to investigate opposing viewpoints.
RTGs are hardened and designed to withstand explosion and extreme temperatures. They do not explode, and I believe that they do not even become active until after launch. Radiation has been "The R Word" since the 50's, but we actually use it all the time and know how to handle it. Only in cases of extreme incompetence and lack of precautions (see Chernobyl - 1986) do we need to be concerned.
Returning to the planet, a nuclear plant is far less likely to cause ANY harm than most power technologies or chemical processes (See Bophal, India). We KNOW that radiation can be dangerous, hence the extreme precations we take.
Incidently, NOTHING is 100% safe... along with fearing (and guarding against) the risk, you should consider the rewards.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Remember cassini is nasa's deadly space probe. It is nice to see that these groups have other stuff to protest these days. Hope that stuff is not as deadly as cassini...
The protests were about a risk, that is, an accident that could have occurred with a certain probability. Everybody pretty much agreed that the risk of an accident was at least fairly low. What people disagreed on was the cost should such an accident acctually occur. The fact that a fairly low-risk event didn't occur does not tell you anything about whether it was prudent to engage in the activity in question.
I'm sorry that such elementary scientific and economic concepts as "risk" and "cost" elude you. Without an understanding of those concepts, you are simply in no position to even participate in such debates.
"first main-engine burrn in five years"
...
[only a] 78 mph change in speed
One thing that comes out again here, but only by implication, from these reports, is the amazing accuracy and precision (still amazing to me anyhow) of the ephemerides (~ solar system maps) used to plan these missions. They knew where Mars would be for MER to within, what, was it about a meter or two? Maybe not that close for Saturn but still good enough not to need main-engine course corrections in five years
Kudos to the chief JPL mapmaker Dr Myles Standish and his crew!
-wb-
... about the journey to a ringed Apparantly not, we're having the same old discussion about that hazards it posed for having a nuclear power source, and dumb jokes about a character on a defunt sitcom. Perhaps it would save some bandwith on /. if mods just decided to forgo future Cassini stories. Those who want to see the pictures know where to go.