The Pluto Express - New Horizons Project

[Trump]

I've been keeping an eye on this little endeavour for the past few years and in about 13 hours time, the New Horizons spacecraft will ping mission control as it makes its closest approach to Pluto.

The NASA TV link for those of you playing at home:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

[creative]

I just think its phenomenal that ten years ago they planned all this and hit their mark! Some very clever bods out there!

[Trump]

Originally Posted by creative

I just think its phenomenal that ten years ago they planned all this and hit their mark! Some very clever bods out there!

The planning and design began late 2001, with launch on January 2006.

Edit: the APL page for New Horizons:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php

The press conference just finished, a high resolution image was displayed of Pluto.

[Lunch]

Glad to see im not the only space nerd on here

[Polyal]

I think its just fascinating in general..I mean even sending data all that way. I cant get reception 1.5 hours off the coast sometimes!

[DBourne]

Originally Posted by Polyal

I think its just fascinating in general..I mean even sending data all that way. I cant get reception 1.5 hours off the coast sometimes!

Exactly how I feel!

I'm a complete science retard, but I love all this space stuff.. I'd love to be able to go up in to orbit and look back on the Earth. Stuff like that really just makes me think "wow"!

I'd love to imagine in a perfect world that all the money the yanks have "invested" (read: wasted) on their "defence" forces went in to their space programs, the stuff we could of seen by now.. amazing.

(sorry, that went a bit OT)

[nuthin' fancy]

Just listeneing to the ABC, they say it will take 16 months to transit all the data back to earth.,

[vbvbvb088]

Ahh - i remember EF/EL Taxis - 900,000kms on odo. Two return trips to the moon.

[Trump]

Originally Posted by DBourne

Exactly how I feel!

I'm a complete science retard, but I love all this space stuff.. I'd love to be able to go up in to orbit and look back on the Earth. Stuff like that really just makes me think "wow"!

I'd love to imagine in a perfect world that all the money the yanks have "invested" (read: wasted) on their "defence" forces went in to their space programs, the stuff we could of seen by now.. amazing.

(sorry, that went a bit OT)

It isn't off topic. With the current spending by the US military (approx US$650 billion per year), even at an overt level we would have established thriving colonies on Mars and possibly even on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn had this sort of money been made available to science and space exploration.

Approximately $30 trillion has disappeared due to the US military. My goodness, the possibilities are endless...

[zilo]

Originally Posted by Loud_Noises

Approximately $30 trillion has disappeared due to the US military. My goodness, the possibilities are endless...

yeah but I feel much safer, alarmed but not alert...

or is it the other way round? I porget

[Trump]

Live press conference on now regarding the ping 90 minutes ago.

[Polyal]

Yeah I heard the delay was actually only 12 hours for the data

[Trump]

Originally Posted by Polyal

Yeah I heard the delay was actually only 12 hours for the data

The data takes about 4.5 hours to get here once transmitted.

[tweeked]

Originally Posted by Loud_Noises

It isn't off topic. With the current spending by the US military (approx US$650 billion per year), even at an overt level we would have established thriving colonies on Mars and possibly even on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn had this sort of money been made available to science and space exploration.

Approximately $30 trillion has disappeared due to the US military. My goodness, the possibilities are endless...

yeah - but without that it would be the German space program though.........

[Trump]

That $30 trillion is post-WW2.

[jpblue1000]

30 trillion of spending within the country, a taxpayer funded home industry. like space exploration, if you've got the taxpayer who is willing to fund it spend it, cause in effect many USA citizens pay their own wages doing space or war stuff.

I read the signal sent back has the strength of a watch battery. 9 and a half years of travel 4.4 billion Km's and they were (only) 72 seconds ahead of the planned arrival schedule.
And people doubt science and scientists, engineers and physicists!

JP

[Trump]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

30 trillion of spending within the country, a taxpayer funded home industry. like space exploration, if you've got the taxpayer who is willing to fund it spend it, cause in effect many USA citizens pay their own wages doing space or war stuff.

I read the signal sent back has the strength of a watch battery. 9 and a half years of travel 4.4 billion Km's and they were (only) 72 seconds ahead of the planned arrival schedule.
And people doubt science and scientists, engineers and physicists!

JP

There is no way that anyone can justify spending so much to protect their nation against at best, perceived threats. I would contend that the Cold War was nothing short of one of the biggest transfers of wealth of the 20th century. Consequently, the massive military industrial complex is one of the biggest causes of the fiscal predicament the US faces. Cutting the military budget in half wipes away their deficit. Cutting the remnant in half again means they can fund manned missions to the Moon and Mars. But I digress.

What NASA have achieved with New Horizons is nothing short of remarkable. The data sets they had access to had to have been micrometre precise and exhaustive beyond any reasonable metric.

This is purely my opinion, but my feeling is that it isn't that people don't trust science or the scientific method, it is that they distrust the egotistic and biased talking heads that pretend to espouse the virtues of the scientific method and present science of a dubious nature as virtuous science worthy of our attention. I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of agenda driven bureaucrats who hold the purse strings of public and private wallets.

[jpblue1000]

Originally Posted by Loud_Noises

There is no way that anyone can justify spending so much to protect their nation against at best, perceived threats. I would contend that the Cold War was nothing short of one of the biggest transfers of wealth of the 20th century. Consequently, the massive military industrial complex is one of the biggest causes of the fiscal predicament the US faces. Cutting the military budget in half wipes away their deficit. Cutting the remnant in half again means they can fund manned missions to the Moon and Mars. But I digress.

What NASA have achieved with New Horizons is nothing short of remarkable. The data sets they had access to had to have been micrometre precise and exhaustive beyond any reasonable metric.

This is purely my opinion, but my feeling is that it isn't that people don't trust science or the scientific method, it is that they distrust the egotistic and biased talking heads that pretend to espouse the virtues of the scientific method and present science of a dubious nature as virtuous science worthy of our attention. I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of agenda driven bureaucrats who hold the purse strings of public and private wallets.

Agreed, agreed, agreed!

JP

[Moby Vic]

How did I know this topic would involve criticism of the USA?

The space race was motivated primarily by defense considerations. The Russians got a satellite into orbit and a man into orbit before we did.

All that rocket science really helped both the Russians and us hone our intercontinental ballistic missiles. Landing on the Moon was just gravy.

Let's be thankful that with all the money we spent on defense we've also sent probes to every planet.

[zilo]

Originally Posted by Moby Vic

Let's be thankful that with all the money we spent on defense we've also sent drones to everywhere in the universe.

yep...you guys have the best drones that's for sure even as far as pluto.

[Moby Vic]

How did "every planet" become "the universe?"

I was in elementary school when the Viking lander made it to Mars. Somewhere I still have all the newspaper clippings I saved regarding that mission.

[Trump]

Originally Posted by Moby Vic

How did "every planet" become "the universe?"

I was in elementary school when the Viking lander made it to Mars. Somewhere I still have all the newspaper clippings I saved regarding that mission.

Change Viking with Voyager and that's me

[Moby Vic]

Originally Posted by Loud_Noises

Change Viking with Voyager and that's me

I followed Voyager, too, but there was something about Viking actually landing on the planet that really fascinated me.

I've got some nice prints of Voyager photos, though.

[SSD-85]

I have no issue with the generous (to say the least) budgets given to US & Soviet defence. The next best thing to total war for R&D is paranoia. Something the Cold War handed out in spades.

All of that is now shunted due to it no longer being a viable commodity for income. I personally aim the blame squarely at the entertainment industry. Billions of private dollars generated & squandered overnight because of a celebrity posting a selfie of them eating toast for breakfast.
A slightly exaggerated example of course, but you get the idea...

[superyob]

Loving the social analysts on this thread about Pluto...

[MITCHAY]

The thing is the average person does not appreciate what it all means. They see no point in it all. The very fact they are able to do it all means something to me.

We're talking about something that apart from being able to build the thing at all, they need to build it in time to fit a launch window that falls in line with a timeline we have no control over. They have one shot at it, it either works or doesn't. I find that almost unbelievable.

[nuthin' fancy]

Originally Posted by Polyal

Yeah I heard the delay was actually only 12 hours for the data

Yes, but 16 months for all the data

[Moby Vic]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

The thing is the average person does not appreciate what it all means. They see no point in it all. The very fact they are able to do it all means something to me.

We're talking about something that apart from being able to build the thing at all, they need to build it in time to fit a launch window that falls in line with a timeline we have no control over. They have one shot at it, it either works or doesn't. I find that almost unbelievable.

Sorry for the English units here, but I'm American--it's "only" about 93 million miles from the Earth to the Sun. It's about 3 billion miles from the Earth to Pluto. The distance alone is staggering. And then Pluto isn't a very big target. And it's moving. And the Earth is moving. And the probe had to move for 9 years.

The average person doesn't seem to be able to understand how to maintain a checkbook balance, so I'd say the math involved is somewhat intimidating.

[csv8]

The ashes of the Astronomer who found Pluto are on the spacecraft. The young girl who won the competition to name Pluto back in the 1930's was In the Control Room when the first photo's started coming back. I agree what could have been achieved if the money hadn't been spent on military not just space but medicine .

[Moby Vic]

Lots of medical tech has spun off from both space and military spending (but of course the military spending on medical advancements comes from trying to find ways to treat war wounds).