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NASA Overjoyed at Catch From Stardust
mknewman wrote to mention a New York Times report that the Stardust project has exceeded NASA scientist's expectations. From the article: "While they had expected mostly microscopic samples, the researchers said, a surprising number of the particles were large enough to be seen with the naked eye ... The cargo in the Stardust's sample container, which was opened Tuesday, 'was an ancient cosmic treasure from the very edge of the solar system,' Dr. Brownlee said. Scientists believe that these particles are the pristine remains of the material that formed the planets and other bodies some 4.6 billion years ago."
If a 14-inch wide collector accumulated hundreds of humanly-visible samples in 195 days of travel - including at least one that caused a trace "large enough to put a small finger through", then any hope for high-speed space travel is really going to need excellent shielding. Statistically, it would seem very likely to encounter objects with sufficient mass to cause damage at high relative speeds. It might be interesting to see what a comparable flight through "clear space", and not near a comet would yield.
They washed their hands with a wetnap leftover from lunch at KFC?
Really, do you think that someone whos entire livework to this point has culmanated with the landing and retrival of this material is going to let the sample be contaminated? (Or contaminate the Earth)
I expect comments like this on Digg, not here.
Maybe, just maybe you could see that by learning more about what we came from, we might actually learn things? You know, it's part of that whole "science" thing that those ivory tower intellectuals keep talking about. I know that you may not like anything that doesn't give you a pretty picture or that doesn't beat those damn commies, but you know what, NASA is one of the few governmental agencies that does it's job well (aside from a few mishaps here and there, but then, that's common in government). I find it aggrivating how people want to keep cutting the budget for NASA, yet it gets less in a year than the War in Iraq gets in 3 months. Comon, people, NASA is what gets you your satalite TV, your cell phone service, your XM and Sirius radio, if it wants to actually go out and do some science beyond that, is it really that bad to toss it a few billion dollars to research our origins or explore the planets around us, what's so bad?
I suspect people wondered the same thing about Antony van Leeuwenhoek. Why would anyone care about things too small to see? What a collosal waste of time. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/leeuwenhoek.h tml