Voyager 1, So Close To Interstellar Space That We Can Taste It!

mphall21 writes "Voyager 1 is nearing the edge of the 'magnetic highway' of our solar system and scientists believe this is the final area the space probe must cross before entering interstellar space. The Voyager team infers this region is still inside of our heliosphere because the direction of the magnetic field has not changed. The direction of this field is expected to change when Voyager goes into interstellar space. 'Although Voyager 1 still is inside the sun's environment, we now can taste what it's like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway,' said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. 'We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space. Our best guess is it's likely just a few months to a couple years away. The new region isn't what we expected, but we've come to expect the unexpected from Voyager.' Moving at 10.5 miles per second, the space probe is the most distant man-made object from Earth. The space craft has been in operation for 35 years and receives regular commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network."

Comments

For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

This is truly a triumph of modern science and unfortunately we do not dream big like this anymore. We are limited to our own backyard. The moon, Mars, etc. Such a shame.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[MichaelSmith]

Well there is New Horizons.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[interkin3tic]

We don't dream this big anymore? Since Voyager left earth, we sequenced the human genome, along with the genomes of nearly 200 other organisms. The computer that lives in my pocket is so much better than the computers on board Voyager that I can't even figure out how to compare them. Granted, I only spent 5 minutes skimming wiki articles trying to do so, but I'll also point out that 5 minutes of research got me the name of all the units on board the voyager, and way too much information for me to handle on that. 5 minutes of research at Voyager's time would maybe result in "finding the right world book letter." And it wouldn't have that information.

Putting a big rocket and a nuclear power supply on something and sending it off into space is awe-inspiring, yes, but I'd argue we're dreaming much bigger today. The internet changed the world a lot more than the space age did.

(Note that I'm not knocking the space age, and am fully aware that it's unlikely the internet would have come about were it not for the space age.)

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[elashish14]

Space age research is still alive and well too. GP's comment comes on the heels of this and this, not to mention that we're also seeing potential earths in other solar systems for the first time ever! plus at the same time learning even more about awesome our own home is.

Maybe the public at large is more concerned about which husband/wife the latest Kardashian is on, but the age of the geeks is accelerating far faster than any it ever has, and it will continue to do so as long as there is the tiniest of means.

And while we're on it, let's not forget that we're also thinking smaller than ever before. How long has it been since we isolated the Higgs Boson???

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[gman003]

We're spotting exoplanets faster than we can name them. We just landed a fucking nuclear-powered, laser-wielding science tank on Mars. Two years ago we dive-bombed the moon so we could search the debris cloud for signs of water. New Horizons is planned to leave the solar system as well once it's done with Pluto. We've got probes around Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Vesta, and whole damn fleets around the Moon and Mars, with another probe en route to Jupiter. We've got a company planning to mine the freaking asteroid belt. The ISS is constantly manned - I get Twitter pics *every* *day* from fucking *space*.

The hell we aren't dreaming big. The only reason Voyager is the only probe so far out is because it takes forty years to get there.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

Well put. Though I would be happy to throw in $5 or $10 more in tax dollars if it bought a purpose-built intersetllar probe. I want us to get to Alpha Centauri before I croak, god damnit!

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

George W Bush tried to cancel these two programs. For a paltry savings of $4 million/yr.

And we're sadly looking back on him as 'enlightened'.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[19thNervousBreakdown]

And you'll get to experience the end of the world on December 21st, caused by those same probes!

We never suspected that the heliosheath, the stars and deep space, all of it, was an illusion, caused by odd refractions at the edge of the bubble that we live in. As Voyager 1 approaches, and touches the threshold, it gives slightly, and then ... *pop*

All of existence unravels, and turns inside out briefly before collapsing, the unlikely self-sustaining equation finally solving itself for x.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[screwdriver]

Forty years using technology that is forty years old. I wonder how long it would take with today's technology.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[phantomfive]

Who looks back on Bush as enlightened? They didn't even invite him to the Republican national convention.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[fred911]

"The only reason Voyager is the only probe so far out is because it takes forty years to get there."

ET..Phone home!!

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Concerned Onlooker]

Thirty nine years.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

Forty years using technology that is forty years old. I wonder how long it would take with today's technology.

Well keep in mind we weren't trying to race for the edge of the solar system as fast as we could, in order to justify the cost of the program we had to do some observations on the way. I haven't checked lately, but depending on when we launch a probe and the alignment of various bodies used in gravity-assists, I'd assume that using the ion-drive technology we could get to the edge in a shorter amount of time and be moving at a higher velocity when we reach the heliopause.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

> The computer that lives in my pocket is so much better than the computers on board Voyager..

I suspect the computer in your pocket won't still be working in 35 years.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

x = 42

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[MrNemesis]

It's a shame there isn't enough power left in the RTG for Pioneer to take a picture of the fast-approaching reset button.

http://pbfcomics.com/111/

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

And we're sadly looking back on him as 'enlightened'.

You do? ROFLMAO :D

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

The Voyager probes have 3 dual-redundant computer systems in each probe. Shield your phone from EM and give it a steady power supply, and lets assume you use ECC RAM, I imagine you could make it 35 years. Redundancy doesn't necessitate crap hardware.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[indytx]

Maybe the public at large is more concerned about which husband/wife the latest Kardashian is on, but the age of the geeks is accelerating far faster than any it ever has, and it will continue to do so as long as there is the tiniest of means.

I think most people are tired of Hollywood stars, reality TV, and people famous for being famous. Mass market media is now a race to the bottom to keep the dwindling ignorant interested, and it was never very good at keeping the public informed about science and technology, and my guess would be that it's always been easier to have an "informed" interview with a Kardashian versus and informed interview of a scientist or engineer.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe less than that. We could orient the next probe so the nuclear pack radiates heat behind it so it does not slow down but speeds up. And we have ion drives that could push it a bit faster.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[serviscope_minor]

The only reason Voyager is the only probe so far out is because it takes forty years to get there.

That and it was very lucky with the planetary alignments to get a huge number of gravitational assists.

Though, by the sounds of it these days we could send out a faster probe by using modern ion engines and the smaller gravity assists available. It would still take quite a while to pass Voyager, though.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[sFurbo]

I'm not sure, the planet alignment needed propel Voyager to 17 km/s was pretty unique to the 70's. For comparison, New Horizons will have a final speed of around 13 km/s.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Thorodin]

Not surprising considering his legacy. Of course, Harry Truman wasn't a very popular guy in the Dem party for a while after he left office.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[dkleinsc]

Who looks back on Bush as enlightened?

Mitt Romney?

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see that as a movie!

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it will be working, but he'll definitely have troubles getting spare batteries and a replacement charger...

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[stiggle]

Instead, they cancelled things like JIMO and a load of other robotic missions which were being developed.
ESA (the Europeans) picked up the pieces on some of the join missions and continued alone without NASA - but a load of serious good tech got canned because of Bush's change in direction for NASA. Then Obama came along and cancelled Constellation.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[cusco]

Shrub tried to repeat his daddy's 'Mars Mission' publicity stunt, and with even less success. He attempted to cut NASA's funding every single year he was in office, and foisted a Pentagon bean counter on them as a 'leader'. Just like Bush The Elected, Shrub also refused to fund his glorious Mars mission. Commanded to do something extraordinarily expensive with no new moneys what choice did NASA have?

I don't like either of the two parties, but when it comes to science and exploration the Republicans are definitely the worse of the two.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

The Oort cloud has a radius of 3.17 light years. This probe isn't even 1 light day away and has been traveling for 35 years. Voyager 1 is moving at 35,791 mph. We need 41,411,976 mph (6.1% c) to get past the Oort cloud in 35 years. At that speed, Alpha Centauri would be reachable in 48.2 years.

The interesting part is that the Oort cloud is mainly comprised of comets that could be used as a fuel supply. If the Centauri system has the same cloud, there would be fuel for the entire journey.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[volxdragon]

Shrub tried to repeat his daddy's 'Mars Mission' publicity stunt, and with even less success.

OMG - that's the first time I've seen "Shrub" used in that context and I just lost my morning tea all over the desk because of you...well played, oh to have mod points today...

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[dargaud]

It's already in The Crystal Spheres a short story by Brin where a starbound asteroid breaks the solar 'barrier'; and a very good but bittersweet comic book "L'autre Monde" by Rodolphe-Magnin which I believe also has an english edition.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[kelemvor4]

Personally, I think you reinforced AC's point. All that progress and we haven't used any of it for any bigger projects than voyager.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[kelemvor4]

Who looks back on Bush as enlightened? They didn't even invite him to the Republican national convention.

I was thinking the same thing. I work with lots of republicans and even those people don't have anything good to say about g dubya.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[kryliss]

With the way things are built these days. If Voyager I was launched today, it would last about 2 years and just days after the warranty ran out.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[X0563511]

People need to stop mentioning their name. It only feeds them.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[cayenne8]

I was thinking the same thing. I work with lots of republicans and even those people don't have anything good to say about g dubya.

I think in years, the Dems will think about the same thing with Obama...he's really no better than GW it seems...sure does support the same policies, but with an accelerated spending twist to it all.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

The same noobies behind that Mars lander?

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

You do realize the deficit is going DOWN under Obama right? Funny how 'stimulus' creates revenue and all that.

As for policies, Obama has sadly continued many of Bush's ridiculous policies, but let's consider what else he's done:

Near universal health care coverage is somehow bad?
Ending of Don't Ask Don't Tell?
Bin Laden is dead
Wall Street Reform
Iraq war ended
Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for women's equality
Saved Auto industry
Increased auto fuel economy standards
Reformed student loans saving 10s of millions of dollars a year
New START treaty
the list goes on...

All while facing lockstep opposition by the GOP to many of the THEIR OWN IDEAS; simply because they didn't want Obama and the Dem's to get any credit for fixing the problems caused by Bush and the GOP Congress of the early 2000s.

Google the 'Do Nothing Congress' as coined by Truman. They passed 800 bills. This current Congress passed 200... And yet Obama *still* got lots of things done.

Opposition is one thing, the wholesale obstruction of anything by the GOP is a tragedy we won't know the full effect of for a while.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[interkin3tic]

Yes, but "will still be working in 35 years" isn't the gold standard for what is "dreaming big." So I don't know what your point is.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

Of course they don't say anything good about him 'now'. It's not politically popular. The key point is what did they say back when he was in office?

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[interkin3tic]

What are you counting as "bigger projects"? I'd say the internet being created and the genome being sequenced are big ideas, possibly bigger than Voyager. If "bigger projects" is only defined by "how far can we shoot an object out from earth" then yes, our project bigness has stagnated, but I don't think that's a good standard.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[mcgrew]

I suspect the computer in your pocket won't still be working in 35 years.

There's no reason why it shouldn't, barring accidents. I bought a 12 inch Panasonic TV in 1968 and it still worked when I got rid of it in 2004. Switches wear out and contacts get oxydized (but not in space), but barring heat or an electrical overload there's no reason whatever for a piece of electronic equipment to "wear out". Only things with moving parts wear out.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[X0563511]

I wish there was a "for NASA" field you could fill out on your tax return, to send some extra money their way voluntarily.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[X0563511]

That's an understatement.

First it has to match up to it's current velocity... and then it has to overtake the 40-year lead.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

Spend an extra billion or so on chemical rockets for the start of the flight, and a further billion on an array of ion drives powered by a few RTGs. It would cost a lot, but it would be fast.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[X0563511]

Hmm, it seems the universe has a constant random seed...

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[g1zmo]

Just for further info, it's a moniker coined by the late Molly Ivins.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[jnork]

Who?

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Hatta]

There's no reason why it shouldn't, barring accidents

Zinc and/or tin whiskers. Leaky electrolytic capacitors. Lead-free solder.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[phantomfive]

You do realize the deficit is going DOWN under Obama right?

Oh please, stop repeating this stupid talking point. If Obama had stayed with the budget left to him by Bush, the budget deficit would have been ~$800billion smaller than it is now. And I don't even like Bush.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

Talking point? How about documented fact

And that's the WSJ, not exactly a 'liberal' publication...

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

If Obama had stayed with the Bush budget we'd be in a full blown depression right now. Google 'Bikini Graph' to see what Bush left Obama. We were losing 700,000+ jobs A MONTH at the end of Bush's term. In short order we had stopped that loss and started growing again, albeit slowly.

Borrowing money right now is as cheap as it ever has been. The 'cost' of deficit spending right now is literally trivial. Whereas reducing spending actually shrinks the economy. That million dollar contract that gets cancelled is literally a million dollars out of the economy. Not to mention the follow on effects as it spreads through the market. And it costs a few percentage points of that million dollars per year. Is it a long term solution? Of course not, but short term, you 'invest' in the economy and it will bounce back as there is now more 'demand' available.

IT's how Stimulus works. And for another example of Stimulus, look again at that Bikini Graph, notice a slight drop in the jobs under Obama? Guess when the stimulus money ended...

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an Atari ST made in 1987 that's still working. I know several C64 enthusiasts with machines from the early 80s still working.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[cayenne8]

You do realize the deficit is going DOWN under Obama right? Funny how 'stimulus' creates revenue and all that.

Nope, I don't see that at all...Obama keeps trying to increase spending, he's driving the deficit up higher than most previous presidents put together, in only 4 years.

Near universal health care coverage is somehow bad?

Not they way they did it...and the amount of new taxes involved in all of this, is going to start really hit the middle class in the next year or so...and this isn't even near "universal" coverage...there are still a ton of folks out there that will still be un-covered. If they want to cut costs, start with medicare/medicade and let them negotiate with the pharm. industry for rates on drugs like the VA does, that would cut a ton of money there alone. I don't need the feds messing in my life, and what is more personal that my medical coverage and tx? I think we're gonna see more and more bad that comes out of Obama care. It could have and should have been done MUCH differently.

Ending of Don't Ask Don't Tell?

Didn't care before, don't care now...don't see how this is really a positive for the military, and from those I know in it..they don't seem it as a net positive.

Bin Laden is dead

Good job...but any president would have given the "go ahead"...and this hunt was started long before Obama got into office. Not really that big a trophy for him IMHO. Glad he did it..good job, but not the biggest trophy, he certainly had little personally to do with it overall.

Wall Street Reform

Needed, but I'm not fully sure what good and bad was done here. Oversight needed, sure, but don't need to shackle with restraints that don't actually address the problems that caused the meltdown.

Iraq war ended

I'll be believe that when all our troops are out of there..I think it is ended in 'name only' at this point.

Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for women's equality

Not familiar with this, will have to look it up, but didn't we already have equality for women laws on the books? What else is another doing to do that wasn't there before? Discrimination hasn't been legal for a long time already...

Saved Auto industry

Sure...gave it a bailout and mostly gave control to the Unions, which were largely responsible for the bad shape the industry was in to begin with, AND bypassed laws that should have paid off people that were owed the debts first...there was a huge snafu on who got paid in what order and who got left out. I would have been better to let them go through controlled bankruptcy, and shed all the old contracts and start afresh. The auto industry is slowing movinig, but still shackled with unreasonable contracts with labor unions. Obama's bailout of the industry was nothing but a huge GIMME to the unions. It also represented a very uncomfortable intrusion of the Federal Govt into private business....bad precedent.

Increased auto fuel economy standards

I suppose a good thing...not a huge issue for me personally.

Reformed student loans saving 10s of millions of dollars a year

Perhaps a good start. I think a total revamp of this issues is needed...we need to break the vicious cycle of Universities raising prices higher in persuit of 'free' money coming from the govt. If we cut this a bit, prices might come down. I don't know how to address this one really, but I think this is a direction of thinking that needs to be examined, and I don't see that happening any time soon in congress or with the executive branch. Everyone has a right to try to get in college, but I don't think they have a right for me to pay for it...perhaps rather than loans,

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[phantomfive]

Apparently you can't read graphs. It takes a special kind of partisan blindness to look at a graph and then say the exact opposite.

It's like saying that if I kicked you in the balls 10 times, and now I'm only punching you in the arm, I'm being nicer now.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Osiris Ani]

Who looks back on Bush as enlightened?

Score another one for The Onion .

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Widowwolf]

Spirit and Opportunity would like to have a word with you. Well surpassed everything

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

Ah, you're complaining that deficits are simply 'higher' under Obama? Funny how he was handed that higher deficit by Bush.

Under Obama deficits have been 1.4, 1.297, 1.3, 1.1 trillion.

It takes a special kind of stupid to not see that trend.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

And just so we're clear, I never said the deficits were 'lower' under Obama, I said they were 'going down' with the unstated portion of 'since he's been president', since well, he didn't have much control over what Bush did.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

The Oort cloud has a radius of 3.17 light years.

That seems like a lot of digits for a value that is rather uncertain at this point, probably converted from 200,000 AU. The bulk of the Oort cloud is thought to be within 20,000 AU (0.3 light years) with a thinner cloud extending out to about twice that, and maybe further as it things out. Once you get much beyond a light year though, they would be so weakly bound to the Sun, it is difficult to call that as part of the solar system, when it could be more like just trailing junk along for the ride until another star wanders in the vicinity.

The interesting part is that the Oort cloud is mainly comprised of comets that could be used as a fuel supply

This requires either capturing the comet at speed, or stopping to get the comet. The latter case would use far more fuel and energy when you could have just kept on going in the first place, using that fuel you would have used to stop to go a little faster.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

Bin Laden is dead Good job...but any president would have given the "go ahead"...and this hunt was started long before Obama got into office. Not really that big a trophy for him IMHO. Glad he did it..good job, but not the biggest trophy, he certainly had little personally to do with it overall.

Coming from Bush "I don't really think about Bin Laden much", that's a little hard to say with a straight face.

Not they way they did it...and the amount of new taxes involved in all of this, is going to start really hit the middle class in the next year or so

As opposed to flat out bankruptcies that were hitting more and more families as the cost of healthcare soared? Ask someone without healthcare which they'd rather have, lower taxes, or healthcare. You might be surprised if you step out of the bubble of FOX. And small businesses will LOVE this. Why? Because now they can offer plans competitive with big business that they couldn't before, thus attracting more skilled employees. Which since small business is the main job creator is a good thing isn't it?

Remember how they said this would be a 'job killer'? Pure FUD. The lower 'jobs' are because people would be able to retire earlier due to better healthcare options. And, hey, that's now an open job, so wouldn't that actually be 'creating' jobs since there's one open now that wouldn't be open for years?

Being denied coverage over pre-existing conditions. Again ask someone who had that problem, believe me, they'll take slightly higher taxes to get coverage.

Just like Romney who was totally against HCR, but then said, well I'll keep some of it, by which he meant most of it, nothing is free, but sometimes initial investments pay off through lower health care costs down the road.

Ending of Don't Ask Don't Tell? Didn't care before, don't care now...don't see how this is really a positive for the military, and from those I know in it..they don't seem it as a net positive.

Funny how below you mention how discrimination hasn't been legal for a long time...except this example that you "don't care" about. Says volumes. They said it would ruin our military; it flatly hasn't. And since dozens of other countries allow it and haven't had any issues, it speaks to the true motivations of those decrying it...or if not that then their ability to understand the military. Neither paints them in a good light.

Wall Street Reform Needed, but I'm not fully sure what good and bad was done here. Oversight needed, sure, but don't need to shackle with restraints that don't actually address the problems that caused the meltdown.

And just who was obstructing this reform hmm? Oh yes, the GOP. Was it perfect? No, doesn't go far enough. But you can't deny it was needed and was accomplished.

Iraq war ended I'll be believe that when all our troops are out of there..I think it is ended in 'name only' at this point.

Aljazeera seems to think we're out. That liberal US loving outfit that they are.

Saved Auto industry Sure...gave it a bailout and mostly gave control to the Unions, which were largely responsible for the bad shape the industry was in to begin with, AND bypassed laws that should have paid off people that were owed the debts first...there was a huge snafu on who got paid in what order and who got left out. I would have been better to let them go through controlled bankruptcy, and shed all the old contracts and start afresh. The auto industry is slowing movinig, but still shackled with unreasonable contracts with labor unions. Obama's bailout of the industry was nothing but a huge GIMME to the unions. It also represented a very uncomfortable intrusion of the Federal Govt into private business....bad precedent.

Pure FU

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think most people are tired of Hollywood stars, reality TV, and people famous for being famous.

If that were the case, then we'd no longer have Hollywood stars, reality TV, and people famous for being famous.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

Missed the deficit part. No he's not driving it higher. It has come down every year he's been in office. It STARTED high when he took office, but that's on Bush since Obama has no control over where he starts.

He's advocating spending because that's what you do in a recession. It's how you get out of a recession. When both the private sector and consumers are pulling back, what do you do? Just wait for it to correct itself? That will take a long time and be quite painful as revenues continue to fall.

Stimulus has the government step in and temporarily spend money, ideally that it needs to spend anyway, to provide demand for goods and services until the private sector and consumers catch back up.

And since we have literally trillions of dollars of infrastructure spending that we literally have to do anyway, do it now. Interest rates on debt are at historic lows, so borrowing is cheap. The returns on a functioning highway system are far and away more than the minor interest rate costs on that debt.

Or you could let infrastructure continue to deteriorate, further dampening economic output as roads aren't repaired as often and many other things aren't done that need to be done. Big cities traffic problems? Sorry, sit in traffic and waste time and money because we can't spend anything until you start making more money.

It's called Keynesian economics. You might want to look it up. It works, it's proven. Tax cuts for the wealthy is proven to NOT work. So lower taxes aren't the answer. If they were, we'd be doing great right now, because Obama has LOWERED taxes across the board from when he took office.

Some of that at the goading of the GOP to be sure, but when Obama suggested a payroll tax holiday the GOP was against it. Funny how they'll hold the country hostage to get millionaires a tax cut, but when Obama says give the little guy a significant cut, they oppose it.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Daniel Dvorkin]

If Obama had stayed with the budget left to him by Bush, the budget deficit would have been ~$800billion smaller than it is now.

Or the economy would have continued its Bush-era death spiral, and revenues would have dropped to damn near zero. We'd might well have a smaller deficit in that case, sure--if the US had completely fallen apart, at which point "the United States government deficit" would be as relevant a concept as "the Confederate States government deficit" was in the late 1860s. If we'd managed to survive as a nation, you can be damn sure that we'd be in a lot worse financial shape than we are now.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Richy_T]

The nuclear bunker worked well then?

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[c 0xFF]

You missed a big one. Cosmic rays.

Space-bound hardware needs special protection from radiation (no atmosphere to do that job for you). Without it, random bits of memory will get flipped. Sometimes permanently. Modern hardware is especially susceptible to this problem.

In fact, this exact thing happened to Voyager 2 somewhat recently, and it started talking gibberish to controllers here on Earth. Someone figured out what magical bit was flipped and how to translate back. In that case, I don't think the damage was permanent.

The computer in your pocket is unlikely to survive even a few months in space.

That's not to say that we can't put some incredible processing power into space, it's just that radiation-hardened hardware lacks behind the latest technology.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[nedlohs]

Why not just mail them a check? You'll only do it if the amount of work is exactly writing a number on your tax return?

They are one of the government agencies authorized by congress (42 U.S.C. 2473(c)(4)) to accept unconditional donations, but they aren't allowed to ask for them. So mail them a check, and they'll handle it per http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPD&c=1210&s=1G

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Richy_T]

Maybe search out some private space research companies and buy some shares. I understand there's some quite exciting things going on in the field right now.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Richy_T]

Turbo boost.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure we do. Our local energies are more focused here on mother terra.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[X0563511]

Not a bad idea...

Might end up doing that. Claim that self-dependency I never do, and mail them what I get back on my return.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Flipstylee]

I Agree, also, the thing did weigh upwards of a ton, i know we can build smaller and lighter than in the 70's.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Flipstylee]

Question: How in the hell do you capture something at 41,411,976 mph?

As i'm to understand it, even if the Oort Cloud is incredibly dense by our estimates,
there's still going to be a slim chance of interacting with anything sizeable to mine, let alone just happen to match our velocity.
Dreaming big though.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[phantomfive]

What do you think Bush would have done that would be so different than what Obama did? Seriously.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[phantomfive]

I'll assume you are sincere about this.

Under Bush, the largest deficit was ~$500billion. Bush's last year, there was a one-time ~$700billion charge for TARP. Obama didn't inherit that in his budget. Obama's first year, he authorized a ~$700billion stimulus payment. The following year, that spending level became permanent.

On the net, the deficit drastically increased under Obama, even if it has come down somewhat since its astronomical high.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[phantomfive]

lol hilarious

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Magius_AR]

Talking point? How about documented fact

Your own chart misses the point. The OP spoke of "spending", not of the "deficit" -- the chart refers to deficit relative to GDP. It also stands in stark contradiction to most Democrat talking points:

- With the exception of the housing collapse, the deficit shrank for the majority of Bush's 2 terms (2001-2009)
- The two major factors Dem chalk up to being responsible for the deficit are the Iraq War, beginning in 2003, and the Bush Tax cuts (in 2001) -- yet if we once again look at the chart, the chart following each of these activities is one of declining deficit (prior to the housing collapse)

You can't have your cake and eat it too on this chart -- namely, you can't accuse Bush of being a big spender when the chart says otherwise -OR- or can't claim Obama isn't a big spender just because the chart points upwards. Either they both were big spenders, neither were big spenders, or this chart is irrelevant to "spending". Personally, I believe it's irrelevant to spending, because the state of the economy isn't something the president can simply dictate. Sometimes you're benefiting from a dotcom boom -- sometimes you're suffering from a housing collapse. "Spending", on the other hand, you can talk about in a vacuum. And Bush and Obama BOTH are _huge_ spenders relative to previous presidents.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Magius_AR]

Google 'Bikini Graph' to see what Bush left Obama. We were losing 700,000+ jobs A MONTH at the end of Bush's term. In short order we had stopped that loss and started growing again, albeit slowly.

*sigh* Please stop pretending the economy moves solely at the discretion of the president. You look intellectually dishonest at best, and like an outright ass at worst. Obama was exceedingly lucky to inherit a situation that could only improve (the US was practically at rock bottom when he took over -- ANY president in that situation could "show improvement" over a 4 year period -- if you don't think this is true, just look at the average length of time any recession has lasted, as well as the recovery that followed -- what happened here wasn't magic, it was normal market ebb and flow). And if you wanna talk straight numbers on the recovery, this is the slowest and most anemic recovery we've had from a recession since the Great Depression. So as a yardstick on whether the "stimulus" worked, I'd say it's not looking rosy.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Magius_AR]

Funny how they'll hold the country hostage to get millionaires a tax cut, but when Obama says give the little guy a significant cut, they oppose it.

Also funny how Obama will hold the country hostage to stick it to the rich, yet when it comes to the payroll tax cut (additional spending that passed on HIS watch), he's intransigent. You're nuts if you think Republicans are the only ideologs unwilling to budge.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[toddestan]

There's a bit of a difference between finding some old piece of kit that still works, and having that same piece of hardware running continuously, with no interruptions and errors, for that same period of time. There's no way, for example, that the C64's power supply would last that long.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Patch86]

You mean aside from:
The 2006 probe on its way to Pluto, which will leave the Solar System right behind Voyager 1.
The most sophisticated deep space telescope ever conceived.
The car sized vehicle trundling around on Mars that was delivered by a rocket powered crane.
The Mercury orbiter (Mercury being the most difficult planet to reach in the Solar System, FYI) which has discovered billions of tonnes of water.
The space station as big as St Paul's Cathedral.
The 24km supercollider working with the primal forces that constituted the Big Bang.

For an enthusiast of scientific discovery, this is a fantastic time to be alive.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[mcgrew]

I doubt you'll be taking your cell phone to Mars with you.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[mcgrew]

I don't know what they solder phones with, but silver solder doesn't have the problem with tin whiskers and would guess that that's what they use. Also, I doubt any of the capacitors are electrolytic; electrolytic caps are pretty big.

I've read a lot about tin whickers, but after playing with the insides of electronics for half a century I've never seen the phenomenon firsthand, although I have seen capacitors explode/leak. I

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[cayenne8]

I think if the Dems wanted to go after the "rich"..they'd raise their target to those near the $1M mark...bare minimum $500K-$750K.

$250K is not rich...that's hitting squarely in the area of successful small businesses, usually a S corp of the like, where the income falls through on the owners personal taxes....to get the lower rate for the small business.

If they exempt income from the business ...then, ok, I'm cool with that tax raise..I know we need a little, but what the Dems are insisting on, is hitting WAY below the belt when they're really targeting the super rich, no?

And the Dems don't really seem to be willing to negotiate serious federal spending cuts on programs...give and take requires BOTH sides to work...

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

this is the slowest and most anemic recovery we've had from a recession since the Great Depression

And since this is quite clearly the worst recession we've had since the great depression, perhaps that follows?

Bush presided over the Slowest and Most Anemic job growth of any 2 term president since Eisenhower.

If you look at job creation and when the stimulus ended, there's a clear drop in job creation showing that stimulus was working.

Bush had a surplus and a reasonably strong economy given to him and he turned it into massive deficits and the greatest recession since the Depression.

Obama is slowly working us out of that, though without literally *any* help from the GOP.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[Magius_AR]

If you look at job creation and when the stimulus ended, there's a clear drop in job creation showing that stimulus was working.

Correlation does not prove causation. Any number of things could produce a drop in job creation. The first two that come to mind that happened around the same period were the enactment of Obamacare as well as the debt ceiling debacle. Both have major negative influences over business, by scare factor alone (we're seeing it again with the fiscal cliff).

Bush had a surplus and a reasonably strong economy given to him and he turned it into massive deficits and the greatest recession since the Depression.

Intellectually dishonest. Or you're just nuts. Presidents don't cause recessions. Foolish banks and over-leveraged property owners do.

Obama is slowly working us out of that, though without literally *any* help from the GOP.

He doesn't WANT any help from Republicans. Once again, like his first term, that stubborn jackass thinks he has some kind of "mandate" from the populace to ignore all Republican input/suggestions. Moderate Olympia Snowe couldn't deal with him. Neither could Boehner: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/obama-vs-boehner-who-killed-the-debt-deal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[LordLimecat]

It also cost a small fraction of the cost of the Voyager's computers, sooooo....

I mean, for some folks (NASA) it may make sense to spend ~1,000,000 x as much for parts that last 50 years, but for most people spending a fraction of a percent of the cost for 10% of the life span is a net win.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

There was this thing called the RECESSION that has a tendency to reduce revenues collected by the government... Hence Obama was handed a larger deficit.

There was significantly less revenue coming in due the cratering economy and yet we still had the same bills to pay. You can claim Obama is spending like crazy, but he's also doing it while reducing the deficit.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[pixelpusher220]

the US was practically at rock bottom when he took over

Well thanks to Obama's policies it was, but there was no guarantee it wasn't getting much much worse. Given the trends, it wasn't looking good.

ANY president in that situation could "show improvement" over a 4 year period

Apparently not Bush. He was handed a functioning, growing economy in surplus and turned it into the worst recession and deficits in history. Hopefully you're not that old. Believe me when history will judge Bush as a fucking moron and Obama as a pretty decent president, if not one of the very good ones.

Nobody else faced the opposition he has faced. Literally the GOP met in Jan 2009 and decided to simply block *anything* he did. They've admitted that. Nobody has faced that. As much as liberals hated Bush, they didn't shut the government down to oppose him - or lower our credit rating - or risk the world economy holding it hostage for tax cuts for the rich...

Obama's done pretty well and frankly would have done better had he not caved on so many issues by starting in the middle and then negotiating to 75% of what the GOP wanted. He extended the hand of cooperation but we know now the GOP specifically wasn't going to let him get anything significant done. And yet he still did...

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[phantomfive]

You partisan types are all the same: when faced with facts, you shift the argument.

If Obama had kept Bush's budget instead of increasing spending, the deficits would be a lot smaller than they are today.

Vger?

[Anonymous Coward]

And let me guess, the next thing Voyager will find once outside the solar system will be hot, bald, female aliens?

Which begs the question...

[Anonymous Coward]

What does interstellar space taste like?

Re:Which begs the question...

[ipquickly]

What does interstellar space taste like?

Bubbly, as the water boils of your tongue.

Re:Which begs the question...

[Ukab the Great]

Tasty Wheat.

Re:Which begs the question...

[Pugzly]

What does interstellar space taste like?

Isn't it obvious? Chicken!

Re:Which begs the question...

[biek]

Raspberries http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/21/space-raspberries-amino-acids-astrobiology

Re:Which begs the question...

[X0563511]

+1 if I hadn't already posted.

Where is this from, anyway? I remember the conversation but can't place it.

Re:Which begs the question...

[X0563511]

Aahhh I just got it! It was Cipher, in The Matrix.

Re:Which begs the question...

[TemporalBeing]

What does interstellar space taste like?

Isn't it obvious? Chicken!

Exactly! Everything tastes like Chicken

When does it become V-GER?

[p51d007]

I was 17 when this thing launched...remember it well, all the hoop-de-doo about that gold disk. Either the Klingons will get it, or maybe the Borg?

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[ipquickly]

I was 17 when this thing launched...remember it well, all the hoop-de-doo about that gold disk.
Either the Klingons will get it, or maybe the Borg?

Cmon, it's GOLD. The Ferengi will get it before anyone else even notices.

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[bigstrat2003]

No Ferengi would bother with it. They don't care about gold, merely the latinum that gold can act as an enclosure for.

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to recall the Klingons destroying this thing in #5, though I don't recall if it showed the designation, I just assume it was Voyager 1. V-GER was Voyager 6, which doesn't exist and hasn't been launched (yet.)

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Klaa blew up one of the Pioneer probes. According to the script notes it was Pioneer 10. Of course, how that flew into Klingon space to begin with is beyond me, given how far they are supposed to be from us.

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[I_am_Jack]

Which apparently, in your case, is a future without humor.

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[ipquickly]

AND the above is WHY we don't dream big anymore.

One of the greatest achievements of technology to talk about and all we can do is compare it to a tv show and outdated movie from almost decade ago. And this will happen every time we bring it up.

We deserve the future we get.

You're kidding, right?

Here from Wikipedia:

Cultural influence of Star Trek

"Many scientists and engineers claim that their professional and life choices were influenced by Star Trek. The inventor of the first non-vehicular cell phone, Martin Cooper, states he was motivated to develop it from watching Star Trek."

or from The Guardian:

Star Trek technology: how 21st century scientists are making it so

"Many have been inspired by Star Trek to become scientists, and some are starting to make its gadgetry a reality"

I'm certain Star Trek was one of the top reasons many of the engineers at NASA became interested in engineering in the first place.

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the Ion Thruster. Laughed at by many when it was featured on the show, then some scientists said "hey wait a minute, that might actually work." And holy shit, it works pretty well, even though it's certainly not as flashy as the ones in the show.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_1

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[dadelbunts]

and warp drives

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try!

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[robthebloke]

The GP isn't wrong.....

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[The Grim Reefer]

and warp drives

Who give a shit about warp drives. I want "main deflector" tech. You can reroute just about anything into that, reverse the polarity and make something cool happen. I'm pretty sure there was an episode where they rerouted a lemonade stand through the main deflector and got the ship past warp 23.

Re:When does it become V-GER?

[painandgreed]

I'm certain Star Trek was one of the top reasons many of the engineers at NASA became interested in engineering in the first place.

Not to mention the social effects of the show also. Nichelle Nichols as a female, black officer was so ground breaking that Martin Luther King Jr. called her to ask her to stay in her role when she was thinking about leaving after the first season so she could be a role model. Her role is credited with inspiring many women including Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut.

Littering

[ipquickly]

We have enough trouble littering and leaving our useless garbage behind here on Earth. Now we are also littering in inter-stellar space.
Do you know how freaking big the ticket for this will be?

Re:Littering

[Scutter]

Voyager is moving at 10.5 miles per second. They gotta catch it first.

Re:Littering

[rubycodez]

that is a nonsensical point of view, the universe is mostly filled with litter. Metal asteroids and hydrocarbons and dirty ice balls, the amount of cubic miles of that in our own solar system alone is beyond human comprehension, Man's pollution on a cosmic scale is essentially zero, the universe is already pre-polluted

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

10.5miles per second is weak... We should have a real 'space race' where were can see who can build the fastest man made object. The speed at 5year increments would be used to guage winners at each interval. We could probably easily surpass 10.5miles per second -- use chem rockets and head directly toward the sun, gravity assist around and head back out to the planets fueled by ion engines and gravity assist some more around -- would be pretty neat to track and see. We probably be able to catch up and surpass Voyager in the remainder of my lifetime too if you're smart about the course.

Re:Littering

[mark-t]

I'd expect that to be a trivial accomplishment if they are advanced enough to accomplish interstellar travel.

Re:Littering

[martinX]

And then I got a call from officer Obie-Wan. He said, "Kid, we found your name on a space probe at the bottom of a half a gigaton of
garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie-Wan, I cannot tell a lie, I put that space probe
under that garbage."

Re:Littering

[bmo]

> Now we are also littering in inter-stellar space.
>Do you know how freaking big the ticket for this will be?

Arlo Guthrie might even make a song about it.

--
BMO

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? We're about to accomplish interstellar travel, and I'd bet my pants that we couldn't catch an object moving that fast without breaking it.

Re:Littering

[Gilmoure]

*golf clap*

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing work, R-Lo D2.

Re:Littering

[mark-t]

no... we're about to accomplish extra-solar travel. Interstellar travel would actually entail reaching another star.

Re:Littering

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Forget about littering. What if it hits and damages something important to someone? Like kids hurling a sports ball through the neighbor's window?

An enraged alien will show up on Earth, with the Voyager in its hands, and interrogate us with, "Is this your probe that went through my living room window . . . ?"

Then we'll be in for some bad shit.

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

Nitpick, nitpick!

Wouldn't it be "extra-stellar" travel? The Sun (aka Sol) being a star and all...but then extrastellar travel might mean moving out of a star.

hmmm, now, if we think about airplanes, at what point does a flight become international? is it right that that point when it crosses the border? luckily the borders between countries are much much much more narrow than those between solar systems, or galaxies, or ....you get the point, maybe. In fact this "border in space" is so f'ing vast that every few months some article will pop up on /. to highlight that Voyager 1 is right at that point...again. Granted, the amount of radiation received from the sun, which is how I understand they measure being in this "border", has dropped significantly to the point that the probe is somewhere between "almost there" and "right there" and "just past it" ....I forgot where I was going with this. San Dimas High School football rules!!!

Re:Littering

[dkleinsc]

BMO, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W ...

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

We have this awesome newflangled organ called "brain", that allows us to *predict* what will happen. And it tells us that there is no way it *won't* reach another star some day. Hence we can already call it "interstellar" before it happened.

You should get one of those normal human "brains". Not whatever they gave you.

Re:Littering

[Mr Z]

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Asteroid
You can get anything you want,
At Alice's As-ter-oid
Float right in, orbit's round the back
Half an AU from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Asteroid.

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like an X-Prize waiting to happen.

Re:Littering

[The Grim Reefer]

We have enough trouble littering and leaving our useless garbage behind here on Earth. Now we are also littering in inter-stellar space. Do you know how freaking big the ticket for this will be?

I wish someone would leave deep space probes containing gold records and components in my yard.

Re:Littering

[Cimexus]

Well, maybe not ~directly~ at the sun :)

Re:Littering

[mark-t]

Fair enough... I am suggesting, however, that for somebody that has *already* accomplished interstellar travel, and actually reached our solar system from another one, would probably have no difficultly keeping up to something moving at 10.5 miles per second.

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

Still not faster than radio

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually limited funding for space probes is used to examine high priority targets, a few testing new technology on the small scale or along the way. It would seem to be a waste to just make something fast without sending it to do something. And then you have the problem that if it is too fast and can't slow down, it will have less time to image and measure the target. The heliopause alone might not be high enough priority to dump all of the effort into something that just leaves quickly, and we would still have a ways to go before making a practical probe that could reach another star. Otherwise, we could have built much faster probes years ago with current tech.

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

Take parent to the iron maiden!

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

Arlo Guthrie

Re:Littering

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to travel through interstellar space, you would have to have shielding that would stand up against bigger impacts than running into the probe, or at least have some way of dodging them. Otherwise, the first grain of sand that you hit at relativistic velocities would turn you into a smear of particles over a couple of hundred light years.

It's sad....

[Rick Zeman]

...stories like this just emphasize the major suckitude of the current US space policy in that our current glory is tech from 30 years in the past. What'll we be talking about 30 years in the future?

Re:It's sad....

[Bill Currie]

Angry Birds and Minecraft, I imagine. :/

Re:It's sad....

[viperidaenz]

Probably how Voyager is in the void of interstellar space and will be thousands of years before it reaches another solar system.

Re:It's sad....

[cmorriss]

How about the probes we have zipping around all over the solar system? Messenger is collecting tons of information about Mercury. Of course, our information on Mars is growing by leaps and bounds by the month and we have a probe on its way to Pluto due to arrive in a few years.

All done by NASA. The U.S. space program has continued to do great science since Voyager was launched and will continue into the future. Name another country that's even close.

Re:It's sad....

[Chuck Chunder]

Angry Birds seem to sponsor all sorts of things, why not space exploration?

An Angry Bird shaped vessel hurtling out of the solar system would be awesome though I guess we'd have to hope that aliens aren't green and porcine lest they get the wrong idea.

Re:It's sad....

[OhANameWhatName]

What'll we be talking about 30 years in the future?

The glories of the tech from 60 years in the past

Re:It's sad....

[mister2au]

Now I am stuck with the image in my mind of a giant slingshot strung from Earth to the Moon !!

Re:It's sad....

[hcs_$reboot]

All done by NASA

To be fair, ESA (European S.A.) has also a few probes here and there, like Mars / Venus Express. But to be fair, NASA has always been very passionated about what they do and are very keen to share what they found. There are amazing apps about the various probes, where they are, their status, pictures they took etc... invaluable stuff for someone interested in astronomy/physics/more-than-the-ordinary.

Re:It's sad....

[CastrTroy]

I don't think they were green, but the Pequeninos were definitely porcine.

Re:It's sad....

[Quince alPillan]

The way Minecraft and the assorted mods are going, in 30 years we'll be building a space ship in Minecraft and then sending it to the fabrication plant to be built.

Space Frogger

[IonOtter]

BEEP-BEEEE*squish*EEEeeeeep!

The don't make 'em like they used to

[a_hanso]

35 years and still running (I had a 25 year old Toyota which did the same). What happened to us engineers? Where did we go wrong?

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

If the car lasts 25 years, YOU'RE NOT BUYING ANOTHER ONE. How can we make more money if nobody is buying a 2nd or a 63rd?

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[mosherkl]

Planned obsolescence. Why make something last when they can make you buy a new one?

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[pokoteng]

What happened to us engineers? Where did we go wrong?

We started listening to business requirements and started engineering for products that had x year lifespan which happens to be much shorter than older machines.

Given funding, we can probably make extraordinary machines now that can last for a millennia. We just don't because of cost and customer requirements to constantly upgrade to next new thing and dump the old with lesser features and looks.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. We got better at optimizing. If the design life is 5 years and kit lasts 9, you clearly overdeaigned it.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[shentino]

We got vetoed by marketing droids.

Remember that MS crapware is sold to PHBs who then force it on IT.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

How can your 25 year old Toyota run for 35 years?

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Trep]

Well...Voyager probably hasn't encountered any potholes...that's got to help.

It is impressive though.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[bill_mcgonigle]

What happened to us engineers?

"Professional Management"

Also, the VC's know that firing the founder is the best way to riches. See: Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Amazon, WalMart, etc.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

It runs on hyperbole.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[mirix]

"Value engineering". Ostensibly to reduce cost from not over-engineering things, and still run it's planned lifetime... which could be true, but often isn't. A lot of goods I see weren't engineered at all.

Well... I guess muntzing an old western design and mass-producing it is a kind of engineering, but not a good one...

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[circletimessquare]

It didn't make it past 15 years of operation

The Zwurg captured it, crushed it, and have been spoofing empty space readings back to us to hide the fact we are inside a giant experimental sphere.

Where voyager would be right now is actually solid lead.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[4wdloop]

Relativity?

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[readin]

I'm not sure whether this applies to spacecraft or not, but when it comes to old structures, particularly bridges, roads and buildings that are hundreds or thousands of years old, it might be that the engineers simply didn't know how to safely reduce costs while ensuring the item built didn't collapse in their lifetime. Put yourself in the place of an engineer who is figuring out how much stone you have to use and how long it will take to build. You really don't have any idea since there's no such thing as materials science yet. You do know that if you ask for too much time and labor your boss/king/pharoah/ceasar will be very annoyed, but if you ask for too little and the thing collapses on some people you'll end up paying with your life. So the tendency would be to engineer something that just won't fall down - ever.

And then theirs the natural selection thing - the ancient buildings and bridges we see today are the ones that lasted, not the ones that collapsed early.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really are an engineer you should know that engineers are just the executing part (workers). They get the design from designers and have no way to change that.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[the gnat]

35 years and still running (I had a 25 year old Toyota which did the same). What happened to us engineers? Where did we go wrong?

Spirit lasted six years on Mars; Opportunity is nine years and counting. That's a minimum of six years spent rolling around in the sand on a planet with nighttime temperatures well below freezing, without any maintenance. And NASA built two of them. Granted, that was ten years ago, but Curiosity is doing pretty well so far.

There's no reason why engineers, American, Japanese, or otherwise, can't build something that will last for decades under hellish conditions, if affordability is less important than durability. And they build stuff like this all the time - it's just that most consumer products (especially electronics) are relative crap, because there's no incentive for them to last forever. Who actually cares if your phone or DVD player breaks after a few years? There are also cases where it's stupid just on practical grounds to keep something around for 35 years - there certainly are computers that have lasted that long, but we usually discard computer equipment long before it stops working, simply because it's more efficient to replace it with something much faster that probably costs and weighs less too. An interplanetary probe is built to somewhat different specifications.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Osgeld]

yea its just running though deep space is all

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[icebraining]

A team is trying to make one to last ten millennia.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

A guy at a plant in NC I was working last year commented about my set of Allen (hex) keys which didnt have 'Made in China' printed on it but was of real good quality. Of course it probably cost twice as much but I got now 22 years service out of it. I got it as an apprentice as part of a small set of personal tools needed for my then profession (electrician). Nowadays its not in daily use anymore but just sits in my laptop case (along with a screwdriver and a small wire cutter) for the odd occasions I need em. It looks a bit worn but this is just the surface. The keys are in perfect condition. One was missing at some point in time and got replaced with another.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

So you had a 25 year old Toyota which was running 35 years?

If you really approach relativistic velocities, you have some serious speeding issues.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[XiaoMing]

35 years and still running (I had a 25 year old Toyota which did the same). What happened to us engineers? Where did we go wrong?

As much as I'd like to fogey things up and chalk it up to bean-counters and cost-cutting... Honestly, great technology is what happened (and keeps happening).

Building something to last is pointless when something twice as good/fast/efficient/what-have-you comes along sooner (and at the same or lower price) than the half-life that your product was designed for.

This obviously isn't the case for things like clothing or watches or automobiles (or industrial-grade anything), but the tau=1/e of consumer-grade technology is just too ridiculous sometimes for the "ol'-fashioned" way of doing things.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

Back then, the only way to make anything last a Pharoah/Emperors lifetime would be to use stone. The more regular shaped the bricks, slabs or stones, the less likely the structure is going to collapse. Cement would crumble away, bindings would disintegrate. The only dangers were flooding, earthquakes and invasions.

Mayans developed the use of slightly tetrahedral bricks, with a slight converging slope to the narrow sides and top/bottom. These would interlock together so that the structure would not fall apart in an earthquake.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

This. At one point, the fiery passion burning inside of us was fuelled by oil. But then that ran out.

Now it is fuelled by money... but now that is running out.

Planetary Resources best hurry up. A society promoted to limitless resources is the ultimate evolutionary step.
Whether we get to that point is up to the human race as a whole. Sadly it had to be private industry to save us.
Well, I say that, China as a country seem to be interested in mining space in the long run too. They love their resources.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[MrKaos]

It didn't make it past 15 years of operation

The Zwurg captured it, crushed it, and have been spoofing empty space readings back to us to hide the fact we are inside a giant experimental sphere.

Where voyager would be right now is actually solid lead.

Hmmmm, that's interesting. That would put the giant experimental sphere very close to Uranus.

Still, Voyager was able to take photos of Uranus for all of humanity to see. So if you are right, they probably started spoofing around Uranus then.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[MyLongNickName]

I hate to break up your self-loathing session, but cars are a hell of a lot better designed than they were 25 years ago. 25 years ago, a car typically lasted 100,000 miles and generally cost more to maintain that it cost to replace. Today, cars that go through basic maintenance can easily go 200,000 miles. Your 25 year old Toyota is an outlier.

And Voyager's lasting 35 years isn't that amazing relative to Spirit and Opportunity. Unlike those two rovers, Voyager has a relatively easy and unchanging environment. Once Voyager is going, it has a nuclear battery to power its systems, and is mostly just adrift in space. I believe it can do very minor course adjustment, but nothing like the rovers had to deal with. And Kepler is freaking amazing when you consider what tolerances it must be designed to. Engineers 35 years ago couldn't come close to designing the Kepler mission.

I am not sure why the self-loathing is so popular on Slashdot, but it couldn't be further from the truth.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Jason Levine]

we usually discard computer equipment long before it stops working, simply because it's more efficient to replace it with something much faster that probably costs and weighs less too.

We also sometimes discard items that could be replaced because replacing them is "less work." My laptop computer was recently experiencing power issues. (It wouldn't recognize that it was plugged in to charge.) My first instinct was "replace it and buy a new one." I fought off that instinct and actually (*gasp*) opened up my laptop. I identified the problem and fixed it. When it reoccurred due to something else (bad power cord), I bought a new one. When the battery was dying, I bought a new one. Yes, I spent money on those last 2 items and, yes, opening a laptop isn't a skill everyone has, but too many people respond to "X has a problem" with "throw X away and but a new X" instead of "how can I fix X?".

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[circletimessquare]

badum ching

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, you're not dealing with any real jobs with those Allen keys. I routinely face fasteners with small Allen sockets where there's no material that we know of that would make an Allen key strong enough to undo the fastener. You get one of those, and your Allen key is gone, twisted up and sheared off. The only way to get those babies out is to drill them out.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Mr Z]

Comparing to cars isn't quite fair. For one thing, Voyager doesn't have to deal with traffic, accelerating, decelerating, etc. Its commute is more like "Hang a left with gravity assist at Jupiter and cruise for the next several years." It doesn't even have to gas up.

It doesn't have to deal with pot holes, school zones, daredevil drivers, stop-n-go traffic, or heck, stopping and going in any sense. It's been slingshotted into space and can make subtle adjustments to its course or pick up the occasional planetary gravity-assist, and that's about it. If it were to totally croak today, it'd still keep flying into the interstellar medium. We just wouldn't be able to hear about it if the telemetry gear croaked.

And before you go on to praise the unprecedented electronics, realize there's plenty of people still developing home brew games for Intellivisions and Ataris, and they're almost as old... All those old consumer electronics gizmos still function, and were produced at a fraction of the cost. The only reason newer electronics haven't run for as long is, well, not enough time has passed for them to have run that long.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

INCOSE came along and told all the "system" engineer how to build stuff.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[Anonymous Coward]

For some things it doesn't really matter though. For many kinds of simple, solid wrenches, you just need it to be within the size tolerance and of a reliable alloy. Beyond that, there is not much more to waste on quality. I would save money buying cheap wrenches, and then use that on things that go much further with additional quality, like nicer calipers or micrometers, or something used for high speed cutting.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[rvw14]

It's not a Toyota, it's a Delorian!

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[citylivin]

"cars are a hell of a lot better designed than they were 25 years ago. 25 years ago, a car typically lasted 100,000 miles and generally cost more to maintain that it cost to replace. Today, cars that go through basic maintenance can easily go 200,000 miles. Your 25 year old Toyota is an outlier."

(citation needed). Did they find away to prevent rust completely now? Any well maintained vehicle will last many years. I myself drive a 20+ year old car which runs like a champ. The only problems I really have with it are all rust related. Unless you mean that more cars are made out of more plastic now adays, but I question whether that will make them last longer or less than steel.

The problem I see with modern cars is that there is so much computer control. My car does have a computer in it (OBD1), however it does look like it was designed for a space probe.The entire thing is entombed in some kind of resin which is somewhat indestructible. I think the GP is questioning the standards of today and comparing them with 20 years ago. It does seem like all electronics now adays are designed to fail, running mostly at their spec, as opposed to being over engineered as they were back then. Of course as someone pointed out further above, you dont see the crappy stuff that failed right away and only see the long lasting durable machines and tools that were able to survive.

Still, the statement "Cars are better engineered today (in terms of pure durability)" is a questionable one. Sounds too much like someone trying to sell me a new car for me to just trust it on faith.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[thesandtiger]

I don't want to crap all over your nostalgia, but if you truly believe this, you're a moron or at least pig ignorant.

Stuff today is vastly better than the stuff back then in any way you care to look at it. Children have toys that are more complex than Voyager (sans power supply) and it would be a fairly trivial feat to make a probe that is vastly more capable, vastly more reliable & redundant, and vastly less expensive than Voyager with today's technology and processes.

Consumer devices today are built knowing that the technology in them will be absolutely obsolete in short order, so they are made "good enough" and cheaply enough to be a throwaway item. We can build better - and we do - but just not for that market. And by the way, the electronics in even the shittiest consumer electronics today are still vastly more powerful than the machines in Voyager.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[HornWumpus]

Designers send the engineers impossible to fabricate economically shapes and pipe dreams.

The engineers turn that into something that can be produced and sold at a profit. 'Designers' spec pretty wheels, they don't design suspensions or drive trains.

On the race side engineers are the designers. This filters over a little, but the 'artists' are who they are.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[HornWumpus]

A huge change was chrome plated piston rings. You can put them into your old car when you next rebuild the motor.

Those rings are pretty much the technology that makes motors run for 200K+ miles vs 100K back in the day. Granting the head and valves have improved as well, they are now the thing that usually goes. It used to be your rings would go and you'd smoke, now your valve guides go and you smoke at idle.

Chrome rings were introduced in the 90s. So are in many, many older cars now. I'll put them into my 1960 if it ever gets enough miles to require another rebuild, it already has lead free safe valves and seats from the first rebuild.

Emission controls/computer controls have gotten simpler (up until the throttle by wire nonsense). Cars were nightmares of plumbing in the 80s. Simpler now. For those with too much nostalgia; let me repeat the phrase 'computer controlled carburetor' or it's much uglier version 'computer controlled quadrajet' (spit).

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[MyLongNickName]

I'm almost 40 years old, and have been driving for almost 25 years. So, I've actually seen cars and don't need a wikipedia article to tell me something that is pretty obvious. I'm assuming you are much younger. Go talk to someone who grew up in the 60's and ask him for a citation for "a lot of people smoked pot in the 60's".

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[toddestan]

And what happens when the design life is lower than what would be the useful life for the device?

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[MrKaos]

badum ching

Coincidentally, this is the sound the Zwurg hull made as it struck the rings around Uranus.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[circletimessquare]

stop talking about my sex life!

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[hendrikboom]

My Toyota has only lasted 7 years, and it just runs. I'd have to wait a long time before I could say it has been runnung for 35 years, and then Voyager will probably have been running even longer.

Re:The don't make 'em like they used to

[MrKaos]

stop talking about my sex life!

If I'm talking about your sex life, then your sex life is what the Zwurg tells you it is.

The story that never dies

[Grayhand]

Remember years ago when it was first announced that Voyager was entering interstellar space? There was another announcement a year or two ago and now they are saying it's really really close. When I was growing up NASA was considered the most reliable department the government had. After all the budget cuts they've been so starved for big announcements they keep jumping the gun. I know this wasn't out of NASA but it's still a NASA project. The real news in the last week was Mercury but it got buried under higher profile non stories. It just breaks my heart to see this. If they want news releases give us more rover stories! We've got two functional rovers again on Mars and the older one gets no attention and the new one has been all but forgotten. I've seen some stunning images because I cruise geek sites but the general public sees nothing. NASA has got to get better at playing the press game. People still support Mars exploration but look at the ISS as the poster child for press boondoggles. It's been treated more like a secret military project in the press. It's been fully functional for years but other than stories about possibly abandoning it which started weeks after it was completed when is the last time the regular press had a story about what was actually going on in the space station itself, I'm not talking resupply missions. I'll bet the average person couldn't name a single accomplishment or even test run on the space station. I'd bet most people have completely forgotten about it. What's the point of all the science if no one ever hears about it??? Botched press releases and dead silence is slowly killing NASA.

Re:The story that never dies

[ipquickly]

I was about to make a joke about space expanding, but you raise quite a few valid points.
If we don't make science "cool" and find ways to get younger generations interested in research and exploration we will be eclipsed by cultures and countries which will find themselves venturing out into space for the first time. They have all our research and experience - as our endeavors are well documented. To this they will add their own technologies and experience. Information might not flow both ways, leaving us at a severe disadvantage.

By funding science and exploration we are funding our future. Our children are our future and we are leaving them at a disadvantage.

Re:The story that never dies

[SecurityTheatre]

To be fair, the NASA press releases are usually pretty accurate.

They did announce that they confirmed entering the heliosheath a few years ago. They confirmed to have crossed the Heliopause last year.

Now the journalists who write these articles write them as "Voyager entering interstellar space", which isn't entirely inaccurate, since it's a pretty vague concept.

At least it's still working, and generating discussion...

Re:The story that never dies

[a_hanso]

Funny. I was about to make a joke about Zeno's Paradox.

Re:The story that never dies

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose that it's maybe a little over your head, but part of the reason for the confusion is that we've never been to interstellar space before so they were not all that sure when they were going to make that transition. They've found the sun's influence reaches farther than they expected. I kinda thought that was part of the excitement of discovery, exploring things that we haven't ever encountered before, but I guess some people aren't satisfied with that.

Re:The story that never dies

[Rakshasa-sensei]

You are assuming the heliostat is static... It isn't, and it changes a lot depending on magnetic fields.

If you look at the graphs (that are out there), there was 2-3 temporary drops in the magnetic field and increase in low-energy charged particles. Now it is truly beyond that boundary.

Re:The story that never dies

[DeadCatX2]

Remember years ago when it was first announced that Voyager was entering interstellar space?

No, I remember reading articles about Voyager crossing the termination shock and the heliosheath. Now we're coming up on the heliopause.

Re:The story that never dies

[GlobalEcho]

Funny. I was about to make a joke about Zeno's Paradox.

I was halfway to making that same joke.

Re:The story that never dies

[painandgreed]

Trouble is that each time you think about doing so, you're only halfway to actually making that joke.

Re:The story that never dies

[Anonymous Coward]

They have all our research and experience - as our endeavors are well documented. To this they will add their own technologies and experience. Information might not flow both ways, leaving us at a severe disadvantage.

Or, to put it another way, they will add our biological and technological distinctiveness to their own. Resistance is futile.

Re:The story that never dies

[TeknoHog]

I was about to make the same joke, but I never got close enough.

Re:The story that never dies

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I was just about to make a joke about... bah... bugger it. What's the meaning of it all anyways?

Who's the "We" ?

[Taco Cowboy]

This is truly a triumph of modern science and unfortunately we do not dream big like this anymore. We are limited to our own backyard. The moon, Mars, etc. Such a shame.

If the "we" in question is NASA, your assertion is true.
 
However, if the "we" denotes the human race, nope, the dream is still on, and there are still people working towards achieving even greater goals.
 
People in Brazil, in Japan, in India, in China are working on projects that may take us (and the "us" here means human race) further.

Re:Who's the "We" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is truly a triumph of modern science and unfortunately we do not dream big like this anymore. We are limited to our own backyard. The moon, Mars, etc. Such a shame.

If the "we" in question is NASA, your assertion is true. However, if the "we" denotes the human race, nope, the dream is still on, and there are still people working towards achieving even greater goals. People in Brazil, in Japan, in India, in China are working on projects that may take us (and the "us" here means human race) further.

And you would be wrong as well. The fact is that NASA is still dreaming big. Putting man on the moon for 3 days is NOT that hard. It was that NASA planned it, and CONgress funded it, allowing them to get it done.
Now, NASA was striving to go to Mars and the moon in the 90's when the republicans gutted this effort. They made NASA stop work on things like Transhab and VASIMIR. The neo-cons wanted NASA spending to go into a different direction. Clinton opposed it as being short-sighted, but it was part of a deal to drop our deficit.
THis was followed with more gutting the ISS, post Columbia, but oddly, the most important piece of the ISS, the centrifuge, was gutted. This would tell us how to survive on the moon and mars. And yet, the neo-cons gutted this on item. Just amazing.
Then it was decided to kill off the shuttle (good, since it was costing too much money), and push for Constellation. However, again, CONgress, basically neo-cons, underfunded it so badly that the program was DOA. Thankfully, the 90's plan that NASA hatched to get private space going was funded for cargo only.
Now, Obama comes on and backs pushing private space, while killing off Constellation (it was dead anyways and just rotting). Yet, the neo-cons have worked their tails off to kill it and any attempt to leave the planet. They tried to kill the 1-2B for funding CCDev claiming a waste of money, while pushing the SLS for 20B telling NASA which contractors they would use. In particular, it was all of the contractors that were in CONgress critter's districts.
The neo-cons are STILL striving to kill off private space. In particular, NASA wants to fund PRIVATE fuel depot and various tugs for service. Some would be chemical, but others would be electrical (great for cargo). In addition, they want to get private space stations going, esp. Bigelow. These companies would then work together to put man on the moon and mars. NASA would simply lead the way, doing the hard R&D, while allowing private space to do the things that NASA has already R&D. With this approach, we will be on the moon by 2020, IFF the neo-cons are not allowed to gut NASA again.

NASA is dreaming big. It is one political party that is far more interested in keeping itself alive rather than worrying about our nation's future that is the problem.

Re:Who's the "We" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to forget the ESA, although it is getting some cuts too. And honestly, NASA is still doing some good stuff, just not everything that was planned.

Re:Who's the "We" ?

[cyberchondriac]

Gee, that's an interesting shift. Historically, those who usually railed against space travel and NASA were democrats who felt the money needed to be spent here at home, fighting poverty, disease, etc, generally via entitlement programs of some sort, "fixing our problems here first" rather than "cavorting around in space". The biggest chunk of US gov't spending right now goes to health care related programs, and the Republicans vote to cut funding to NASA instead since they couldn't touch those programs.. and now they get slammed for that too.
SLS will have capabilities far exceeding those of CCDev: if you're going to spend, spend as an investment. Weren't we just talking about "dreaming big"? And before the obvious "solution" is proffered, I don't think taxing the very rich a little more is going to nuke the economy, and would help some, (though I, like Warren Buffet, feel the $250k threshold is too low) but likewise it's not going give us an infinite amount of revenue either.

Re:Who's the "We" ?

[X0563511]

Putting man on the moon for 3 days is NOT that hard. It was that NASA planned it, and CONgress funded it, allowing them to get it done.

I'm not going to downplay the role of the planning and funding, but I think you don't have the whole picture. I have some suggested reading. This book almost entirely ignores the astronauts themselves and focuses on the scientists, engineers, and administrators who got them there and back,

Re:Who's the "We" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, look at congressional votes much. Both parties are just as guilty of slashing NASA's budget. I really wish the whole world would wake up and get their act together. If we didn't have all these petty little squabbles (Yes, I'm talking to you jackasses in the middle east and africa) then the US might stop acting like giant school yard monitor and we could put that money to good use, like putting a giant neon sign on the moon or something

Tonight

[koan]

I will think a little thought for lonely Voyager.

Re:Tonight

[a_hanso]

I will think a little thought for lonely Voyager.

xkcd stick-man, is that you?

"...taste it..."

[Anonymous Coward]

And just what could the void taste like?

not said, active space program

[rubycodez]

we have kepler, new horizons, mercury messenger, probes on and around Mars, private DragonX craft going to the IIS

Delta Quadrant

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when's it getting back?

We better start

[Anonymous Coward]

Killing the whales now.

what if it was manned

[Anonymous Coward]

imagine a human being
traveling. through. outer space for 35 years.

Again?

[Sperbels]

Well, it's been close to entering interstellar space for the last 10 - 15 years. Are they just going to keep re-releasing this story every year?

Re:Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA today announced they have hired the writers from LOST to write upcoming press releases.

No seriously I love to think about Voyager. Out there longer than I've been alive, visiting most of our planets, now going interstellar. I like hearing these little stories, that she is still alive and kicking. Theres all that stuff, the record, the plate. You know, when serious scientists like Carl sat around smoked a joint and thought what should we put on it if aliens find it in 100,000 years from now.

  There is no clear barrier where interstellar starts. Its basically there now. But what happens then? They turn it off? There is no more news to report.

  I look forward to launching Voyager 3 and 4 in 2151 and 2152.

Re:Again?

[niktemadur]

Each year Voyager seems to reach a new marker, but every time the news is announced with the same backstory every time, so it can feel repetitive.
About 10 years ago it was reaching a fluctuation in the solar wind, wasn't it?
Then it was confirmed that it was on the outer edge of the heliosheath, where the solar wind turns sideways to fall back in.
Now it's interstellar particles moving freely.

Re:Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's been close to entering interstellar space for the last 10 - 15 years. Are they just going to keep re-releasing this story every year?

Voyager 1 and 2 are cosmic Jehovah witnesses. Just replace "end of times" with "interstellar space".

Re:Again?

[niktemadur]

Ah yes, now I remember - a few years ago, Voyager reached the point where the solar winds were no longer supersonic. The zone where that happens is called the termination shock.
The medium in which Voyager is traveling is changing, and each change is reported. So every time the story seems to be repeated, it is in fact an update, and I say keep 'em coming, JPL.

Re:America was king in the 60s and 70s

[OhANameWhatName]

The biggests mistake that America made was "free-trade" and dropping their tarifs and duties

The degredation of fundamental education was clearly a far bigger mistake.

Re:America was king in the 60s and 70s

[KingMotley]

The biggests mistake that America made was "free-trade" and dropping their tarifs and duties.

It is only a mistake if you are trying to keep one country on top of all the others. Free-trade has made the WORLD a better place, at the expense of the USA. Now it's up to you to decide if that is a good or bad thing.

What happened to engineers....?

[tanveer1979]

They all did MBA :D

Re:What happened to engineers....?

[a_hanso]

They all did MBA :D

This is why I refuse to get one. I do read a lot of business books and periodicals and I'm often involved in management. But I steer clear of anything with the words "strategic", "marketing", "smarter-not-harder", "S.M.A.R.T goals", "empowerment" etc.

Maybe this is just unique to my industry or my circumstance, but in many ways, when you start thinking like management, you're compromising some of your professional integrity as an engineer. I prefer to get managers to think like engineers instead...

Re:America was king in the 60s and 70s

[Osgeld]

yea the 60's and 70's didnt have war ... just that little skirmish ... what was it called

oh yea, the Vietnam war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

How can china make shit 1/4 the cost, it catches fire retard

voids are hugely repulsive

[epine]

Man's pollution on a cosmic scale is essentially zero, the universe is already pre-polluted

The average density of the universe is about one proton per cubic meter. The vast majority of the visible universe is pristine vacuum. Plus, nearly every galaxy holds at its core a matter-disposal rip-heap of eternal safe-keeping.

Bear in mind that we now know there's a very small leak into the surrounding environment at around 60 nano-kelvin (*). Before we route too much of our crap to the galactic disposal unit, perhaps we should learn from our mistakes on the slimy blue marble and perform a rigorous environmental impact study on anthropogenic black-hole warming, just in case bumping it up to 61 nano-kelvins triggers a dark matter landslide. (By the "it's all about us, every time, and in every way" anthropic principle, every bulk coefficient of our local environment is fluttering around a precarious and exquisitely tuned value optimal to survival as we presently know it.)

(*) For simplicity I use the Hawking temperature for a solar mass black hole. From the equation at Wikipedia, this appears to scale inversely with mass. Possibly the right temperature involves division by another factor of 4 million to account for the correct mass of the galactic darth Timbit (local idiom for doughnut hole). I'm getting 15 femto-kelvins without a napkin. Let's not be brash and mess with this number anthropogenically without really thinking things through, to solve some minor problem with space-based pollution in some gossamer filigree of the pristine vacuum.

One would think it might be easier just to toss our junk in the direction of the Local Void. This, however, amounts to carting your garbage uphill.

Wikipedia: The Milky Way's velocity away from the Local Void is 270 kilometres per second (600,000 mph). Voids are hugely repulsive.

Re:voids are hugely repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

Voids are hugely repulsive.

Goatse, is that you?

Re:voids are hugely repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

If you mean Hawking radiation: That is not a leak. It is quantum foam from the vacuum being split up before it can collapse again, leaving one particle inside and the other outside the event horizon. So nothing actually left the hole.

Re:voids are hugely repulsive

[rubycodez]

right, the garbage makes no difference

Still receiving commands?

[waynemcdougall]

What sort of commands are we sending?

"Keep going"
"Just keep going"
"Don't turn around and come back"
"Just a little bit further - just keep going"
"Nearly there - keep going"

Re:Still receiving commands?

[Kjella]

Well, "commands"... it's actually a recording of Celine Dion, it makes it go even faster trying to get away. They're considering doing a pan pipe album to power an interstellar probe next.

Re:Still receiving commands?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, ROFL.

But... what will happen when they stop ... sending ... those ... commands?
(dramatical pauses sponsored by William Shatner)

Re:Still receiving commands?

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA: Stay on target.
Voyager: We're too close.
NASA: Stay on target.

Re:Still receiving commands?

[Anonymous Coward]

and veger just keeps asking: "are we there yet?"

Re:Still receiving commands?

[Jason Levine]

Lately, they've put Dory from Finding Nemo in charge of Voyager's orders: "Just keep swimming... Just keep swimming..."

Re:Still receiving commands?

[slew]

Actually, the messages are more akin to "please stay alive"...

AFAIK, Right now, they are mostly only sending Command Loss Timer Reset messages to keep the watchdog timers on the craft from sending the probe into a safe-mode. Occasionally, they will send commands to cycle power to stuff to save power or just shutting off stuff permanetly to save power (they've been doing this since 1990) as the RTG power levels drop.

As an analogy, Voyager is basically now in critical survival mode, like a car stuck in a snow storm far off the beaten track with no way to turn back. At first there is the luxury of leaving the radio and the dome light on and using the car heater to keep warm. Next, you never turn the radio and the dome light at the same time and turn off the heater every other hour to save power. Now as the battery is critical, they are sending commands to tell it to let limbs freeze off one-by-one to keep the core alive. Eventually, there will be no energy left and the inevitable slow deep freeze death will happen.

The next "limb" scheduled to be shut down is the Ultra Violet Spectrometer (sometime in 2013), then the on board data tape recorder which allows it to record some instrument data at high speed before sending it to the DSN (sometime in 2014).

Re:Still receiving commands?

[Anonymous Coward]

They should use one of the Baldwins so it flees even faster.

The Gripes of Wrath

[XiaoMing]

What's with all the complaints? How is this not news for nerds?

We thought the heliosphere should have ended earlier. It (surprisingly, without sarcasm) hasn't. It's explained within the same summary what the expected metrics for such a boundary should be (a change in the direction of the magnetic field), as well as a quantification of the closeness (that extra-solar particles are making forays into Voyager's sensors) of said boundary.

Add a dash of the fact that we are able to communicate through outer space with four-decades old technology, and I'm really not seeing what there is to bitch about.

Oh and the Mars rover? Yeah it's still being analyzed whether the "complex hydrocarbons" are actually organic compounds, just like how it was still being analyzed whether the timing glitch in the LHC was a violation of general relativity. That is speculation, it's not news (at least not for nerds).

not to rain on anyone's parade....

[tbonefrog]

the thing is 17 light-hours away from us or 17 light-hours +/- 8 minutes from the sun.
The edge of the solar system is supposed to be the oort cloud at about 1 light-year away
So voyager has another 12 years or so to get one light day away, and even assuming it maintains the same speed, another 364.25 times 50 years, to reach the oort cloud, so check this space in another 18000 years. if we start now we could have a camera orbiting alpha centauri by then, even on a voyager-sized budget, using a solar or magnetic sail, and the pictures would start coming back 4 years later

Re:not to rain on anyone's parade....

[petsounds]

The edge of the solar system is supposed to be the oort cloud at about 1 light-year away

We're not talking about reaching the edge of the Solar system, we are talking about our first foray into interstellar space. And interstellar space starts beyond the heliopause, not the Oort Cloud. That's why Voyager's cosmic ray measurements have been so important.

On a side note, it looks as if Voyager 2 may be reaching the edge of the part of the heliosphere it is traveling through. The high-energy particles (which are coming from the Sun) have been steadily decreasing the past few months.

Re:not to rain on anyone's parade....

[aneroid]

To make things more ambiguous (along the GPs point), "Interstellar space": Voyager 1 is 17 light hours from us (so under 0.2% the distance to Proxima Centauri). Not sure when or how they decided interstellar space starts before the Oort Cloud (1 ly away).

A justification could be made that astronomically-scaled systems may have plenty of in-between objects that are far enough away to be considered interstellar space. However, when defining an interstellar comet: "At present, an interstellar comet can only be detected if it passes through our solar system, and could be distinguished from an Oort cloud comet by its strongly hyperbolic trajectory (indicating that it is not gravitationally bound to the Sun)." - so if interstellar comets are not interstellar unless they originate from outside the Oort Cloud, I don't see why we consider Voyager 1 even remotely approaching interstellar space when it's still so far from the Oort Cloud.

And reversibly, due to Voyager 1's known one-way trajectory out/away from the Sun, it could be considered not gravitationally bound to the Sun. So is or will be interstellar if not destroyed before.

Anyway, I think 'exiting the heliosphere' is the point of the article. 'Interstellar space' is a sensationalist term in the headline.

Re:not to rain on anyone's parade....

[Mr Z]

The defining aspect is the medium the craft is flying through. The solar wind has dropped from supersonic to nil, and the Sun's magnetic field is about to be superseded by the overall galactic magnetic field. I'd say that's a pretty good definition of transitioning from the solar system's medium to the interstellar medium, since the space the craft is floating through has changed qualitatively.

I guess it's a bit like the difference between the boundary of the Earth's atmosphere, and the orbit of the Moon. The Moon is gravitationally bound to the Earth, but the Earth's atmosphere ends well before you get to the Moon. Where do you say the boundary of space is as you leave the Earth?

Re:not to rain on anyone's parade....

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely more of an argument over different organization's definitions.

If you look at how we define the border between Earth's atmosphere and space:

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale uses the Kármán line (100km) as the defining point.
The US defines an astronaut as a person that flies above 50 miles (80km)
International law defines it as the lowest obtainable orbit for an object which due to drag would be between 129-150km
Some claim it's the Mesophere/Thermosphere boundary (85km)
Others claim the Thermosphere/Exosphere boundary (690km)
Someone might think the it's the edge of the Exosphere (10,000km)

This appears it might be more of an argument over magnetic/pressure/gravitational boundaries of the Sol system.

The heliopause, where the outward pressure of the solar wind matches the inwards pressure of the interstellar medium, is what they are using to define the boundry of the solar system. The Oort cloud is more about objects stuck in our sun's (Sol) gravitational well. Much like our moon (Luna) in relation to Earth. The moon is still not considered to be within our atmosphere though but is considered to be part of Earth since it's stuck in our gravity well.

Voyager 1,

[MrKaos]

So Close To Interstellar Space That We Can Taste It!

Reported to taste like chicken!

How may times can Voyager leave the solar system?

[Captain_Chaos]

I swear I've heard the news that "Voyager has left the solar system" at least five times over the last ten years... Every time stated in the same concrete and definite terms. Make up your mind already, has it or hasn't it?

Re:How may times can Voyager leave the solar syste

[aneroid]

well..."The Solar System consists of the Sun and its planetary system of eight planets, their moons, and other non-stellar objects." So that happened a while ago.

Between the solar system and interstellar space is the heliosphere (which encompasses the solar system, bordered/demarcated by the heliopause).

Power computer for what?

[Parker Lewis]

Your pocket computer is so much better than the computers on board Voyager, but it runs a so much heavy system and applications than on board Voyager. And, you have sooo much computer power for what? Play AngryBirds, uploads photos to social networks, and read Flipboard? Yeah, the future all my generation dreamed.

"Moving at 10.5 miles per second"

[Anonymous Coward]

Or "totally stationary" ?
Or "moving at 2 kilometres per hour" ?

When referring to the velocity of an object in space, if you do not mention what that velocity is relative to, then your statement is meaningless.

And for bonus points, use metric units, you stupid yanks.

Re:"Moving at 10.5 miles per second"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so stupid I think. And if you are not able to perform a very basic unit conversion, you shouldn't comment !

A Frenchman who loves US

The End

[Anonymous Coward]

We are the Vogons. When your probe enters interstellar space on December 21, 2012 we will be forced to destroy your puny planet for trespassing. This is your only warning.

Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is really amazing , a probe sent so far away and still able to communicate despite a somewhat low power ! And a system running 24/7/365 during 35 years, wow !
All is very very very excellent and amazing

Kerbal

[pellik]

If this is the kind of news that really interests you, and you haven't already seen kerbal space program, then you should do some googling.

Truman Show

[DidgetMaster]

Imagine all the scientists surprise when this thing crashes into the "solar system wall" with lots of stars and galaxies painted on it just like Truman did with his boat in the "Truman Show".

Re:America was king in the 60s and 70s

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh really? Just the expense of the USA? So Europe's financial meltdown is due to something else? So far, all I can see is one country rising on their (abuse of) free trade and others declining because of it. Free trade is one of those silly pipe dreams that greedy people like to push in the hopes that no one else realizes that EVERYTHING in the universe is bounded by laws and limitations. Somehow though, the dreamers think that trade can be truly free and efficiently and fairly functioning. HA! Apparently, these same people will tell you there is no free lunch then turn around and claim humanity's salvation is "free" markets. HA! HA!

scientists crying "wolf" again

[peter303]

Frankly, they've been claiming signs of the interstellar boundary for a decade now. And they may be right, because the boundary could be rather diffuse.

Re:How may times can Voyager leave the solar syste

[Captain_Chaos]

The Solar System isn't just the planets, that cherry-picked quote notwithstanding. Most people seem to agree that it ends at the heliopause, and most news items I remember used that definition.

Re:America was king in the 60s and 70s

[Widowwolf]

It was never a war


Five wars have been declared under the Constitution: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.

All the rest are not wars,they are"police actions".

American Presidents often have not sought formal declarations of war, instead maintaining that they have the Constitutional authority, as commander in chief (Article Two, Section Two) to use the military for "police actions"

So....

[TemporalBeing]

....what would happen if the magnetic direction never changed like they are expecting? Say they go another 1million AUs and it's still reading the same...

Not saying that will happen. Just saying we really don't know what to expect or when to expect it.

Next time something in Linux is "deprecated"....

[DutchUncle]

I've read /. postings asking why anyone would use a program that's a few years old, or why another poster hasn't upgraded to this morning's release of some particular library. I've also posted complaints when I updated some particular library and half of my applications broke because someone decided that "nobody needed" something that they personally didn't need.

Things are supposed to WORK. And keep working. Software does not decay. The hardware may die under it, but the software should just plain *work*.

We expect bridges to stay up; we should produce our software knowing that all of our users have the same expectations of us.

previous inspiration

[John_Sauter]

I'm certain Star Trek was one of the top reasons many of the engineers at NASA became interested in engineering in the first place.

That may be so, but the previous generation of NASA engineers was inspired by the Walt Disney program Man in Space, which featured Wernher von Braun.

Like traveling with kids

[Tablizer]

"Are we there yet? No! Are we there yet? No! Are we there yet? No! Are we there yet? No! Are we there yet? No!..."

Re:America was king in the 60s and 70s

[Anonymous Coward]

So Europe's financial meltdown is due to something else?

Yes. But most Europeans are too blind to see it.

Reverse the polarity... in real life

[tepples]

The only thing reversing the polarity ever did was to allow unlicensed NES games to freeze the console's lockout chip so that the power light wouldn't blink.