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Pluto Probe Launches
Artem S. Tashkinov writes "The US space agency, Nasa, has successfully launched its New Horizons mission to Pluto. The $700m probe will gather information on Pluto and its moons before - it is hoped - pressing on to explore other objects in the outer Solar System. Pluto is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a spacecraft."
In 2015 we should get some pretty interesting data back.
Around the year 2000 there was a website that was setup by a teenager who wanted to see NASA send a space probe to Pluto. The website was www.plutomission.com, and it helped start an online petition that gained well over 50,000 signatures. It also started a huge upsurge of public support for a Pluto mission, and in the end helped persuade NASA into making a real mission out of it. Amazing what a simple website can do.
Here's a closeup of the latest photo of pluto taken by Hubble.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
How is it news 9 hours later?
A good headline for now would be that it's passing Luna's orbit about now, but the launch is definitely not news.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
From this CNN article, and my buddy Pete at JHAPL, "The New Horizons spacecraft will be the fastest ever launched, more than 10 times faster than a speeding bullet.". That is faster then superman.
For those not aware, had it been delayed past early Feb, the mission would have taken 4 years longer to reach Pluto, due to missing Jupiter for a gravitational 'slingshot' assist.
Roll on 2015. The best images we have of Pluto now are fuzzy Hubble pics, and I can't wait for this to change.
Any comment from the "OMG! Plutonium powered space probes are evil!" people that were hanging little origami birds on a fence outside the launch site? They seemed certain that launching this craft was going to be a disaster. Damn! Now they're going to have to wait for the next one, since neither Cassini nor this new launch have obliged them by crashing into an old growth redwood grove or a daycare center.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
almightylol.com
Gotta agree with you there. I can't stand people that are ignorant enough to protest anything with the word "nuclear" attached to it. Blind ignorance is all that is. They don't even have the most basic understanding of what they are protetsting. They're simply doing it because some hippy teacher during their education told them that they should.
Lemmings.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
I'm still trying to think of a good Disney joke...
Obligatory Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto_(Disney)
Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
Are we still go with this Mars by whenever thing during the campaign? Funny, I haven't heard anything since the elections...
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Here's to New Horizons, indeed!
[Drains glass, turns over on top of bar...]
One wonders if NH might contribute some data to finally solve the Pioneer anomaly.
I was channel surfing and just to my surprize when I turned to MSNBC it had 15 seconds to launch. Fastest launch ever I do believe. They said that about 45 minutes after launch that it would jettison the main rocket and would be free sailing toward Jupiter and use Jupiter's gravity to slingshot it's self to pluto.
You have to wonder why, with such a long journey, they didn't try out an ion engine. Sure, it would have cost more, but it would have been able to get there a lot faster. The ion engine has a much higher specific impulse than conventional rockets but are only effective over long range where the engines can be fired continuously. What longer range than Pluto? Plus, include a larger Plutonium core and run several of these.
Sure, it is the fastest probe to escape from the earth, but why not strap on an extra stage and get that baby really cookin!
Now I don't really care what it's powered by and what's on it. But will you and the parent poster apologize if one of these probes do explode on lift off?
I mean it's not like anything NASA does ever goes wrong?
I expect that if it ever does happen you'll either be very quiet, or you'll find someone else to take a cheap shot at.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
After hearing how this is a flyby mission and the top speed of this spacecraft, I wondered about the current speed champ, Voyager I. According to some of my back of the envelope calculations based upon New Horizons' estimated top speed after a Jupiter assist and the current position and speed of Voyager I, in 26 years New Horizons will surpass Voyager I as the most distant human made object.
"Me fail English, that's unpossible." --Ralphie
How about the new planet Sedna?
What, exactly would I have to appologize for? the actual radiation exposure would be something like being out in the sun slightly longer than you should without sunscreen. That's not great, but frankly if I was concerned about that, I'd make a point of not living within threat range of the cape.
Get over it.
They are very serious about minimizing the exposure, which is why the teams were deployed, but the actual danger is negligable.
No, I wouldn't "appologize". I have nothing to appologize for, and certainly not to you.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
I would call myself recently accepting of fission power - within the last few years. But only because I believe the alternative of social collapse due to energy scarcity is worse than the potential for a nuclear accident. I still think a nuclear accident is likely and might be devastating across a fairly large population. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. Fission seems the most optimistic answer within a generation or two, but we need a fallback. Of course, this is in addition to wind, PV/ thermal solar, geothermal, biomass, political hot air -- whatever.
The outer planet?
Reavers!!!
Nope, not a bit!
You are a sick bastard!!!!!
You sure that wasnt a story about you???
I don't get it. What happened to the dog?
I'm cool like a fool in a swimming p-p-pfft-pool
Christ, that's funnier than Gilbert Gottfried. Did you write that?
The only image returned by the probe.
What, exactly would I have to appologize for?
I see, so a bunch of "hippies" should apologize for being concerned about the release of plutonium into the atmosphere. But you are teflon coated if you are proven to be wrong.
the actual radiation exposure would be something like being out in the sun slightly longer than you should without sunscreen. That's not great, but frankly if I was concerned about that, I'd make a point of not living within threat range of the cape.
Chances are the plutonium would vapourise and be carried off with the jetstream (ala chernobyl). Turning into fallout. To be inhaled and ingested by potentially millions.
Get over it.
Like I said, I don't really care.
They are very serious about minimizing the exposure, which is why the teams were deployed, but the actual danger is negligable.
Yes, they are in their balloons with huge plutonium vacuums.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
Wow they can actually make origami birds?
I'm stunned but when the shock passes I'll raise my appraisal of their collective IQ by 30 points (to 75) since they're actually able to do something except acting hopelessly stupid.
Who would have thought... although I have a nagging suspicion they simply bought those origami birds. 75 just seems way to high.
On topic: go New Horizons! Congratulations NASA & we'll all be looking forward to the discoveries (does anybody else think the really big news will come after the fly-by of Pluto? Perhaps discovering new Kuiper belt "planetoids" before heading back?).
Oh and I'm sure the sleazebag "I wouldn't want to be in Disneyland" anti-launch advocate interviewed by news organisations will be there to milk peoples fear the next time as well.
of the old videogame for the C64 called "Mickey's space adventure". Mickey and Pluto explored the various planets, and in Pluto (the planet), there were aliens that looked like the dog. You get a gem you need for your mission if you give them a bone that was buried in the backyard.
Just thought it'd be interesting to share.
This will increase the probe's speed away from the Sun by nearly 4km/s (9,000mph), allowing the spacecraft to reach the ninth planet by July 2015.
:-)
Wonder why they changed it to per hour instead of per second. Must be a "2.5mph feels too slow" thing
bash$
Mickey: Hi Honey, I'm home
... I might need a bucket of cold water first. I'm knotted.
[ walks towards bedroom ]
Mini: Quick Pluto, jump out thru the window!
Pluto: But
"Pluto is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a spacecraft" Well where are the pics of the other planets that are said to populate the universe...
I concur, and I see you did notice that in the news there is never or less mentioned a hard number refering to the "real" speed which the launchvehicle had?
.22 rifle I can choose three different types of ammo
.22 ?
;) this rocket was faster than superman, but actually ;)
Anytime they say
"as twice as fast than spaceshuttle"
you mentioned
"10 times faster than a bullet"
From my point of view this "relativism" isn´t good, it teaches especially
non technical people or even kids, not to refer to the hard facts first,
and using a relation to make this fact or high speed seizable in the second,
it also misses out things to mention which could cause huge errors
1.) "as twice as fast than space shuttle"
to escape the earth´s gravity field you need to accelerate to 11 km/s
the space shuttle simply does not exceed this value much, because the space shuttle is an orbiting vessel, not used for space exploration, and using a higher acceleration, puts higher physical stress to the astronauts,
that´s why it´s so _slow_
2.)
"10x faster than the average Joe Bullet"
there is no standard speed for a bullet, for example using my
a.) slow speed
b.) normal
c.) high speed
for example the austrian army´s "steyr aug" had to be modified so
that the bullet is not too fast so usage of the weapon would not violate
international laws.
so which bullet did the speaker think of when he spoke of
"Joe C. Average Bullet" ?
.357 Magnum or one of the three bullets I use in my
But you are right
we are rotating arround the galactical inner core at a speed of 200 km/s
that´s why we lost superman
Yeah, and just now, it's jumped to the top of this web site.
http://www.dead-frog.com/aristocrats/
Those things are holding up very well on mars, we need 1 or 2 on each planet we can reach!!! (that could substain a rover)
I didn't hear from anyone who was certain that launching this was going to be a disaster.
I did hear from people who were certain that shooting plutonium into space is a risk, and who beleived that NASA and the DOE have not been honest in their assessments of the risk.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Finally, a website that succeeded in influencing US politics!
Well you can't send a space probe to Pluto without Plutonium, can you?
I mean, it's just so...appropriate.
Yeah.. I was the gay nigger fucking his ass....
Something like this actually happened to a cousin of mine - fuck you asshole, you may think karma is bullshit, but let me tell you: bullshit is coming for you you fucking son a bitch whore dog fucking half breed mongrel. Fuck you...
No, a bunch of "hippies" should apologize for trying to stop good science with FUD based on totally erroneous assumptions about the nature of plutonium power slugs.
Since a space probe's plutonium slug would not actually bring harm in the event of a catastrophic failure, those of us who understand this would have nothing to apologize for even in the event of a catastrophic failure.
Summary: Stupid people should apologize for trying to influence policy according to their stupidity. Smart people should not apologize for trying to influence policy according to their smartitude.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Isn't that like saying that the people who find Russian roulette a poor idea should apologize because the hammer happened to find an empty chamber one particular time? If you think the risk associated with the launch of a plutonium-powered spacecraft is justified by the ends, fine. If you think that there is no risk, I counsel deeper reflection.
Summary: Stupid people should apologize for trying to influence policy according to their stupidity. Smart people should not apologize for trying to influence policy according to their smartitude.
Phew!!! Glad you cleared that up for us! Now, could you please point that keen intellect toward the regenerating zombie problem and really solve something important?
apoligize for what, exactly?
Do you demand that the operators of coal-fired power plants apologize to the residents of the Black Forest in Germany, the NE United States/SE Canada, etc. for all the damage to arboreal forests caused by acid rain?
Some accidents happen. If they had to abort that rocket, it would have been downrange from Cape Canaveral into the Atlantic Ocean. Sure, the COSMOS probe that crashed into Alberta in the 80's spewed some plutonium over some area of a range grazing area, but the world didn't come to a crashing halt now did it?
I think the hyperbole used by the fearmongers does not match the reality. How much more plutonium was induced into the biosphere by the open air detonations of fission weapons in the 50's and 60's (as well as fission-triggered fusion devices)? Again, we're all still here.
I vote that we stop these "grand tour" types of missions. We need to have more Cassini style missions: placing the satellite in orbit around the target. As far as I know only Earth, Mars, and Saturn have satellites (in the telemetry sense, not the astonomy sense) around them.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
It's already happened. In 1964, about 1 kg of plutonium was released from a Navy navigational satellite, Transit 5BN, that failed to make orbit. (That's the hotter Pu-238 isotope, not the 239 one used in most ground-based fission reactors.) It spread radioactive particles over the whole planet. That's alleged by some to have led to a significant increase in lung cancer rates; others say that's a bunch of hooey. I haven't investigated enough myself to have a informed opinion on the magnitude of risk, but all other things being equal I'm pretty breathing plutonium is less than heathful.
NASA claims that modern RTGs are just about unbreechable. Skeptics note that NASA also once claimed that the odds of the Space Shuttle being destroyed by a launch failure at 1 in 100,000.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
What happens if the "slug" stops being a slug? (it'd probably take a really hot fireball to do that - where would they find one of those?)
Plutonium melts at 914K and a typical rocket exhaust is 2500K to 3600K. So even if the resulting fireball is half the temperature of the exhaust, it still has the potential to liquify the plutonium. Summary: Stupid people should apologize for trying to influence policy according to their stupidity. Smart people should not apologize for trying to influence policy according to their smartitude
Stupid people make up words too.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
in 2015 when the craft reaches pluto it will be greeted by Japanese rocket launched 2010 carrying korean 8-legged-roboAssTroNuts
p.s. How long before we get to the Pegasus Galaxy? I need to ask Thor and the Ori about Intelligent Design. I'm pretty sure they were involved somehow
I love humanity, it is people I hate
I think the poster you replied to tried to convey this already but let's put it this way to get you to understand how insignificant the plutonium is.
You would be safer from radiation by doing any one of these things than avoiding any radiation fallout from an exploding New Horizons spacecraft:
- never ever walk into a hospital
- never ever take an x-ray
- not living in any of the numerous naturally occuring higher background radiation parts of the world
- not living in a modern insulated house which traps radon inside
- stop smoking/never smoke
- not living in proximity to a coal mine
And so on. So no there wouldn't be anything to apologize for if it went boom.
I'm all for worst-case scenarios but speculating (like the handful of retards did) that the 26 kilograms of plutonium aboard New Horizons would be pulverized by a launch explosion is too far fetched. Remember that all the explosives (the rocket fuel) is below the actual spacecraft with it's radiation-decay battery. So if the fuel explodes only a fraction of the explosive force actually hits the spacecraft (remember that explosive force is "strongest" towards the largest surface area - in this case the cylindrical walls and not the top/bottom), in addition the plutonium battery is encased and protected.
That's why recovery teams actually play a role in case of catastrophic failure: they locate and pick up the plutonium battery... if unlucky it might be a battered box with cracks and whatnot but that should be the worst of it.
Paper cranes? Seems pretty disrespectful to the people who died at Hiroshima to implicitly compare a spacecraft launch to that atrocity.
(Re: Politics. I'm not condemning the US in particular for dropping Little Boy. It was war, which, as Sherman said, was hell. Every side committed genocide. War is mass-murder. Not the fault of the poor schmucks in the Wehrmacht, or the ones flying Zeroes, or the G.I.s. Not your fault or my fault: Just terrible, terrible history. Only thing to do now is not repeat it.)
but we have to keep space free and pure! we need to keep it free of harmful radiation! don't you understand? who are we to dump radiation into space and harm it for future generations?
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Now look here, you nutter... The Plutonium RTG carries 7kg of plutonium. That's a hair over 15 lbs. Sure. It sounds like a lot of material. It's not. That material will fit in the volume occupied by a bit less than two baseballs, if you're the visual type. It's not so much now? Is it, Mr. Smarty-pants?
The fact is, it won't be vaporized in an explosion; it will be combusted and oxidized. The stuff burns like crazy. At those temperatures, it will readily react with the oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor, etc available to it, becoming not so dense, and floating the fuck away. In other words, bye-bye Plutonium. Plus, in the superheated gasses that would result from such an incident, it's all going to go practically straight up and be dispersed in the higher parts of the stratosphere. The fireball is of greater concern! You know how a flue works for a natural gas appliance? It's the thing that keeps your idiot self from getting gassed, much to my and no doubt, some other's chagrin.
So, it gets carried into the jet stream. Big Fucking Deal. There is more radioactive material right around you and indeed even inside you that it's utter fucking stupidity to get all uppity about 7kg of Pu getting spread evenly over just a few square miles. At that density, the dosages delivered to any populace there will actually be less than the equivalent ionizing dose from... Get this... The average dosage of X-RAY radiation you, and almost every kid in the US receive at the dentist's office, per visit. That's right. Do the math and research yourself if you disbelieve... And yet, we don't see many soccer moms protesting dentists!
If you live near a coal power plant, you receive greater dosages of radiation. Hell, if you live near the OCEAN, you receive greater dosages of radiation. If you spend a couple hours outside in the sun, you receive greater dosages. If you've got a Radon problem in your basement, you receive much greater dosages. I'd also wager that you would receive more radiation breathing up all the car emissions in a small metropolitan than you'd get from a catastrophic failure of an RTG laden rocket. You want to stay safe from that evil radiation stuff? Too fucking bad, there's no way around it. Not even the infamous Dr. No could do a good enough job, and he's fictional, with seemingly unlimited funding.
Fallout indeed. Bollocks! The hysteria surrounding the RTG launches is fucking lunacy, and a waste of time and effort. Indeed, this post was probably an equal waste of time and effort, because someone lazy enough not to research the implications of an RTG before getting into a frenzy won't believe the science and the math, even if it was force fed down their throat. No, instead, you and your kin will think the scientists are lying to you, and acting in bad faith. Let me guess, you're probably a friend of Intelligent Design. You know what Intelligent Design would be: The Intelligent Designer coming down from above to smack some intelligence into his creations!
At least "stupid" people who accept the fact that they don't know everything realize that it's often better to leave the science in the hands of more pro-active people don't act like fucking stupid fags when something like this goes down.
Stop freaking out and being a stupid fag, you stupid fag!
I remember that game! ...
Christ I'm old.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Read the first post - what do those that protested against the launch of a Nuclear powered probe have to apologize for? They had a concern and they voiced it - they're in the "land of the free" with a right to "free speech". And what harm did they do?
Do you demand that the operators of coal-fired power plants apologize to the residents of the Black Forest in Germany, the NE United States/SE Canada, etc. for all the damage to arboreal forests caused by acid rain?
Sure, why not? And include all those that drive fossil fuel vehicles and USE the electricity supplied by those plants.
Some accidents happen.
Yes they do. What's your point?
If they had to abort that rocket, it would have been downrange from Cape Canaveral into the Atlantic Ocean. Sure, the COSMOS probe that crashed into Alberta in the 80's spewed some plutonium over some area of a range grazing area, but the world didn't come to a crashing halt now did it?
See that's just stupidity. Did the world come to an end when people started inhaling Asbestos? No. Did their world come crashing to an end? Eventually - in the majority of cases. However, I'm not claiming the world will end or that the use of nuclear material in the generation of power is bad. I am pointing out that people are far to quick to pick on people that are concerned for the environment, simply because one event was a success (which is the subject of the original post and it's reply).
How much more plutonium was induced into the biosphere by the open air detonations of fission weapons in the 50's and 60's (as well as fission-triggered fusion devices)? Again, we're all still here.
Well we should release more then shouldn't we?
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
Someone will be watching the webcast live on their video ipod and probably run into someone because they wasn't watching where they were going on their hoverboard.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
harmph!
How offensive for such a off context joke to rear it's ugly head. After all, we all know Pluto was named for the lord of the underworld and down there no one has any sense of humor - because there are no geeks or otakus in hell, naturally!
In contrast, let us all appreciate the refined good sense of fellow revelers who have so much butt and poop jokes to share in all it's colorful variations. NASA and space enthusiasts the world over would be so proud!
How little does the American public care about this launch? So little that we've got to look to British news outlets to find decent coverage!
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
I haven't investigated enough myself to have a informed opinion on the magnitude of risk, but all other things being equal I'm pretty breathing plutonium is less than heathful.
This page mentions that there are no recorded cases of fatality from plutonium ingestion. But it also lists what could happen (and where the Plutonium goes in your body). It may simply be a case of it increasing the likelihood of certain cancers.
NASA claims that modern RTGs are just about unbreechable.
And that a 5lb (or whatever it was) block of foam couldn't do any damage to the spaceshuttle.
Skeptics note that NASA also once claimed that the odds of the Space Shuttle being destroyed by a launch failure at 1 in 100,000
Lol - they should be right for another 300,000 years then.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
While you're researching, you might want to check to see just how readily plutonium oxidizes in the presence of heat. Rapid oxidization, or burning, produces a somewhat different effect than liquifying.
Oh, and the amount of plutonium is roughly a handful.
-h-
Strictly speaking they haven't been proven wrong. Their concern was that it might have blown up on launch, scattering and possibly aerosolizing radioactive material. Rockets blow up all too often; just because this one didn't doesn't mean that they were completely wrong about the possible consequences if it did.
As far as I can tell they ARE wrong. The RTGs are designed to withstand the destruction of the launch vehicle without dispersing the radioactive material. But I haven't seen the tests that prove that, and unless you're on the team, neither have you. It's not supposed to fail, but then, neither was the rocket itself, and we know that rockets do sometimes fail.
So they will keep protesting until a rocket carrying an RTG does explode. And if the radioactive material is pulverized and enters the atmosphere, you'd better have one hell of an apology ready yourself.
Of the fifty odd launches of reactors or RTG's - no fewer than nine have resulted in the radioactive material being returned to earth. This article lists eight failures, but misses a ninth. It's not a pretty record - and it's only by luck that major contamination has been avoided.
A lemming in this instance is someone who blindly repeats something without understanding it. Consider the carefully the walls of your house before casting stones.This doesn't deserve a reply... but I am amazed that out of all the jokes in the world, I read this EXACT joke 10 minutes ago after reading a review of the movie Aristocrats.
It's just as not funny now as it was then.
I refuse to have a sig... dammit!
The RTGs in question here are not just Plutonium slugs.
y /northern_fleet/incidents/31772.html
Remember there have been accidents with them in the past.
During the three mission accidents that did occur, the RTGs performed as predicted. The Transit 5-BN-3 mission was aborted because of launch vehicle failure. The RTG burned up on reentry as designed with the plutonium dispersed in the upper atmosphere. The RTG design was changed shortly after that to accommodate intact reentry. The next accident was with the Nimbus-B-1 that was aborted shortly after launch by a range safety destruct. The RTG was recovered, with no release of plutonium, and the heat sources were reused in later missions
The failure of the Apollo 13 mission meant that the Lunar Module reentered the atmosphere carrying an RTG and burnt up over Fiji. The RTG itself survived reentry of the Earth's atmosphere intact, plunging into the Tonga trench in the Pacific Ocean. The US Department of Energy has conducted seawater tests and determined that the graphite casing, which was designed to withstand reentry, is stable and no release of plutonium will occur. Subsequent investigations have found no increase in the natural background radiation in the area.
In order to minimise the risk of the radioactive material being released, the fuel is stored in individual modular units with their own heat shielding. They are surrounded by a layer of iridium metal and encased in high-strength graphite blocks. These two materials are corrosion- and heat-resistant. Surrouding the graphic blocks is an aeroshell, designed to protect the entire assembly against the heat of reentering the earth's atmosphere. The plutonium fuel is also stored in a ceramic form that is heat-resistant, minimising the risk of vaporization and aerosolization. The ceramic is also highly insoluble.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTG
http://www.ne.doe.gov/space/space-desc.html
http://www.nuclearspace.com/facts_about_rtg.htm
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nav
Nice information about RTG powered lighthouses
I also recall playing that exact game on an Apple II. Pretty intense graphics for the day.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Luck? That's an insult to the engineers who designed those things, and you should apologise. They are professionals, and the reason there hasn't been an accidental release from a US spacecraft is that they were *designed* to survive these accidents. There's nothing magic here. Something that small can be built far far stronger than the minimum requirements. When you do that, to think you're going to have a major nuclear release from a probe like this one is just a bit like saying a stick of dynamite will crack the Earth in half. If you're claiming that the rules of physics are going to be broken, then it's up to you to prove it.
A lemming in this instance is someone who blindly repeats something without understanding it. Consider the carefully the walls of your house before casting stones.
Well, I guess that shuts me up! Oh wait, it doesn't. My walls obey the laws of physics. Do yours?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Yeah. What do you suppose we ought to do about that big nuclear source that's sitting just 93,000,000 miles away?. It's just sitting there spewing out all kinds of nasty, high energy particles. Lots of harmful radiation as well.
Wow, that is fast...
Oh well, what the hell...
How much more plutonium was induced into the biosphere by the open air detonations of fission weapons in the 50's and 60's (as well as fission-triggered fusion devices)? Again, we're all still here. No we aren't. Even the DoE estimated something like 30,000 deaths from Thyroid Cancer or leukemia (via statistical methods). Since my sister in law had thyroid cancer last year, I have a pretty good idea of what people go through in that particular circle of hell. (and that's actually very mild compared to other forms of cancer). Don't get me wrong - I have a good understanding of why the nuclear testing was so necessary. Crude nuclear devices are highly inefficient, and only through testing were we able to develop the precision machining, timing, and other technologies necessary to make bombs that were hundreds of times more powerful (and efficient) - and had we not done so, our enemies would have, and we'd all be waving red flags and drinking vodka right now. It was a necessary evil. It's harder to make the case to sentance some unknown, but probably small number of complete strangers halfway around the world to an agonizing death by leukemia, because we had to get a probe to Pluto. Personally, I find such a moral calculus repulsive. However, in 2015, I will be oohing and ahhing right alongside everyone else when we finally get close-in pics of Pluto. (I hope they aren't as disappointing as the Titan picture). Probably because I'm a hypocrite.
Is affirming and tolerating the protester's right to make themselves heard more troublesome than becoming cavelier about putting plutonium atop giant explosive devices? It isn't a trivial concern - a total dispersal would have instantly spread 80% the average annual radiation dosage across a 65 mile radius. And cleanup would have run $241 million to $1.3 billion per square mile - and recall what the early estimates for costs of the Iraq War were, at that. I'll be worried when people stop protesting, any time the government takes risks - even 1 in 350 risks - with its citizens's health. If it serves no other good purpose, this sort of activism reinforces the government's relationship and accountability to its citizens.
in 26 years New Horizons will surpass Voyager I as the most distant human made object.
I've read that New Horizons will not escape the Sun's gravity and circle back to the inner Solar System in thousands of years. I thought Voyagers and the Pioneer probes were leaving the Sun system. If NH is faster, then shouldn't it also be leaving the Sun's pull?
Table-ized A.I.
"no fewer than nine have resulted in the radioactive material being returned to earth."
And yet, no major ecological disaster has ensued. Perhaps the danger is overstated?
It's not the plutonium that's the problem - it's the system that accepts such a failure rate as normal.
I'd say that considering the difficulty of what's being attempted, a failure rate of one in fifty is still doing pretty well. Hell, even model rocketry buffs can sometimes have trouble having that much success. Putting a payload in space involves lots of energy being released very quickly using dangerous and often unstable substances using very complex machines, and there's an inherent danger in that which people often can do precious little to mitigate.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
you might as well build a real nuclear rocket.
Why don't we? Or why doesn't somebody... if it would mean a faster rocket.
I guess what I'm really asking is, why aren't 'we' using the absolute best tech. we can find for space travel?
Thank you Dave Raggett
Wikipedia: Principal investigator Alan Stern confirmed that some ashes of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh were aboard the spacecraft.
Table-ized A.I.
In 1964, about 1 kg of plutonium was released from a Navy navigational satellite, Transit 5BN, that failed to make orbit. It spread radioactive particles over the whole planet.
Mass of lost plutonium: 1 kg
Radius of Earth: 6,378,100 m
Volume of first 2m of atmosphere: 1,022,404,245,219,396 m^3
Mass of air: 1.3 Kg/m^3
Mass of first 2m of atmosphere: 1,329,125,518,785,216 Kg
So, if it was spread over the Earth as claimed, but assuming it all ended up very near to the surface, we're still talking about 1 part per quadrillion. I wouldn't worry too much. I realize nobody likes an accident, but poeple should really think more and react less.
I was lucky enough to see my first rocket launch today: New Horizons on an Atlas V. If you can ever get down here to Central Florida for a launch, do it, and bring binoculars.
v eral,+FL&btnG=Search&ll=28.577588,-80.71312&spn=0. 12301,0.269165&t=h
We had a great line of site from Titusville across the Indian River- look directly right from the shuttle runway on the following Google maps sat photo and you'll see the 2 shuttle launch complexes - the very next launch pad to the South-East is Launch Complex 41:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=cape+cana
Now, being able to walk around afterwards kind-of puts a limit on things, as did the "returning safely", but just the stopping would have been a piece of cake.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...if they'd thought ahead a bit, added a robot arm and some extra fuel, New Horizons could have caught up with one of the older probes and refuelled it. Maybe re-align or repair the main antenna, change the oil, replace the gold disk with a DVD that has the director's cut and some bonus tracks...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
A lemming in this instance is someone who blindly repeats something without understanding it. Consider the carefully the walls of your house before casting stones.
Yes, why dont we consider them. The cement in those walls is very likely made with waste fly ash from a coal fired power plant. You're likely breathing in a not insignificant amount of radon.
I don't have the citations right now, but the following has been the case for many years now:
Radioactive power sources are packaged for launch in containers that are designed to withstand reentry intact. If the launcher blows up on lift up, you wait for the fires to die down, walk in, pick up the capsule, stick it on a shelf, and put it into the next probe.
I really hate knee-jerk reactionists. If someone's worried about something, why don't they go and find out the facts before making a big song and dance about it?
Pirate Party UK
No, it's abysmal. Nuclear submarines are hard, nuclear power plants are hard - neither has anywhere near the failure rate.
Apples and oranges - nuclear submarines have a very controllable nuclear reactor for their power, and never go faster than 30 mph or so. Yet, there are still accidents. Nuclear power plants don't move at all, yet there are still accidents, some of which have affected large areas of the world. The United States has suffered 17 fatalities in more than 40 years of manned space exploration. The USS Thresher disaster killed more than seven times that many by itself.
A fully loaded current model 747 at takeoff generates the same amount of energy that John Glenn's Atlas booster did in 1962. The failure rate of the Atlas has changed little since then - how many 747's blow up on take off each year?
Again, apples and oranges - how many 747s accelerate from zero to 17,000 mph in less than 10 minutes? Also, a current 747-400 with RB211 engines can develop about 250,000 pounds of thrust, which is about 80% of Glenn's Atlas, 20% of the thrust of the New Horizons launch vehicle, and less than 3% of the thrust of a Saturn V at launch.
I won't say that NASA can't improve, but the fundamental fact remains that space travel is a risky venture.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
It's about time we got some photographs of Rupert to show those nonbelievers.
I thought Pluto was no longer a planet; maybe they expect that it will re-gain planet status by 2015? But by then the argument will be that Quaoar is the only planet that hasn't had a mission.
David W. Hogg -- assoc prof, NYU Physics
To enter orbit around a planet you need to be going slowly when you get there, at no more than the orbital speed for the planet. New Horizons will be going at 11 km/s when it flashes by Pluto, snapping pictures like mad, whereas the orbital velocity for Pluto is just over 3 km/s. NH is moving at least 3 times too fast to go into orbit.
If you wanted to go into orbit, you'd have two choices. The first, and most economical, is to launch the spacecraft on an elliptical trajectory that just barely reaches out to Pluto. That gets the spacecraft there with the lowest possible speed relative to Pluto. You still have some braking to do, but it's the least possible. Problem is, the length of such a trajectory is about half the period of Pluto's orbit, i.e. 125 years. Ugh.
If you speed things up by taking a faster trajectory, then you end up with much more braking to do. Then the problem becomes: how do you lose all that speed? If the planet had an atmosphere, and you have good heat shielding, you can do a little aerobraking, which is what's done with Mars. But with an airless world you're stuck with bringing along enough fuel to do almost as much braking as you did accelerating from Earth orbit. So far, that has been very difficult without a very large spacecraft. One plausible hope for improvement is to bring along a real nuclear reactor (instead of just an RTG) which can provide lots of electric power, and then use a high-efficiency ion drive to slow yourself down.
Does anyone know how this "slingshot technique" actually works?
I understand that the probe gets faster when approaching an object with high gravity, such as Jupiter, however I don't know why it keeps the speed when leaving the gravitational field again. Where and how is the additional energy taken from?
Moreover I wonder how it slows down again so that the probe can successfully photograph pluto and does not do a very fast flyby.
Pluto is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a spacecraft.
Not counting planetoids such as Quaoar, unknown planets in our own solar system, and known and unknown planets in other solar systems, any of which might have been visited by alien spacecraft...
Pluto is not the last planet in the system.
2003 UB313 (code name: xena [Not a official IAU name]) is the last known planet in the system. The information about the new planet can be found at Wikipedia but a more trusted and respected source, Caltech, has information as well. Caltech also decribes a possible discovery of a moon of 'Xena'. Perhaps if 'Xena' is nearby, New Horizons can swing by the new planet.
Also, many astronomers argue that Pluto is not in fact a planet.
\
In the good old days, before "faster-better-cheaper", NASA would have made sure it built three or four redundant back-up planets into the mission plan, in case the original planet got downgraded en route.
Could anyone explain why exactly this is meant to be funny?
Perhaps my problem is that I do not know who that last picture guy is?
I guess I am not in touch with current fads or something...
In many ways it's a pity this is not a Uranus Probe - the headlines would have been fantastic. However we've been there with Voyager 2, so that'll probably have to wait until somone finds a way of mining the helium 3 [PDF] in Uranus's atmosphere.
Seriously though: this mission is great stuff, this pixelized ball is the best picture we've got of Pluto, and it would have been a shame if we couldn't spare a few million dollars to improve it, and get some data on the Kuiper Belt at the same time.
"And I bet you won't either. Does that still hurt?"
Unexpectedly, the pole was found to be warm!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
It would be funny to develop a hyperspace engine before 2015 and to overtake "New Horizons" probe on its way to Pluto!
0 5/1839256&from=rss
/R
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/
(a) Grow up
(b) Grow a pair
(c) Read the thread from the start - whilst it seems to have become a discussion of what could happen should there be a failure during launch - it started as questioning why someone would get stuck into someone else, simply because they have concerns regarding the launch of nuclear material by NASA.
(d) Oxidised plutonium is still radioactive (heard of MOX?) No, instead, you and your kin will think the scientists are lying to you, and acting in bad faith. Let me guess, you're probably a friend of Intelligent Design
Actually I'm a scientist by education and an AP by profession. You, on the other hand, are a name calling coward.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
Whoops, I had it in my little head that Pluto was the 10th planet, and just counted two planets back. Uranus is of course the 7th planet.
I'd apologize for your atrocious spelling... (there's only one 'p').
It uses Mongoose-V MIPS R3000 Rad-Hard Processor.
You'll notice I've not commented at all on their right to do anything, including sacrifice chickens before every launch if that makes them feel better, or if it makes their position more high-profile. But the very nature of the device(s) being launched pretty well preclude anything like a nice, even, vaporous spread of all of that plutonium across a wide area. It's the worst sort of fear mongering, and it's no surprise that the people looking to get the TV time by ranting about it usually have some other axes to grind, and manage to slip that in once there's a camera handy. Fine - they're welcome to, but let's call it what it is.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Why not just place it inside a rad-hardened encasing? Like a box which can stand the radiation...
If you think the risk associated with the launch of a plutonium-powered spacecraft is justified by the ends, fine. If you think that there is no risk, I counsel deeper reflection.
I've not said nor implied that there's no risk. I'm speaking, rather, about the shrill (and frequently very flaky) atmosphere generated by those protesting this sort of thing. They rarely comment on the many precautions NASA takes in the way they package the material they're fretting about, and instead trot out imaginary (idiot-TV-reporter-ready) scenarios that make it sound like every microgram of the Plutonium would be evenly spread out over a large area in most dangerous, inhaleable form possible. As the actual re-entry of such devices has shown, they're extremely well designed, and those scenarios are the worst possible way to gain the protesters any credibility among people that actually know anything about the matter. My somewhat flippant attitude towards these clowns is not a denigration of all of those that weigh the risks - it's annoyance at the loony fringe that injure all reasoned discourse about such issues by injecting Gaia-worship into it, or torturing the laws of physics and the engineering of the situation all out of meaningful reality. That, and the fact that their real agenda is often Greenpeace-y in the sense that they don't want to see fission power embraced, and being completely disengenuous, they're willing to equate all things "nuclear" in order to further their empty-headed position. I'm surprised they don't protest dental x-rays.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"Don't go to Pluto. It's a Mickey Mouse planet."
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
You mean like Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI)? What? You've never heard that with the "N"?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Meaningless. If I fire a bullet out my window, the fact that its path represents a very small part of the space around me does not make it any less fatal if it happens to hit someone. If you happen to be the guy who gets a particle of plutonium stuck in a lung, it's no comfort to know that relative to the volume of the atmosphere there aren't that many particles.
We can argue over how much risk it is ethical to expose other people to in order to launch a probe, but ignoring or understating the risk because of a technofetishism or a predetermined conclusion about the politics of space exploration or about nuclear power is a poor practice.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
11 km a second. Wow!
Again - you miss the point. We handle energies on the magnitude of that needed for spaceflight hundreds (if not thousands) of times a day - with a failure rate orders of magnitude lower. 747's don't blow up, niether did Concorde, or Blackbird.
No, I didn't miss the point, I'm saying the point is invalid - space flight represents a much more difficult technical challenge than atmospheric flight, or even nuclear energy. Neither 747s, Concordes, nor Blackbirds deal with takeoff (and in the Shuttle's case, landing) stresses that remotely approach that which spacecraft experience. None of them deal with having fuel oxidizers readily available that, if there is a fuel system leak, can easily result in a catastrophic explosion. None of them have to rely solely on thrust vectoring for basic guidance functions - if you lose power on an aircraft, you can generally glide it to someplace safe. If the same thing happens on a spacecraft, you're simply screwed. Conversely, if you are using a solid-fuel motor, you don't even have the option of shutting the engine down if something goes catastrophically wrong. If you lose cabin pressure on an aircraft (as happens with some frequency on even commercial airliners), the pilot simply brings the plane to a lower altitude and then lands. You don't have that option with a spacecraft - if you lose pressure before everyone can get suited up, it won't be pretty. Aircraft don't have to worry about having their electronics cooked by radiation. Aircraft don't have to worry about being hit by something moving at 10 miles per second. Aircraft don't have to worry about a lot of things that come with the territory in space travel.
If you have better ideas for putting usefully-sized payloads into space with minimal risk, I'm sure NASA would be willing to listen.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Pluto _is_ the last planet, since the new large KBOs like 2003 UB313 are still pending both official names and official classification as planets. And as you pointed out, Pluto might in fact lose its status as a planet, rather than 2003 UB313 and the others gaining that status.
And New Horizons won't be able to swing by it. If I remmeber right, the distance between 2003 UB313 and Pluto is significantly greater than the distance between Earth and Pluto. 2003 UB313 is really f*cking far away, and its orbit is also strangely tilted. By the time New Horizons is closing on Pluto, we'll have a number of really huge new telescopes in operations, and we may have discovered other KBO's that _will_ be possible for New Horizons to visit in its post-Pluto life.
3 Cameras and a bit of plutonium aren't the only cargo onboard the probe.
THE first space mission to Pluto contains an unusual piece of cargo: ashes from the cremated remains of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered the outermost planet in 1930.
"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door." - Paul Beatty
I remember the game too, although I played it on my Tandy 1000. But I'm only 23, and I wouldn't consider myself old...
Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!
You're complaining about the rocket engineers, not the RTG engineers. The RTG engineers have done their jobs.
Ok, I'll call: what are the probabilitites? Of course it will never be zero, but that's irrelevant. What matters is how small it is. How significant is the danger of release if you multiply the release probability by the 2% launch failure rate?
ever hear of sarcasm?
You know - I support nuclear power, and launches with RTG's onboard scare the hell out of me
I'll be scared when one blows up in the atmosphere which releases enough radiation to where zombies come back to life to eat the living. Until, then I'll be more scared about terrorism and drunk drivers, or drunk terrorists hitting me with a car on the way to wherever the hell they are going to blow themselves up.
But seriously, humanity needs to be getting over being scared of things that have a low percentage of killing them. Even if we have 10 Chernobyl like meltdown's tomorrow, the majority of us would probaly be unaffected in our daily physical health except maybe being run over by crazy people who are in a rush to to supermarket because they think the world is going to end. Chances are you going to die of old age anyways.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Try actually reading the EISs of these RTG's sometime - you'll find the probabilities of release very carefully spelled out, and they are not zero.
Of course they're not. Except that the most likely release is during early launch failure -- basically a Challanger-like explosion -- and even then it was less than 0.3% (1 in 350 was the quote I read).
There are, of course, other failure scenarios, but they're even less likely. Even if you add them all up you don't come near a significant danger point.
Oh, and to further emphasize the point... in that most likely/most dangerous failure case above, do you know what the net impact was? That for an area up to 62 miles from the launch point the maximum radiation dosage was 80% of background (background being 2.4 mSv; so call it 2 mSv). Frankly, that's not really worth worrying about; it's not even on the chart for radiation poisoning -- even if you include background radiation.
Most of the other "failure" scenarios lead to atmospheric distribution (which would raise the background radiation for the entire planet infintessimally) or a water landing (and water is an awfully good shield against hard radiation).
Understand, I am not suggesting that we should launch every single spacecraft with RTGs, or that we could safely reduce the precautions on those we do launch. But the incessant hand wringing that's associated with the very few probes that do use RTGs is completely out of place.
The first article says only one American space mission has released nuclear material, and that was as designed. The radioactive material was dispersed into the upper atmosphere in that case. Newer designs contain all the material and have functioned properly since.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Except the RTGs are designed to withstand the explosion of a rocket and subsequent impact to the earth without vaporizing or scattering the radioactive material across the globe.
In fact in at least one case the RTG was recovered, reconditioned, and put into the replacement rocket and launched again.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Kudos to you sir, for clarifying the situation with published, verifiable information rather than slopping about random conjecture as if it were fact. In this forum, good information is greatly appreciated - at least by some of us.
Lunokhod vehicles had a radioactive source that would keep the internals warm during the lunar nights. Link.
That was back in the 70s.
Back when USSR had the guts and money to explore the "final frontier".
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Would it be at all useful to put a telescope on Pluto? Assuming it could get enough power from the sun to function, would the added distance be significant as compared with the view we get from Hubble?
And for that matter, is Hubble solar powered?
I think I've seen that before.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Any other brand of engineer that designed something that failed as much as 2% of the time
WTF are you talking about? American RTG's have never failed to contain radioactivity. That's 100%.
Because of the faulty way that launchers are engineered - nothing on it's payload is built above the minimum requirements. They can't afford to spend the weight.
That's just dishonest. The minimum requirements of an RTG are not low, as you try to dishonestly imply. These things are not made of balsa wood and duct tape, even though that would work. If you're going to say that the minimum requirements are dangerous, then tell us what those minimums are, and tell us what requirements you'd like to see.
Otherwise, go away. If you're going to claim that the engineers are wrong, it's up to you to make your case why the engineers are wrong. Lay the numbers on me, I can understand them. Vagueness won't persuade me.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Thanks for the correction!
Anyways, my point is, stop talking out of your ass. Shit happens when the task at hand is difficult, and reliable, affordable launchers are difficult. Probably because you're trying to wrap a fragile aluminum and composite cylinder around a HUGE FUCKING EXPLOSION and ride it in precisely the correct direction at really high velocity and acceleration.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
I for one welcome our Red flag waving, Vodka toting overlord :)
No I do.... i really do
Help! help!, the termites are eating my DRAM!!!
Funny thing. I was working on the Atlas V av010 launch and up until last week I had not connected av010 with the New Horizons pluto mission. I read on CNN that "New Horizons" was on an Atlas at the cape waiting for launch. I figured that had to be "our" Atlas which was at the cape getting ready to be launched. I work with the telemetry from the Atlas V. I guess I'm like a truck driver. When you ask him what's he hauling he says "A trailor, what else?" Then you ask what's in the trailor and he says "a bunch of boxes I guess, I never look.". I guess if you'd ask one of the people who work on the science instruments on the payload about what was used to launch the spacecraft they say "A rocket of some kind I assume." and they wouldn't even know that the RD180 main engine on the Altas V 1st stage is made in Russia by NPO Energomash in Khimky.
The point isn't that the plutonium slug won't liquify, or vaporize, or whatnot, in the event of a catastrophic failure, but rather that even if it does, the result would not be meausurably harmful.
As one of the child posts in this thread points out, such a slug has in fact burned up on reentry into our atmosphere, with a distinct absence of the death and destruction the "hippies" insist should occur. It is that ignorant and contrafactual insistence, and the resulting negative impact on the pursuit of good science, that requires an apology.
Also, your unfunnyliciousness is showing to the point of being humorlesstastic. Have you considered being less boringriffic?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Weren't most words "made up" at one point?
Besides he was making a funny at the same time as he was making a valid point, while you are just being an ass.
* Stop eating because you ingest trace amounts of plutonium and uranium every day
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/DU/du_qaa
Of course since that uranium is usually in the form of uranium oxide and other ores, where there are very nearly always trace amounts of plutonium present, when you ingest or inhale these trace amounts at least a tiny percentage of that will be a plutonium atom or three.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Too bad you're breathing and ingesting U and Po on a daily basis already, from natural sources.
Oops.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"maybe we have just dodged the bullets" I don't think so. The have been open air nuclear weapon tests that have released more radioactive waste than these small RTG's possibly could. Not to mention nuclear power station accidents that have released Tons of radioactive material. I think at this point the risks are pretty well understood by nuclear engineers and the scientific community in general. The consensus, which is based on this experience, is that RTG's do not pose a real threat to society.
There are at least 159 others that have been overlooked.
The Plutonium is in ceramic which has a much much higher melting point than metallic plutonium. Also a "fireball" would tend to have a much lower temperature than the exhaust of rocket and be much shorter lived. Take an ICE cube and put in a pan and put it in a 400 degree oven for half a second? Did it melt totally? Look at the Challenger. The SRBs which are made of aluminum survived the the explosion. They didn't fail much less vaporize. The Plutonium is encased by several layers of heat and shock resistant materials. Not of your points are valid.
Your arguments have shown the original post to be at least in your case correct if mean spirited. Most of the protesters lack a basic understanding of the issue and are following leaders that are giving them miss information and exploiting their fears. If you want to say well so is this political group or that does the same thing... So? Does that fact that Hitler was a mass murdering loon make what Stalin did any less terrible? I for on don't think so.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"Maybe the danger is overstated, maybe we have just dodged the bullets. There's no clear way to differentiate between two "
Yes it is called science.
A worst case failure of an RTG will be a lot more benign than any of the over 1000 above ground nuclear tests.
While they where less than bright the do provide a lot of data so yea the danger is way over stated.
And yes I live in Florida near the cape. So if anyone is in danger I would be one of them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Didn't say I wasn't. However, the existance of a baseline of exposure doesn't resolve the ethical question of how much exposure risk we can force on others. The fact that there's a (very very tiny) baseline risk of any given person getting hit by a meteorite, does not imply it's ok for me to throw stones out my window that might hit passers-by.
(And it's questionable how much U and Po in the air could be said to be from "natural" sources. Trace amounts of both are released from mining; U is released by burning coal; Po exposure comes from contamination of mineral phosphates used as a fertilizer, on crops including tobacco. (And yes, that does make it ironic when someone worried about the risk of Pu exposure from a failed rocket launch tells you about this over a cigarette.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Enjoy!
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
But today, niether is true. We have a much better understanding of how to build high performance engines, and clustering is a largely solved problem - but we still design launchers and payloads as if it were 1966 rather than 2006.
Try buying some reading comprehension, as I never said or implied that the RTG standards were low - I said they could not be built above the minimum requirements (which are not low).It's not about numbers - its about design philosophies. We've stuck with the same one for forty years, and it's not working.How many 747 engines have blown up in the last five years? Zero. Even if you count in fuel tank explosions like that which brought down TWA flight 800 - you get 4 incidents out of hundreds of thousands of flights.
People have been deluded for forty years that space is far more difficult than it needs to be - because forty years ago NASA chose a design philosophy that they have never deviated from, even in the face of evidence that other paths exist.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Comparing a challenger O-Ring to an RTG is a laugh. Same with talking about the failure rates of launchers.
Talk about RTG's. If you have some reason to believe that an RTG is going to bust open during a failed launch, then pony up the reasons. You need to have some facts to convince me.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I concur with the other respondent. I read the bit about Apollo and suspected that you were making everything up. Then I followed the DOE link and verified your story.
Yeah, but then you notice practically everyone says "MRI"... Most people don't even know what that means, and if doctors said the word "nuklear", well it would scare the shit out of them. Simple as that.
If they're going to continue to class Pluto as a planet, they should also include Sedna, Quaoar, and the other planetoid that's as yet unnamed. And then there's UB313 which is larger than Pluto.
Problem is there's a lot of contention as to exactly what constitutes a planet. But I think it's very innacurate to say it's the only planet not visited by man. I guess it'd be accurate if you're using astrology textbooks and encyclopedias made before 2002.
Or maybe there's a vast misunderstanding of how planetary mechanics work and the Sun actually orbits the Earth.
Michael Brown has been discovering several objects out beyond Neptune and Pluto, more info on what he's found.
It was a tight launch window as the orbital movements of Earth and Pluto are making it a harder target to just reach, if it had been delayed substantially, it would have made no sense to launch as the orbital period of Pluto is 248 years. And no, New Horizon will not be able to get to Quaoar or Sedna, they won't be in the right location for the probe to get to them, ultimately I think the probe is just going to continue out beyond Pluto to see what it'll find.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Everyone I've ever given head to (a LOT of people) says its the best they've ever had. Well guys this is why, so try and make your man happy.
1.I LOVE to do it. It absolutely turns me on more than recieving it. I get a massive stiffy, sometimes I even shoot my load, without masturbating.
2.I look up at him while I'm doing it so he knows I'm loving it. You give him the eyes or that "i fucking love this" face. Literally devour him. Act like you can't get enough of his cock.
3.I spend a lot of time licking and sucking his balls while using my hands on him and looking him in the eye... Also--yes I'll perform a "hummer" if you will
4.Of course I SWALLOW.. but I also allow him to pull back, jerk into my open waiting mouth and onto my chest and six-pack.
5.I always give while on my knees.. He's either standing up over me holding my head or he might be sitting on the couch, or toilet.
6.Yes, I have let him give me a pearl necklace. In that case I wipe the cum off of my neck and I have him feed it to me off of his fingers.
7.I'll talk dirty to him a little bit. Tell him I don't want him to cum yet because I'm not ready, or that I love the way his hard cock feels in my mouth.. I take my time--he better be prepared to sit there for at least a half hour probably more.
8.I love to lick and tickle under his balls. The "taint" if you will. Or I'll use my thumb to apply light pressure in circular motions or going up and down. I'll go lower and lower down to the ass if he lets me. If he's enjoying it, yes I will rim, and yes I have fingered his ass.
9.When I'm getting really turned on, I'll stroke my cock and finger my asshole in front of him. Then I'll take my fingers rub my pre-cum on his head and then suck it off. I'll also suck my fingers clean for him. If its someone who paid me or something then I've even gone so far as to climb onto him, slowly guiding his cock into my ass.. sit there for about 10 seconds then get back down on my knees and continue sucking.
10.I deep throat. There have been instances where I dont even realize he came because it's so far down my throat. If he gags me I keep going.
11.And its just general technique. I have a very busy tongue and I get him into a great rhythm building him up and slowing down to help prolong and intensify his orgasm. I love to flick my tongue back and forth around his sensitive ridge and all underneath it.
12.I also SUCK his cock head firmly letting it pass in and out of my mouth, so my lips run over him while he fucks my wet mouth.
13.I'll get him nice and wet and use my hand to stroke him in a counter-clockwise motion and then I suck on him going clockwise. The other hand goes to his nipples, balls, asshole, etc.. but the combined sensations get him so hard.
14.When he's ready to cum thats when speed and intensity HAVE TO INCREASE. I bob up and down on him faster and faster and I let him thrust his hips too so I take him even deeper.
15.After he cums I'll continue to suck him slowing down intensity and speed, bringing him down from his orgasm until he stops me becuase he's so sensitive.
And that is why I give head like a pornstar. No, I am not a slut and I do not have STD's. I'm just a guy who likes to suck cock. Men--there are other men out there like me so don't give up hope if you have never had great head.