Genesis: Data in good condition

Oxidation writes "Space.com is reporting that the Genesis satellite crash isn't as bad as it appeared to be in the first place. Furthermore, a prime particle-gathering device "appears intact" states Don Sevilla. (Genesis payload recovery leader at NASA's JPL)"

Comments

Thing is.

[Anonymous Coward]

With the possibility of contamination, will most of the scientific world be taken the results gained from Genesis with a pinch of salt?

Re:Thing is.

[mlyle]

When they were planning to do things like study distribution of oxygen isotopes from the sun, and they have nanograms of oxygen... probably exposing the probe to a 20% oxygen earth atmosphere probably isn't good.

Likewise, with a few dozen micrograms of total material, tossing in several kilograms of dirt and doubtlessly several grams of fine dust inside the capsule will make determining what materials are extraterrestial in origin difficult indeed. Determining quantities of any substance which is more than a few parts-per-billion in earth soil or atmosphere is going to be extraordinarily difficult, and any results will be very questionable, unfortunately.

Mirror and Stick?

[dostert]

Am I the only one who is disturbed by the line that they were "using a flashlight and a small mirror on a stick to explore inside the fractured, garbage-can-sized capsule." This is Nasa... they can't use a tiny camera in there? They have to tape a mirror on the end of a stick and peek around? Reminds me of a line in "Clay Pigeons" when Deputy Barney is poking a body with a stick and when asked why he said "I was just checkin' somethin'"

Re:Mirror and Stick?

[shfted!]

Does your dentist use a camera to look inside your mouth? I don't mean taking xrays. What's wrong with using an old technique if it works just fine? Yes, that's not typical NASA, but these are scientists looking at the wreckage, not bureaucrats -- and scientists tend to be more practical and creative.

Black Box

[Feneric]

I guess I'm not too surprised. Commercial airliner black boxes seem to be able to survive all sorts of crashes and accidents, and while I realize that the weight limits on components sent into space are far more strict than the weight limits on regular aircraft, I'd expect (hope) that NASA has better technology to work with.

Of course there's also the differences between the scientific equipment used by NASA and the simple recording equipment used in aircraft, but again I'd like to think that NASA is on top of such things.

Good Pictures

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I submitted the *exact* same story two days ago, BUT I'M NOT BITTER! Anyway, although the official web site originally had a bunch pictures of the recovery team with their unprotected hands all over the spacecraft remains, it seems they've moved it to a clean room...

Sucks to be the parachute design team.

[StalinsNotDead]

Imagine the ass-chewing those poor engineers got.

Maybe it's just the innate lack of confidence in human nature, but of course NASA's going to say that they were still able to get valuable information despite the crash. Their funding is probably on the line, and they don't wish to say "Oh yeah. That was a complete waste of money".

worst case scenarios

[bani]

engineers often design for worst case scenarios, especially with space probes.

i wouldnt be suprised if they engineered the probe in such a way that even in catastrophic failure (eg lawn dart) there would still be a good chance of viable data.

should be easy

[bani]

should be easy to tell the difference between solar wind particles which impacted the collectors at several km/s vs dust particles which simply settled on the surface.

Hollywood ending

[3ryon]

This begs the question of why they thought it was necessary to have the Hollywood stuntman ending (literally), instead of just designing a reentry vehicle with a low terminal velocity and just letting it crash into the ocean for a softer landing.

Re:Can't land on earth? :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

>I think that for $264M this is a pretty silly
>mistake...
>
>Just my two grams of desert sand..

If you can design a system that can work after a trip to the sun and back, you should be working in space research instead of complaining here.

Where is the outrage at the waste of money????

[weedenbc]

I mean come on. Everyone is pissed at the money being spent in Iraq (and yes I understand that I comparing billions to millions) but NASA still spent years of time and almost a third of a billion dollars to get some particles from the Sun and this is BEST idea to get their investment back safely that they can come up with??????

When is this agency going to get off its ass and come up with something that is meaningful to our nation and humanity as a whole instead of just pure science? I completely understand the need for pure scientific research but that is only going to lead to the slow death of interest and funding for space research and exploration. Everyone mocks Bush for his manned Mars plans and while I agree that they have issues, at least the administration is trying to push the envelope a little bit. We went to the moon decades ago based on responding to a challenge and national will and we haven't done shit since.

Just think of what could have been done with the money wasted on this project and the billions blown on the ISS if NASA had some true leadership, vision, and instituational courage to do something great. Instead we have a bloated bureaocracy that spends extreme amounts of money on safety and paperwork and STILL screws things up.

conflict of interest for NASA?

[TheLittleJetson]

when i saw the footage of that hunk of metal slamming into the desert floor, one thought came to mind: they are going to do whatever they can to make it look like they're getting useful data, because this was a very expensive screw-up, not too long after another big screw-up for NASA. sure, it's great to keep scientific purity, but if the scientific truth is "the sample is full of sand" and it means you could lose funding, wouldn't you be tempted to fudge a little?