NASA Astronomers To Observe Hayabusa's Fiery Homecoming

coondoggie writes "NASA said that a group of its astronomers will have a front row seat in Australia to watch the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa's high-speed, fiery return to Earth. It is bringing with it a hunk of the asteroid Itokawa. The spacecraft is expected to land in an unpopulated area of Australia at approximately midnight locally, or 7 am PDT, on Sunday, June 13. Some 30 NASA astronomers will be flying onboard a specially equipped DC-8 with instruments that can monitor Hayabusa's reentry."

Comments

Hayabusa!

[fishexe]

He will become the ninja dragon!

Actually...

[fauxhemian]

JAXA is not at all certain that it is bringing a "hunk" or much at all of Itokawa back with it. The firing mechanism which was meant to fire a bullet into the asteroid malfunctioned. They're just hoping it picked up enough residue. After the various mishaps this spacecraft encountered, it's been a good effort to get it home.

Re:Actually...

[Capsaicin]

But no matter what it brings back from Itokawa we can be certain that Godzilla will rise out of the dust of the Australian desert...

Especially as the piece of dust in the Australian desert they are talking about is the Woomera Prohibited Area. It is prohibited because of the high levels of radioactivity remaining from nuclear weapons testing. You couldn't script this better.

Re:Actually...

[Red Flayer]

You couldn't script this better.

Is that a challenge? We've got a number of very creative people on slashdot who would be happy to take you up on that.

Just some ideas on how things could get better:

The observation craft crashes in said desert, with the only survivors being the three very attractive but brainy female NASA scientists who unfortunately were slightly injured and had to tear the midriffs from their shirts in order to apply tourniquets to the pilot of the plane, who, despite their best efforts, expired on the desert flats -- but not before handing our intrepid heroines a jailbroken iPad with a map of a secret city in the desert.

The secret city, of course, is populated by mutants who are engaged in a war of factions between the aborigines and the whites. The whites have a technological advantage, but are really mean. The aborigines, however, reveal secrets to our heroines via a half-naked drug-addled walkabout whereupon it is discovered that the residue from the asteroid contains the last component to the ritual that awakens Croczilla from his dusty resting place and floods the desert, who upon awakening will be hungry for the other other white meat.

That's all I've got so far, I'm not sure how they'll keep Croczilla from destroying the opera house in Sydney. However, I'm quite sure it involves ridiculous sci-fi weapons and more toplessness of our heroines, and perhaps some beer.

Home again!

[joh]

In case you haven't followed that drama you should do that now. Keeping that bird in control, managing it to do some science and finally getting it back was seriously heroic by JAXA. This was easily the most problem-ridden probe ever making it back (well, almost now). I hope the last leg of that epic journey will go well.

Re:Home again!

[MichaelSmith]

Though I recall that when the vehicle bounced off the asteroid the operators had no idea whether it had collected material from the surface and it is likely they still don't know.

Interplanetary re-entry

[l2718]

There's an important point to the re-entry process, separate from the asteroid sample: the craft will be coming at interplanetary speed (about escape velocity from Earth) -- is much faster than typical re-entries from Earth-orbit. Seeing if the heat-shielding technology will work is important for future missions around the solar system.

Re:"unpopulated"

[Zouden]

Indeed. It's a testing ground for various military purposes, and in the 1950s the British government tested nuclear weapons there.

However there is a (small) population there. The mailman has to use a helicopter because the area is the size of England.

Re:"unpopulated"

[Farmer Tim]

Not really: Woomera was a missile test range, and the dingoes have taken over the old SAM emplacements.

Re:Hayab USA!

[meerling]

Considering they lost one of the shuttles and it's ENTIRE FUCKING CREW due to A HEAT SHIELD FAILURE, it seems that taking advantage of any available research opportunity into heat shielding is A GOOD IDEA!

Maybe you don't like NASA spending money on space.
After all, we don't know what gains we'll get from it.
Now that may be true, but then again, they've got a really good 'payback' rate, even if they aren't a profit center.
You like your cellphones, your satellite or cable tv, weather reports and warnings, tons of materials, medicine, maths, electronics, and so many other things you could write a book about it, and people have, you really should thank NASA. Their contributions to the total knowledge and even applications of that knowledge is absolutely huge and in almost all fields of endeavor. (Except porn, I really don't think NASA has done anything on human sexuality in space, but I'm not sure of that.)

So if you want to crawl back into your cave and ignore the contributions they made and ignore the even greater ones that can only come about if they are allowed to do that research you call "boondoggles", then just remember the reply Faraday gave when asked what use electricity was, he simply replied, "What use is a baby?".