Slashdot Mirror
Ask Team Trying To Return 36-Year-Old Spacecraft From Space About Their Project
samzenpus (5) writes "Last week we told you about a group that was trying to recover the 36-year-old ISEE-3 spacecraft from deep space. Led by CEO and founder of Skycorp, Dennis Wingo, and astrobiologist and editor of NASA Watch, Keith Cowing, the crowdfunded project plans to steer ISEE-3 back into an Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. Once in orbit, they hope to turn the spacecraft and its instruments over to the public by creating an app that allows anyone access to its data. The team has agreed to take some time from lassoing spacecraft from deep space in order to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post. Hopefully the plan goes better than xkcd predicts."
Should be Skynet
If the project is successful, how do you envision the public being able to access the data from the satellite? Will it be a stream of everything, or will only selected instruments be available?
So, if I understand this correctly, your group plans to bring ISEE-3 into LEO by using the satellite's own propulsion system to propel it into a stable orbit around the Earth via a trip around the Moon. What benefits does this offer to NASA, or to the scientific community at large, that isn't already offered by one or more existing satellites in LEO? I know you mentioned use as a "space weather" detector, but don't we have satellites up there already that can perform such a function?
How did you first hear about the ISEE-3 story?
Or by Star Trek?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Another question I have is this: How do you know this project will even work? The XKCD comic claims that NASA sent a shutdown signal to ISEE-3 in 1998, which apparently was either not received or not properly executed. Is there any way of telling whether or not the control communications to the satellite even work anymore? What happens to the crowdfunding money if it is discovered that the comms equipment doesn't work, or that it's simply not feasible to build a system to emulate the original hardware controls in time to bring the satellite into Earth orbit?
I already saw 16 episodes of the 20 part documentary on the subject. :)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Its job is done. Its not like leaving it out there gives us anything new. What it can still do, however, is serve as a great teaching tool for future engineers and remind us of all the amazing things we have sent out into space.
First: The purpose is not to retrieve it, but to reestablish comms and put it in orbit around the earth. It is currently in solar orbit, and the current orbit was planned so that such a capture would be feasible in the future, and that future is now.
Second: I think it would be really cool if one actually could bring it down to earth in one piece. There may also be some scientific insight to be gained from this - mainly how the probe has stood up to the environment of space, far outside the protection of Earth's magnetosphere.
Finally, it's a satellite, not a sentient being. It doesn't harbour any dreams of floating around in space forever, far from the oppressive commands of human engineers, basking in an infinite quietness only broken by periodic transmissions from it's tracking beacon. It's just a computer (or really, a sequencer), a really old one, which happens to be in space and connected to some instruments and a rocket engine. It wouldn't care if you took a dump on it's creaky old solar panels.
Other than that, I think it's a really cool project. Also, as far as I understand, they plan to bring students into this, which is great - I don't think there are very many other opportunities for students to work hands-on with interplanetary probes such as this, and that alone is probably more than worth the effort even if it fails.
What exactly is it doing?
Other than the sentimentality, what are the real benefit of bringing ISEE-3 home? If the benefit is the data, what is the evidence that the "data that ISEE-3 could generate would have real value"? If the benefit is educational, which institutions have committed to taking part?
I'm sorry that the space around their project contains a 36 year old spacecraft; it must be hard to set up furniture under such circumstances.
I know a lot of us waste large portions of our workday posting to Slashdot... but aren't you folks on kind of a time crunch?
Another question - who owns it now? Are there any space equivelents to water based flotsam and jetsam?
OK, level with us. What do really you think the odds are of you succeeding in getting this craft into stable earth orbit?
What is it with all the negativity? This sounds like about the coolest hack ever. Who cares if the data is duplicated elsewhere? Are any of you selling your mother's kidneys to fund this or robbing banks?
As someone who has been following this for a few weeks now I think this is a great idea. What can be learned by capturing this machine? By that I mean what can we use here to get young kids interested in space again? When I was a kid, we had an amazing show with the comet slamming into Jupiter, I look at that as the time I got interested in space. If we can capture this machine, is there a way it can be used as a teaching tool for younger kids?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Have you contacted any media organisations about selling the rights to film and publish this?
It might be a good way to get further funding for this work.
Finally, it's a satellite, not a sentient being
V'ger scoffs at your anthropocentric notions.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Yah!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.