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Mars Express Successfully Deploys First Boom
Psiolent writes "As reported yesterday, the Mars Express team is beginning the antenna deployment process. The BBC reports that the satellite has successfully deployed the first boom of the primary antenna. The article also states that 'the mood amongst instrument team members is now said to be positive, following the problem-free deployment of the first boom.' The second boom of the primary antenna is scheduled to be deployed Sunday."
It's only pathetic if you judge the space program in terms of cool stunts, which for the most part is what the manned program has been. In terms of collecting data for scientific purposes, we've mapped Mars, photographed the outer planets, and had the Hubble peer at planets outside our solar system. All done with automated "toys" like rovers, probes and orbiters.
So real space exploration doesn't look like "Star Wars". Tough shit. Grow up and get over it.
So a very tiny part of a relatively small-scale space mission went well. That's terrific.
I've personally been anxiously awaiting the Marsis deployment since last year. This "very tiny part" should hopefully settle the question of whether or not there are bodies of subterranean water currently on Mars. I don't know about you, but I consider the possibility of Martian aquifers quite exciting.
What was the biggest triumph of space exploration in the last ten years?
There's plenty of options:
* the first landing on an asteroid
* the discovery of bodies of water in the past of Mars
* the first privately-funded suborbital human spaceflight
* the first landing on Titan
* the first in-space test of an ion propulsion engine
* the discovery of and first images of extrasolar planets
* the discovery of a sub-surface ocean on Europa
* the collection of dust samples from a comet
* high resolution (10m) maps of the Martian surface
No, our highwater mark for the last ten years is a solar-powered toy car which rolled around for a few days on the surface of Mars. Pathetic.
And Einstein was a guy who thought about stuff for a while and wrote them down.
Remember the day when an entire manned space flight going without a hitch was barely considered newsworthy?
Yah, I also remember a day when ALL of Nasas resources were dedicated to one single mission, rather than a 100-200. You just think it might be a bit easier to accomplish one single goal while dedicating all your resources to it than it is to work on 100 things at the same time? We spent billions upon billions of dollars for a guy to play golf on the moon and get some rocks back. That's great, and we learned a lot but in terms of science it was peanuts compared to the science we get from all the missions being worked on now.
Since then, we've had blurry telescopes, lost probes, crash landings, re-entry burn-ups, space station fires, metric conversion errors, and a plethora of other humiliating failures.
True. We've also had wonderfull sucesses. We fixed the "blury telescope" in orbit, and have upgraded it several times since. We've STILL got two robots wandering around Mars far after they were designed to operate. We had a probe land on a moon of Saturn, had another probe land on an asteriod, and have another set to crash into a comet. We've got another probe set to orbit mercury for the first time ever. Oh, and we've got a small armada of probes set to be sent to mars over the next few years. Compared to the "glory days" where we also had massive failures like rockets exploding, I think we're doing damn well. As far as past failures, if you want something with that's a bit safer, try something a bit more easy like designing ashtrays.
No, our highwater mark for the last ten years is a solar-powered toy car which rolled around for a few days on the surface of Mars
Quite a manipulative way to put it. The rovers have produced an enourmous amount of information on the geology of Mars in the more than a year they've been active. We never would have gotten the evidence for liquid water on Mars we have without being able to move around the surface.
But you seem to be more upset that we're not doing "glamorous" things like going to the moon, or producing pretty pictures of Saturn. If all you care about is sexy space stuff, I'd suggest one of the fine eye-candy sci-fi movies hollywood puts out. Nasa is in the business of science, and partially in the business of manned exploration. Creating "Star Trek" isn't in that mission.
AccountKiller
For a start (as another poster pointed out) it is not NASA. You obviously have not heard of the concept of a "support department". ESA did test it to death (I belive they are CMML5 compliant) and kept on testing it after launch. The post launch testing is why they CHANGED THIER ORIGINAL PLAN.
How would you suggest anyone "guarentee success" with anything when the most you can do is mitigate risk through testing? I would say the biggest problem NASA has, is educating taxpayers who have an unreasonable expectation of perfection because they once wrote a flawless "hello world" in highschool.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.