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Send your name to Pluto
hatredman writes "NASA is preparing to send the New Horizons probe to Pluto. It will be the first earth device to get intimate with the icy planet. And you can be there too - or, at least, your name. NASA is asking everyone to send them their names, which will be attached in the space device. The New Horizons probe will be launched in January 2006 to explore Pluto and the Kuiper belt, in the outskirts of the Solar System. It is expected that the probe will return to earth in approximately 50 thousand years."
I entered Pluto Nium as my name, but when I check the site to make sure they've got me on the list it isn't there.
For some reason they don't want us to know Pluto Nium is on-board.
--
You didn't know.
Plutonian #1: Hey look, it's some kind of crashed probe.
Plutonian #2: I'll get the can opener!
*fooom*
P1: It's full of names, here is one, "Ivana Tinkle."
P2: I told you to go before we left the glarflog.
I'll strart getting junk mail from Pluto!
Now that's a death ray!
if NASA would put "I'm with Uranus" next to an arrow.
seriously? what is the point? its a cute idea because 'HEY! LOOK! ITS THIS 50,000 YEAR OLD SATELLITE!!' but thats a long ass time for lots of things to go wrong. also a long ass time for people to forget 'hmm... NASA. what the hell is that??' sorry to sound trollish, but i would like to think that in 50,000 years, we could travel to pluto just fine. either that, or we will just be dead.
Everyone who puts their name on the list gets vaporized when the residents of Pluto come looking for whoever bombed their pseudo-planet?
I'm game.
For some reason NASA hired a bunch of outside consultants from the United States Postal Service to help plan this mission.
I'm sure Goofy can, but Pluto? He can't even talk.
If you post it, they will read.
Dear Mr. jmartens:
I am Plutonia Pluton, widow of the late Plutonian Head of State, Gen. Plutonius Pluton...
Greetings Pluto!
I am barrister JOSEPH ZOOMANEENE from Earth. 2 Years ago a space probe crashed on Jupiter, killing my rich uncle....
that you wouldn't want to get intimate with an icy planet
however, it's either that or get intimate with uranus
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Um, am I the only one wondering what the point of sending a CD is? Apart from the "prestiege" for the people on said CD, if any intelligent life picks it up, they're not exactly going to be able to read it are they?
I have trouble enough making sure my Windows using friends don't send me documents in PowerPoint format, let alone intelligent life understanding our alphabet, then working out ASCII code, then working out binary.
It's a standards nightmare to make Tim Berners-Lee cry.
It's going to take a lot less than that to get there, actually. The reason why the trip back will take so long is that it's not actually needed - it just so *happens* that the probe will probably return after 50000 years, but noone's actually really interested in it doing so (not today, anyway).
:)
Of course, the trip to Pluto is going to take a couple of years, but not that much - you're certainly going to see it in your lifetime. Well, assuming you don't die first (but that goes without saying).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
So, you obviously didn't listen to him and put it on there anyways...
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
For that matter, try these (from the Simpsons):
Al Coholic
Oliver Clothesoff
I. P. Freely
Jacques Strap
Seymour Butz
Homer Sexual
Mike Rotch
Hugh Jass
Bea O'Problem
Amanda Huggenkiss
Ivana Tinkle
Anita Bath
Maya Buttreeks
Eura Snotball
Heywood U. Cuddleme
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
And how long is a CD going to last being exposed to all that cosmic ray goodness? Certainly not 50,000 years.
It's called an orbit . . .
here's the wikipedia article.
Unless it has enough energy to leave the system, anything launched will eventually (after a long enough time) to Earth.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
That it is going to take us 50,000 years to send a probe to pluto and back?
If you read the timeline, it'll only take about 10 years for the probe to get there. I know you said "there and back", but your comment is still a little misleading.
They better use a self extracting zip in case plutonians don't have win zip.
TODO create witty sig.
made it to Mars...this time, she's going straight for the Kuiper Belt!
Carousel is a lie!
From:Mbebmu Abacha, Lagos-Nigeria.
.I will greatly appreciate if you accept my
Dear Pluto,
Following the sudden death of my husband General Sani
Abacha the late former head of state of Nigeria in
june 1998, I have been thrown into a state of utter
confusion, frustration and hopelessness by the present
civilian administration, I have been subjected to
physical and psychological torture by the security
agents in the country. My son was just released from
detention few months ago by the Nigerian Government
for an offence he did not commit. As a widow that is
so traumatized, I have lost confidence with anybody
within the country.
You must have heard over the media reports and the
internet on the recovery of various huge sums of money
deposited by my husband in different security firms
abroad, some companies willingly give up their secrets
and disclosed our money confidently lodged there or
many outright blackmail. In fact the total sum
discovered by the Government so far is in the tune of
$700. Million dollars. And they are not relenting to
make me poor for life. I got your contacts through my
personal research, and out of desperation decided to
reach you through this medium.I will give you more
information as to this regard as soon as you reply.
I repose great confidence in you hence my approach to
you due to security network placed on my day to day
affairs I cannot afford to visit the embassy so that
is why I decided to contact you and I hope you will
not betray my confidence in you. I have deposited the
sum of 30.000.000 million dollars with a security firm
abroad whose name is witheld for now until we open
communication.I shall be grateful if you could receive
this fund into your account for safe keeping. This
arrangement is known to you and my son Ahmed alone, so
my son will deal directly with you as security is up
my whole being.I am seriously considering to settle
down abroad in a friendly atmosphere like yours as
soon as this fund get into your account so that I can
start all over again if only you wish, but if it is
impossible,just help me in diverting this fund into
your account which will accrue you 30% of this fund.
Please honesty is the watch word in this transaction.I
will require your telephone and fax numbers so that we
can commence communication immediately and I will give
you a more detailed picture of things. In case you
dont accept please do not let me out to the security
as I am giving you this information in total trust and
confidence
proposal in good faith. Please expedite action by
sending your reply to my son email address below.
Sincerely Yours,
MBUMBE ABACHA.
Not only is Pluto not a planet - in fact, it's smaller and has fewer planetary characteristics than a couple of other bodies orbiting the sun which aren't planets - it's also less likely to be visited than, say, Haley's Comet.
.... and just about as useful.
Now, if you wanted to send the latest Nintendo DS version of Nintendogs to Pluto - that might be interesting
Me, I'm sticking with my Chinese land grant on the Moon - more likely to be useful when I become a space farmer, before the rise of the Emperor Karl.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Only if we mix the metric and imperial systems.
I don't do this for karma, I do it for cash. It's much better.
52005 AD: War Was Beginning...
No, wait, so this probe comes back, right? And on this probe are all these names. And when the people then find them they'll think, "So these are the bastards who used up all the oil!" and they'll have our names and construct a big Wall of Shame covered with them, see? And they'll ban these evil names from being used and rename anyone who has them.
So... why sould I want that kind of posterity?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Look at all these John Smiths - it must be a clone army!
The Raven
The probe will not be in Earth orbit.
The probe only needs to attain escape velocity of Earth's gravity to get out of orbit. It doesn't need to leave the system. It's quite possible for the probe to get captured by another planet, or by the Sun. At a certain point, the gravitational force exerted by Earth will be far less than that of closer and more massive planets such as Jupiter.
In truth, it is likely that the probe will never return to Earth, unless it has some means of propulsion and control to bring it back.
More likely to turn into a small comet or somesuch.
Mods, since when is anything that points to Wikipedia considered informative, even when it doesn't apply to the article?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Um, am I the only one wondering what the point of sending a CD is? Apart from the "prestiege" for the people on said CD, if any intelligent life picks it up, they're not exactly going to be able to read it are they?
...
Good point - as recordable media, CDs are notorious for flaking and losing data when exposed to sunlight and temperature extremes.
Now, the sunlight won't be a problem on Pluto, but how the heck are they going to pack a temperature-controlled space heater along for the ride - not to mention have it work for 50,000 years?
Drawing big pictures makes a lot more sense.
I can see it now, it's been 20,000 years and someone actually intercepts it, decodes it, and due to all the errors introduced the message comes out "We the following hostile lifeforms wish to destroy your race: [list of names] All Your Base Are Belong to US.A."
Either that or it says "the following people have signed up to become Soylent Green: [list of names]"
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
My 4-year-old will think it's neat. (The 8-month old might not really understand.) It gets them to think about science, and costs a few grams added to the probe. Why not?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
They'll be joined by my good friends Mike Oxbig, Oliver Closoff, Harry Weiner, and Ima Ho. ... oh man... this brings me back... like... a week...
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
Now those Plutonians will know what Earth is all about.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
I doubt the average person will be able to read the list of names when the probe comes back. The Latin alphabet has only existed for 2,700 years, and the probe is coming back in 50,000. In 50,000 years, it's almost inevitable that either humanity will be communicating without written words, we'll be using an entirely different alphabet, or humanity will be extinct.
So what's the point of putting the names on the satellite? Is it the Gen-Xer's version of Voyager 1?
my blog
What have you been smoking? Please tell us, so we can avoid it. It obviously burns way too many brain cells.
More or the same that you gained from posting that here :)
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
He never said it would be in Earth orbit.
The probe will be launched into solar orbit. Perapsis (the low point in the orbit) will still be near earth. It will eventually come back round to this point, hence it will come back to near earth, even if not to it.
That doesn't mean earth will be at that spot in its orbit at the time, of course.
Everything in earth orbit is already 'captured' by the sun, as the earth is orbiting the sun. Anything that reaches escape velocity and leaves earth goes into 'heliocentric', or solar orbit. Leaving the solar system takes a hell of a lot more power than it takes to escape from earth, thus its quite possible that it will, eventually, come back. It may even hit earth, if the orbit is right.
Years from now, Anthropologists will have heated debates over the sudden rise of the space-pioneering Jablome dynasty.
I browsed at +1 and couldn't really find anybody posting why NASA is doing it. It's obvious, really - so obvious that there's not really any reason for me to post it. But here we go...
The point of NASA doing this is not to send your name to aliens, and it's not to send your name to archaeologists 50,000 years in the future. They're doing it to make you feel like a part of you is on that probe, that a part of you is being launched into the depths of the solar system, exploring, etc. It's a discovery thing. It's also a marketing thing, and for what you get (a whole bunch of kids saying, cool), it's pretty cheap.
Since it's unlikely that it'll be picked up by aliens or archaeologists, it doesn't really matter what form the names take. Of course, the weight of the probe is finely tuned, so something light is preferable. Kids understand what a CD is, so that's a good choice.
NASA did a similar thing for the Deep Impact probe - collected names and included them on the impactor. Definitely no chance of that being picked up by aliens, but there's something cool about having your name on a big chunk of metal that will smash into a comet on the 4th of July (more marketing there).
Using the search feature, I found:
Heywood Jablome 103982 2005-08-09 21:04:33
Hugh G. Rection 241557 2005-08-29 17:34:56
Mike Hunt 77369 2005-06-29 23:41:56
Homer Sexual 38139 2005-04-24 06:31:23
But not one Phil McCracken!
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
Finally...Sgt. Bigdookie will get the recognition he deserves among the outer solar system.
~ slashdot.org - Where some of the world's greatest minds come together to scrutinize grammar.
"It is expected that the probe will return to earth in approximately 50 thousand years."
unlikely. the probe will be picked up by one of our own spacecraft long before then. it will sit in a museum for a while, and in 50'000 years it will be long returned to dust and forgotten by whatever we've evolved/mutated into by then.
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
In 1997 I was senior at the University of Michigan and we completed an entire RFP that JPL (I think, or perhaps NASA in general) had out on this mission.
Being the only EE in the class, it fell to me to design the complete communications system for it.
I wish I had an electronic document of the whole thing, it makes for fascinating reading. I just pulled it out of my closet to compare notes after reading about the mission. Our RFP weighs in at 175+ pages.
Our proposal is very close on several key design elements. We proposed a 452kg spacecraft - damn close to the final weight. I see that the actual mission calls for a 2.1m dish, which is close the 2m dish I proposed using a total of 82W DC (including transponders, SSPA, etc). We designed the mission using a Delta rocket to lower the cost and achieve a decent altitude.
We figured a total of 200MB of compressed science data would need to be transmitted back to complete the objectives at the time. They don't seem to have changed much, so that means a minimum data rate of 514bps is required to transmit the data to one DSN over 6 months. Using two 34 dishes of the DSN gets an average rate of about 900bps.
In other words, I'm thrilled our original design has held up. We actually proposed a NSTAR ion engine rather than LTG's, but it's great NASA went with the LTG. You get a shitload more power, and that's awesome. Especially considering they missed the launch window for an ion engine.
----- obSig
You say they would moderate those names on Pluto? Whoa...