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EU Sending a Probe To the Sun
First time accepted submitter Mindflux0 writes "The European Union is going forward with the proposed Solar Orbiter, a space probe designed to study the sun. The probe will orbit closer to the sun than any other man-made object at a sizzling 42 million km. It's planned to launch in 2017 for close to a billion euros."
Somebody should send the eurocrats to the sun.
PLEASE, PLEASE tell me this is a fully manned spaceprobe, manned by politicians and world leaders, to help them become better aquainted with science!
(42 million kilometers) / the speed of light = 2.33494867 minutes
That's just around 4 times closer to the sun than the Earth is, although I guess the radiation intensity probably increases with the square of the distance or something like that?
At least they should be able to power it with solar panels...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
The European Space Agency is quite different than the European Union. It includes Canada for a start...
I'm pretty sure they're planning on flying at night.
They finally found a place to send all that Greek debt.
They are going to make sure to do this at night, right? It would be too hot for the probe during the day, right?
But it won't be a record for long, since the Solar Probe Plus will be heading to a distance of 8.5 solar radii from the surface of the sun a year later. http://science.nasa.gov/missions/solar-probe/
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
First the News of the World, and now this.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They had better find a way to name this probe ASH because in the end that's what it'll be.
Interesting way to burn a billion euros. Someone correct me if im wrong, but isn't Europe almost as broke as the US? Why did they pick now to go study the Sun?
At least they should be able to power it with solar panels...
Actually, powering a probe close to the sun with solar panels is a significant difficulty, since photovoltaic cells perform poorly when they get hot; high temperatures also degrade the lifetime. The European mission will be taking a lot of steps to decrease the intensity on the solar arrays. It's a much worse problem with Solar Probe Plus, which is going much closer. For SPP, designing a power system that works at distances close to the sun was the key enabling element in the mission design. We will be using concentrator solar cells, operating them off-angle, and, for the part of the orbit closest to the sun, actually cooling the arrays with a pumped-fluid cooling loop to reject heat to radiators that are shaded from the sun.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Which parts of Europe? I'm sure Germany is okay for cash. Greece not so much.
This has been stated SO MANY TIMES. And still the editors DON'T GET IT. Jeeeez!!!
Only parts of it. Europe isn't a single country.
Yes society should drop everything else it does to handle one problem at a time. Next up, we drop everything to cure cancer!
Seems odd to use a chemical rocket instead of a solar-powered ion thruster, when you're going close to the sun where power is cheap anyway... Maybe it's about beating Solar Probe Plus there, so they hold the closest-to-the-sun record for a few months anyway; an ion system would be too slow and make them look like an also-ran.
Oh, and SOLO shoots first!
I guess they can't see it from here.
Interesting way to burn a billion euros. Someone correct me if im wrong, but isn't Europe almost as broke as the US? Why did they pick now to go study the Sun?
Well you know, since we don't start wars just for fun (or putting in place a TSA-like agency), we have more money to invest in more productive things.
Such as basic science for instance. All in all, 1 billion € is cheap change on the level of the european budget.
European bankers and politicians on the rocket with Bart and Homer...
I am orbiting the Sun!
right now.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
A billion Euro over 6 or so years. Who was it that spent 20 billion American dollars on iPhones again?
Most americans dont know that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They did this some time ago. And compared to the EU dept it is only a tiny amount of money. The threw more money at every single bank lately.
You could also phrase it as follows: Interesting way to invest in your local economy. Trust me, the research alone will get people (certain academics) to move there.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
What do you see? Kaneda! WHAT DO YOU SEE!?
You could also phrase it as follows: Interesting way to invest in your local economy. Trust me, the research alone will get people (certain academics) to move there.
Move to the sun?!?!?
Heck, make the whole probe out of silicon carbide.
You do realize it that when you spend money it is not incinerated right?
If the EU spends 1 billion or 100 billion they do not have 1 billion less, it is just redistributed differently.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
What better way to cook the books.
Have gnu, will travel.
Sounds like a Disaster Area waiting to happen.
They're sending it at night to avoid heat issues.
Hope Thunderbird 3 is on standby.
when the sun is turned off.
...will most likely melt
They are going that way anyway, might as well haul some trash to the dump.
Don't bother to send the probe, I already know the result. The sun is hot.
I feel the human species, the whole planet, including poor people and people in ill health, must colonize the entire galaxy. We should also colonize the surface of the Sun so we can get off this mud ball. We should only colonize one side of the Sun, so there's enough light on Mars so I can build a bungalow there.
With a Mars mission and we all saw how well that turned out...
Temperature at that distance could be several hundred Centigrade and radiation too high. Will our electronics or optics work with any reliability for any data to be collected or brought back?
You have it quite wrong actually.
Money represents resources (which there is a limited amount of) and work.
If you spend money on the construction of a factory, you're really using resources and human work to build that factory. Resources and work which could have been used to build something else. If the factory gives you something that you feel is worth the investment, such as cheap robots that clean homes and which anyone can afford, then you didn't waste money. If that factory gives you something that you feel wasn't worth the investment, such as black and white TVs nobody has had a use for since decades, then you wasted money.
Is learning more about the sun worth the 1 billion worth of resources and work? That's the question.
The comment you answered to is quite ignorant though. The fact that he claims this is a waste of money then immediately says he actually has no clue what we could get out of this, gives the stupidity away.
To answer the guy:
For one thing, we could learn how to develop better sources of energy (or how to use current energy sources more efficiently). The sun burns thanks to a process called Fusion, which is much, much more efficient than the nuclear energy we have today (fission). We're desperately trying to develop Fusion plants to replace Fission plants and studying the sun upclose might help us this way. Imagine the shitload of money we'll save thanks to that energy source!
We could also learn a lot more about Earth's climate and global warming. We might be able to predict future drastic changes in temperatures that are caused by solar activity. Imagine if we could know today that 10 years from now, the temperatures on Earth will drop by 5 celsius for a period of 15 years - we could start preparing for this by modifying buildings. A few years ago friends of mine considered changing the heating system in their house to something that is cheaper to run. They ended up not investing in this because, as they said "last winter wasn't so cold. If the next 10 winters are not ALL colder, we won't heat the house so much and this won't be worth the investment". If they could know how cold winter will be 10 years ahead, they would be able to make a better decision. It would save them money and it would help the climate a little bit.
As for global warming, we might finally get an answer as to how much man is responsible for it.
We will also most likely learn things we didn't expect to learn. That happens all the time in science, especially with big enterprises. For an example, look at how the LHC has unexpectedly allowed us to discover particles that can travel faster than light (ok, last I heard this needs further verification, but you get the example).
Speaking of the LHC, people raised the same "Is it not a waste of money?" concerns. The LHC was presented as something that would simply satisfy our curiosity about the origins of the universe, but according to some scientists I spoke to the LHC might help us develop cheaper and more efficient energies and it might even be the only way to develop anti-gravity engines - imagine vehicles of all sized, from a skateboard to an oil tanker, not fighting against gravity (like planes and helicopters do) but simply ignoring gravity at will (picture a helium balloon, although balloons float only because they are lighter than air) and moving (or stopping) with ease in the air! It sounds like science fiction, but it's actually a real possibility (or so I've heard).
There's so much more we could learn from studying the sun closer. A scientist would be able to provide more examples. But there are good reasons to do it and in the long run it could save us lots of money and help climate change/pollution.
Also, it might finally convince Aztecs that the Sun is not a god. And if you plant to tell me Aztecs are extinct, I have a roommate who thinks the world will end in 2012 right here to prove you wrong!
Cool, I've always wanted to see steam engines make a come back. And what better time!
Load this thing up with loads and loads of water, and start out with solar panels. When the solar panels become useless (because of the extreme heat), BAM, kick in that steam engine baby. Ah to dream.
by director Danny Boyle.
Trips to the sun end badly.
ESA is building Solar Orbiter for 2017, NASA is building http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Probe%2B for 2018, and Roscosmos (Russia) is building InterhelioZond for 2018. All of them will get much closer to the Sun than Mercury. Both Solar Orbiter and InterhelioZond have a goal of seeing the Sun's poles from a 30 degree inclination. All three will bring valuable knowledge to complement the current collection of solar observers.
Here is the pariapsis for each (the apoapsis for all seem to be the orbit of Venus) (RS = solar radii)
Solar Probe+: 8.5 RS 0.04 au 5.9m km
InterhelioZond: 30.0 RS 0.14 au 20.8m km
Solar Orbiter: 60.5 RS 0.28 au 42m km
For comparison Mercury orbits 46.0m to 57.9m km from the Sun.
See here
Farewell sweet prince.
You have it quite wrong actually.
Money represents resources (which there is a limited amount of) and work.
If you spend money on the construction of a factory, you're really using resources and human work to build that factory. Resources and work which could have been used to build something else.
Yeah, the word is could, not would. There are a lot of people out there that have no work.
Out of courtesy, if they dare.
Isn't that the best proof that Aztecs are extinct? Because otherwise they'd be very busy correcting all those people misunderstanding their calendar.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Some years after this, ESA will announce to the world:
"We are now prepared to send astronauts in a ship to the sun!"
NASA would say:
"That's impossible, the astronaust will all burn with the hot from the sun!
ESA:
"No way, will send the ship at night!"
lol
[Zaphod] Hey, Marvin, kid! How you doing?
We are in a funding crunch! Quick! Stop science!!! Seriously stopping things that will actually advance your society because times are rough seems like a great way to keep things from improving.
At that distance, what would the estimated temp be in space?
More for my own curiosity, but the tech needed to survive a constant furnace/radiation bomb is also very cool.
Something witty.
Even in Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) science was top. Granted, it was used in the wrong sort of way, but with knowledge comes responsibility.
Something witty.
This is my major beef with $country debt. Spend a billion on space travel? Nah, we could have spent that money on cancer research. Here is a thought, and I'm just spit balling here.. How about not spend it at all? Here in Columbus Ohio, we approved a casino deal to increase school funding and infrastructure projects because we're broke. Yesterday I found out that that casino money is going to buy the Blue Jackets sport stadium. My thought would be, take in taxes, pay your bills, take what's left for science, research, art, etc... There is absolutely NO MATH that supports government creating jobs.
The problem is when you run out of other peoples money. To over simplify, do you want a space probe or half the country (USA) not get thier government assitance checks? I think science and education should be staggeringly funded, but most people are missing a very basic concept. We're broke. Eating our seed stock...
Maybe we'll find David Brin's creatures wandering about.
42 million kilometers...
42... something's afoot...
~Syberz
A number of non-EU, European countries are also members, thank you very much.
Hahaha, yeah, right. The US housing market crashed and your banks collapsed. Meanwhile in [different parts of] Europe nothing much happened.
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Thank you for this clear, concise explanation. You have nicely summarized the essence of the matter (for this novice, anyway).
-kgj
I think AC's tend to suffer excessively negative modding, irrespective of post content. Totally anecdotal, but that's my impression.
-kgj