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Hayabusa Probe Fails Landing Attempt
wschalle writes "Yesterday, at 3:46 PM EST the probe successfully dropped a small object onto the asteroid as a touchdown target. JAXA then apparently lost control of the probe for 3 hours. The probe went to an auto-pilot mode during the communications failure, collecting data about its flight and saving it for later transmission. The probe's exact location is unknown, but it is estimated to be between 10 and 100 kilometers from the asteroid at this time. The mission has been troubled by repeated failures, including the loss of a small robotic lander, and a gyroscope failure that was later repaired."
...really underscores people's interest in the space program in the United States nowadays. It seems that because Japan is interested in doing -science-, rather than flag-waving, it's not nearly as glamorous. Of course, the same could be said of the U.S. Space Program. George W. Bush said he wants us to go to the Moon again. I haven't heard anything about science in his statement on the topic; merely flag-waving.
Now don't get me wrong, patriotism is a great thing. I think there are many applications that could benefit any nation that goes into space, and I applaud the Japanese for undertaking such an ambitious project (which, if you read TFA, may still succeed!)
Going back to school for entry-level jobs?
"meat up"? Wha... ...eww. Just forget I asked.
I think there are an awful lot of excessively harsh comments here. These guys are trying to do a very difficult mission with virtually no applicable experience. Sure, there's a lot of information that, say, NASA (or more accurately, the contractors who work for NASA/DOD/other customers) has, but you simply can't effectively transfer the experience needed for this type of engineering.
By the way, there are some very good reasons* that US space projects take so long and cost so much. It's because there are enough experienced engineers around to know where to worry and what to worry about. That didn't build up in a few tries. Some contractors have literally hundreds, bordering on a thousand, successful space missions under their belts.
All the documents and "design processes" in the world cannot make up for having a few guys around with the necessary background to take a look at the design or implementation, and just see where the obvious problem areas might me.
It's a tough loss, but it's just the cost traversing of the learning curve.
Brett
* Of course, there are some "bad reasons" for overruns and schedule slips, too - usually, overly-optimistic schedules and budgets! In fact, a lot of the time there is no one in the entire acquisition system that has a stake in getting the *real* cost or *real* schedule.