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Japanese Spacecraft Bringing Back Space Rock
phaic tan writes "Bridie Smith from the Sydney Morning Herald reports on the Hayabusa spacecraft returning to earth in June with samples from the Itokawa Asteroid: 'A Japanese spacecraft will land in Australia in June, bringing with it samples from an asteroid found 300 million kilometres from Earth. The unmanned Hayabusa spacecraft, launched in May 2003, will become the first spacecraft to bring asteroid material to Earth when it lands in Woomera, South Australia, later this year.'"
...rocks !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Picked another big island at least.. you know, in case the blob needs to be isolated. Al though I'd think if they landed in Japan at least Godzilla could melt it if it got too large. Oh well.
space cooties, joy
Is that Meatloaf has significant input into some of the software that went into that space craft. Say what you want about his music (its shit) but the guy has made many important contributions to both the Linux kernel and also more academic code as this. The guy deserves more credit!
They used the fly-fly machine to bring sky hard-things to the big blue room's floor!
It's been done.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
with the destruction of Tokyo by a giant lizard or mecha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_rock Maybe this will put an end to the pop music craze.
Anyone catch the doomsday paragraph at the end FTFA:
''If we're on a collision course with an asteroid we need to know if they are rock-solid or if they are piles of rubble,'' he said. ''That will help us predict how best to deal with them.''
...how many sinister space asteroid scares have we had in the past decade claiming utter calamity on the earth? I''m not claiming conspiracy theory on this one (so stay in your caves, trolls!) but it'll be cool to see what kind of composition and materials are uncovered on that thing; because it would be good to know. It's nice to get good, "rock" solid evidence to back up a lot of theories and guessed accuracies of our solar system that are mostly data interpreted facts and not visual or tangible.
Oh, physical rocks. I thought at first this was about Acid Mothers Temple, the other Japanese Space Rock.
Do they have a 'Wildfire' installation in Australia to study any space microbes that might be on the rock?
Slip a zombie on the barbie!
Employee Of the Month - Cyberdyne Systems Corporation - September 1997
Here's hoping that it actually lands in Australia, and not Ueda.
Though hot springs are cool, too. ^_^
What if the asteroid contains a dangerous life form? Don't these people watch any sci-fi movies?
for infecting Earth.
Yours In Akademgorodok,
N. Haflinger
You have just doubled your achievements! Your list now read:
1. Rotary Washing Line
2. First spacecraft to bring asteroid material to Earth
Wait.. It was Japanese. Sorry. I guess it's still the rotary washing line for now :(
Will massive beer consumption save the Aussie populace!?
--- Do you believe in the day?
Being able to acquire materials from space will be required. You can't explore space in a vacuum. LoL. Obama... to little to late.
Soon we will know if H.P. Lovecraft was right.
Any illegal aliens that come along with the spacerocks will be placed in Woomera Detention Centre for at least six months and then blasted back into outer space while the whales cry for them.
They've been wandering around there lately.
Last time I heard, the japanese had lost contact with the spacecraft when it was near the asteroid after MAYBE taking samples. They had given up and declared the mission a failure. I must've missed something here.
Let's hope some farmer doesn't find the spacecraft and crack it open...
There have been *so* many technical problems with this mission, such as failure of reaction wheels, loss of the rover during deployment, damage to the solar cells by a flare, loss of attitude and communications due to a fuel leak, and so on. The mission timeline reads like "And then this broke, and we managed to fix it. And then this, and we fixed that. And ..." Yet they are getting close to pulling off the main goals of the mission (sample return). A failure of the sampling procedure probably means they've got a bit of dust rather than the larger pieces they were hoping for, but it's better than nothing! And the pictures and other data the probe has returned are very cool. The asteroid is a "rubble pile", which had been speculated for many asteroids, but not directly seen before.
The engineers and scientists that are running the mission deserve a lot of credit for keeping this thing going despite the problems (the contractors that built it, not as much :-)).
If I recall correctly, the Hayabusa spacecraft MIGHT have samples on it from the asteroid. Then again, it might not. The Hayabusa was originally designed to hover above the surface of the asteroid and fire a pellet into the surface, causing an ejection of material that the probe would then collect in a sample box. However, the probe has been having propulsion issues, amongst other things, and was required to land on the surface of the asteroid rather than hover above it. This, of course, was an achievement in itself. However, upon landing, the probe's pellet ejection system failed and no surface material was displaced forcibly. As I understand it, researchers are hoping that some dust or something settled into the sample collection bin. However, at this time, there is no certainty that it will contain anything.
The most fascinating part about this mission, however, was the fact that it was using four plasma thrusters to steadily propel it to its destination. To my knowledge, this is the first time such technology has been used as the primary propulsion source for a mission. Even more fascinating is that three of the four thrusters failed and, as of now, one functioning thruster is a jury rigged hack job that they got working by using the control systems from one failed thruster and the thruster and propellant from a second. That said, Hayabusa has been an absolute testament to the tenacity and creativity in problem solving of JAXA. It has been an exciting mission, and I am very much looking forward to finding out just how lucky the unlucky probe has been in collecting dust bits from the asteroid.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
The point of this endeavor was to determine if this a true asteroid or a planet-bomb sent by the Gamilons in their attempt to kill us.
If it's just an asteroid, no harm, no foul. But if it's a planet bomb, then we need to get the Argo ready to take off and begin its long journey to Iscandar even though Queen Starsha sent us plans for the wave motion engine but couldn't send us plans for the Cosmo DNA device.
Of course, maybe the LHC is really the first stage in the production of the wave motion gun and all of this is merely a ruse to keep the people from panicking.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
So the Japanese sent a motorcycle in space to bring back an asteroid?
http://wwww.zerospeaks.com
I thought this was going to be an article about J-Pop. I guess "Space Rock" isn't really coming back in Japan.
There is no actual guarantee that there is a sample in the chamber (as the pellets misfired).
It's a remarkable achievement to get it back; let's hope that there is something inside.
... to look pretty stupid when the sample's mother shows up to claim revenge. Didn't these people watch the original "Star Trek" series?
I don't think the resulting havoc was worth it:
The Green Slime (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064393/)
Jordy Verill, you lunkhead!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I have this feeling I can't shake that everyone near where this thing lands is going to die from some unknown infection except for the babies and drunks.
Never cease to wonder. If you do you have become compliant with the world around you, and that is a very dangerous thing
Drat! From the headline, I thought this mission was kicking off a new wave of music in the spirit of the Flaming Lips.
This stuff falls to earth all the time. I scraped a bunch of it off my roof and pulled it out with a magnet.
Procedure.
1. IF you have gutters put bucket under gutter
2. If you do not have gutters find a place where the water channels and place a bucket under it
3. Hose off your roof
4. Collect dirty water and strain it through a very fine strainer (water only should get through)
5. Stir debris with magnet
The magnet should pick up iron debris from space. Rusty roof nails don't count.
Cost .0008 cents of water and a few dollars worth of time , 5 dollar bucket, and 1 dollar magnet.
Will Robert Plant drop his Aleister Crowley obsession
I doubt it since it was Jimmy Page, not Robert Plant, who was obsessed with Crowley.
Plant was obsessed with "oooh yeah, oooohhhh, yeah! Lemme get back lemme get back..." (And no, the Motörhead bass player and lead screacher was not lunging at him).
The innovation minister, Kim Carr, said the spacecraft will land within the 130,000 square kilometre Woomera Prohibited Area,
Man, we need an innovation minister too! Finally a minister role that I can sympathize with!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Is that a Hawkwind tribute band?
Anyone know if there's (going to be) a documentary movie of some sort? I'd call it "The Little Engine that Could". Oh wait...
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
it's quite sad and telling that the only use for research the Australian 'innovation minister' finds is how to destroy something.
in this light, I wonder what they have against 'scientific whale hunting' by the Japanese...