With a diameter of about 1,400 kilometers (890 miles), Iapetus is Saturn's third largest moon. It was discovered by Jean-Dominique Cassini in 1672. It was Cassini, for whom the Cassini-Huygens mission is named, who correctly deduced that one side of Iapetus was dark, while the other was white.
Not sure how much that vision of the moon has improved since, but going from that to the idea that maybe something went <SPLAT!> on the moon leaving a black circle isn't what I'd call a stroke of genius. (Regardless of wether a splat really caused the dark region, or some other process). Clarke has come up with many great ideas, and promoted great new ideas of others, but this isn't one of them IMHO.
I think there is a settlement on a Canadian(?) island where some research is being done, but I doubt they use Mars-time for reality's sake. The Russians are also said to be planning a long duration test to simulate the long flight to Mars, but that's also unlikely to use Mars-time. I don't think that it is a big priority, but I could be mistaken.
IIRC the experiences they had living on Mars-time in the first couple of months operating the rovers was that it worked fine, the human body had no noticable problems, but it became a big nuisance since you get more and more out of step with the rest of the planet. It became a big annoyance to families, things like that. So it was abandoned when no longer necessary.
I guess we're saying the same thing.. Both great achievements, and of a similar difficulty IF seen in the context of the technology level at the time. I just get a little tired of the people (not you) saying: look, the Russians did in 1973 what NASA is doing now". And I don't think that that is a fair statement.
1973, but no autonomous capacity at all, it was steered remotely. Still a great achievement in those days, though, just saying it doesn't compare very well with the current rovers.
I think you are taking the trolls here too seriously. I'm pretty sure that everyone with scientific interest was cheering for both Beagle2 and Rovers, and dissapointed at the formers loss. Also, Mars Express is doing fine, and getting admiration from both "camps". Plus what lime1304 said about Cassini/Huygens. Anyway, just mention Mars Polar Lander to the trolls and they'll shut up... IF they even know what that was:)
Wonder what those Mars team members are doing for New Year?
They had to follow a different time.
FYI, AFAIK the team is no longer working on Mars-time-day shifts. The experience gained in the first months enabled them to plan activities for both rovers in normal "earth-time" shifts now, and they are often able plan for 3 sols at at time too. Also they are no longer all located at JPL, but back home, and using teleconferencing of some sort for planning.
Good to see some international cooperation in a venture like this.
If that aspect of this mission is news to you, you will probably be surprised to know that in many NASA missions there are several non-US instruments. An example that comes to mind is the Mossbauer Spectrometer on the instrument arm of the current Mars rovers. This experiment was built by a German university (IIRC). Another example of cooperation would be the tests that were done on Mars, sending data to Earth from the rovers, through the European Mars Express spacecraft. And it is the same with European spacecraft, many include American experiments.
And if it wasn't news to you it probably was news to someone else reading this:)
Re:Uh.... does this strike anybody else as wrong?
on
NASA's Deep Impact
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· Score: 1
Worrying about destroying one of a billion comets (one that will likely be destroyed by the sun anyway) to me falls in the same category as worrying about contaminating open space with radashiun.
I once read that GRBs happen about 300 times a year. Hopefully before long we'll have a better understanding of the universe.
The principal investigator Neil Gehrels says they hope to catch about 100 per year.. there should be a few that get caught in a very early stage, which would indeed give a lot better understanding of GRBs.
Well.. usa.net did send me two nice t-shirts just for having their banner on my website, ages ago. Too bad they last longer than the promised free email.
Re:How is this not totally pointless?
on
The Real da Vinci Code
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I really hope that this guy didn't get a grant to research this.
Da Vinci got many research grants, even though they were not called that in those days.
This is hardly a large scale attempt... It is an interesting project and new stuff about Ion propulsion will be learned, but a huge project it is not. If you want large-scale European space efforts, look up "Rosetta".
Sea launch manages just fine without a fixed position. I doubt that airborne launches are undoable for the reason you stated, with current GPS capabilities.
Re:Wow @ that image of details...
on
Tune in to Titan
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· Score: 1
It prevents almost any view. There are a few wavelenghts that are not filtered by the atmosphere, and precisely those are used to obtain surface images (hopefully).
Slashdot Mirror
SpaceFlight Now:
With a diameter of about 1,400 kilometers (890 miles), Iapetus is Saturn's third largest moon. It was discovered by Jean-Dominique Cassini in 1672. It was Cassini, for whom the Cassini-Huygens mission is named, who correctly deduced that one side of Iapetus was dark, while the other was white.
Not sure how much that vision of the moon has improved since, but going from that to the idea that maybe something went <SPLAT!> on the moon leaving a black circle isn't what I'd call a stroke of genius. (Regardless of wether a splat really caused the dark region, or some other process). Clarke has come up with many great ideas, and promoted great new ideas of others, but this isn't one of them IMHO.
And 10 slashdot-editor points for getting the name Huygens wrong! *slap*
IIRC the experiences they had living on Mars-time in the first couple of months operating the rovers was that it worked fine, the human body had no noticable problems, but it became a big nuisance since you get more and more out of step with the rest of the planet. It became a big annoyance to families, things like that. So it was abandoned when no longer necessary.
I guess we're saying the same thing.. Both great achievements, and of a similar difficulty IF seen in the context of the technology level at the time. I just get a little tired of the people (not you) saying: look, the Russians did in 1973 what NASA is doing now". And I don't think that that is a fair statement.
1973, but no autonomous capacity at all, it was steered remotely. Still a great achievement in those days, though, just saying it doesn't compare very well with the current rovers.
I think you are taking the trolls here too seriously. I'm pretty sure that everyone with scientific interest was cheering for both Beagle2 and Rovers, and dissapointed at the formers loss. Also, Mars Express is doing fine, and getting admiration from both "camps". Plus what lime1304 said about Cassini/Huygens. Anyway, just mention Mars Polar Lander to the trolls and they'll shut up... IF they even know what that was :)
They had to follow a different time.
FYI, AFAIK the team is no longer working on Mars-time-day shifts. The experience gained in the first months enabled them to plan activities for both rovers in normal "earth-time" shifts now, and they are often able plan for 3 sols at at time too. Also they are no longer all located at JPL, but back home, and using teleconferencing of some sort for planning.
If that aspect of this mission is news to you, you will probably be surprised to know that in many NASA missions there are several non-US instruments. An example that comes to mind is the Mossbauer Spectrometer on the instrument arm of the current Mars rovers. This experiment was built by a German university (IIRC). Another example of cooperation would be the tests that were done on Mars, sending data to Earth from the rovers, through the European Mars Express spacecraft. And it is the same with European spacecraft, many include American experiments.
And if it wasn't news to you it probably was news to someone else reading this :)
Dione will get a very close pass, in october next year, don't know if that feature will be in range though. See the details on the encounters with Saturn's moons (PDF 14 kB). The Saturn tour schedule is interesting too.
Worrying about destroying one of a billion comets (one that will likely be destroyed by the sun anyway) to me falls in the same category as worrying about contaminating open space with radashiun.
please mod mr. AC up, he's right, no orbit for Huygens.
Not to mention CBM-64's booting linux...
Technically one could argue that any submerged submarine has exited the atmosphere, but that would be nitpicking. :)
Give a million of them a keyboard and they can write Linux. Eventually.
The principal investigator Neil Gehrels says they hope to catch about 100 per year.. there should be a few that get caught in a very early stage, which would indeed give a lot better understanding of GRBs.
You are likely to be eaten by a Grue
Well.. usa.net did send me two nice t-shirts just for having their banner on my website, ages ago. Too bad they last longer than the promised free email.
Da Vinci got many research grants, even though they were not called that in those days.
Still trying for the Darwin Award eh? :)
This is hardly a large scale attempt... It is an interesting project and new stuff about Ion propulsion will be learned, but a huge project it is not. If you want large-scale European space efforts, look up "Rosetta".
Specifically, the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission. Browse the site if you're interested, lots of info there, and linked from there.
Deimos! OMFG STFU n3wB!!!!!!! FN C4Mp0r! :P
And the HORROR of it making an EARTH flyby! OH MAN! DANGEROUS! ... Sorry, laughing too loud to add meaningfull content to this reply.
Sea launch manages just fine without a fixed position. I doubt that airborne launches are undoable for the reason you stated, with current GPS capabilities.
It prevents almost any view. There are a few wavelenghts that are not filtered by the atmosphere, and precisely those are used to obtain surface images (hopefully).