- 29,356
- Glasgow
- GTP_Mars
A 1 km bounce?! Wow! Well, at least we now know that comets are made from similar materials to Kim Kardashian's ass.
Space In General
- Thread starter BubbleBelly542
- 4,705 comments
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- 17,261
- United Kingdom
..
Seriously though, great result, hope it can hang on enough to do some drilling.
Dotini
(Banned)
- 15,742
- Seattle
- CR80_Shifty
Yes, for sure.
We really need to know what comets are made of, and get a firmer grip on their origin. We are agonizingly close to knowing, but poor Philae is temporarily lost, and seems to be laying on its side with at least one foot off the ground. One false move with harpoon or drill, it could be off floating again!
Study this photo: http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/...omet/15048351-1-eng-GB/Welcome_to_a_comet.jpg
One thing to note are the gooey or melted-looking patches, down towards the lower right. And what is that narrow, straight artifact that has a braided appearance to it? An antenna? A harpoon cable? An old rope lost in the film studio?
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Robin
Premium
- 16,799
- United Kingdom
ESA has stated it's almost vertical and is only getting 1 1/2 hours of sunlight compared to the expected 7. I would hope they could maybe use some thrust to lift it off the ground and try to land it somewhere else but I guess they would risk getting no science at all then.
I cannot quite understand why they didn't use an RTG to power Philae.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
It landed on the flip side. There was no A side.
Could this landing and further examination provide the translations we need to understand the cosmos?
- 24,553
- Frankfort, KY
- GTP_FoolKiller
- FoolKiller1979
He can land a spacecraft on a comet. He can wear what he wants.
Besides, when you are that smart you might not have a need to be concerned with most social norms.
Personally, I hope they were told they had to wear a button down shirt with a collar and this was his form of protest.
Besides, when you are that smart you might not have a need to be concerned with most social norms.
Personally, I hope they were told they had to wear a button down shirt with a collar and this was his form of protest.
- 904
- orlando,FL,USA
this thing is going fail and for this very fact that we will come to realization that all forms of [government sponsored] space exploration is nothing but a waste of money and lacks real reason.
Overall its quite a shame that european taxpayers are being bilked out of billions for the bragging rights of landing on a hunk of rock.
speaking of, Felix Baumgartner is right on the money about space exploration:
http://www.cnet.com/news/felix-baumgartner-mars-is-a-waste-of-your-tax-dollars/
Overall its quite a shame that european taxpayers are being bilked out of billions for the bragging rights of landing on a hunk of rock.
speaking of, Felix Baumgartner is right on the money about space exploration:
http://www.cnet.com/news/felix-baumgartner-mars-is-a-waste-of-your-tax-dollars/
CodeRedR51
Premium
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- Buckwheat City
- Dennisch
Started in 1996, it's now 2014. The total cost of the mission is €1.4 billion. There are 500 million people in the European Union.
That's a whopping €2,80 per person.
OH MY GOD SO MUCH MONEY.
And to put it into perspective, the Netherlands, with 17 million people spends on average 30 BILLION EUROS a year on financial aid for Africa. And how is that helping us as a species? That's right.
Edit.
And I hope that Felix' next jump is without a parachute. What a dill hole. Must be friends with Bernie Ecclestone.
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- 24,553
- Frankfort, KY
- GTP_FoolKiller
- FoolKiller1979
I would be much happier if space exploration was privately funded, but to call it a waste is showing a great deal of ignorance, especially for a guy best known for performing a stunt that required technology developed in the space program.
But if you truly believe it is a waste then I invite you to protest by refusing to buy or use things using technology developed in the space program.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
There's no gravity, you'd need to fly it each way... and once you've lifted off you're back at square one with a probe standing off a comet.
I doubt an RTG would be suitable in this case; the mission packaging is completely different from Pioneer which has the advantage of being able to hold RTG away from the body (in Pioneer's case that's a generation module but it's the same principle). RTGs are EMF-abundant and get extremely hot around the chamber, probably not ideal for this pakage.
Compared to $93 billion for Apollo?
In this case the Titan programme cost 1.4bn over 20 years, or 20cent per citizen per year.
When you said FB was "right on the money".. actually he was wrong on the money. Neither of you have actually bothered to do the sums
- 13,905
- Adelaide
- Neomone
Nah, he's not going far enough.
Why pay money to study foreign countries when you could be spending that money on your own country? Why pay money to do national research when they're not researching your town, your suburb, your backyard?
Why not just bury your head under the sheets and never get out of bed? There's nothing outside that could possibly be interesting or of use to the human race, so why even bother? Why don't we all just kill ourselves right now?
This post brought to you by the Society for Sarcastic Sendups.
- 904
- orlando,FL,USA
Let me restate myself, but I don't have a problem with space exploration(even though its irrational seeing how we'll never realistically colonize space/other planets, let alone find the origins of life out there ), my problem however is when governments the world over loot their citizens under the guise of "science" for the sake of bragging rights and national pride....it has been so ever since sputnik and very is so now.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
- 31,701
- Buckwheat City
- Dennisch
No, your problem is clearly that you have no idea what you are talking about. "science"? It's science. Go educate yourself about space exploration and everything that happens aboard the ISS, and how mankind benefits from all the experiments.
The space race ended when the US landed on the moon and the Russians couldn't build a decent rocket anymore.
The time for space willy waving is long gone in the Western world. The Eastern part is now starting to slowly catch up but they have small space willies so we don't have to fear them, yet.
- 11,274
- Sweden
- eran0004
So, I set this photo (the comet, taken from the lander) as my facebook header image. Later on I was opening another window which obscured part of the picture, and then I suddenly saw this:
Am I the only one who sees a face buried in the rock?! That is spooky.
Am I the only one who sees a face buried in the rock?! That is spooky.
CodeRedR51
Premium
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- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
Dotini
(Banned)
- 15,742
- Seattle
- CR80_Shifty
I have heard Twitter based reports that the drill was activated, the surface penetrated, and measurements taken and reported, all before the battery expired. These reports are a bit hard to accept since the lander was untethered and not sitting properly on its 3 feet.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
As the probe gathered charge yesterday it completed sending its measurements, the mission has been a definite success.
It remains to be seen how many opportunities-to-charge may arise during the comet's journey, it's hoped that as the comet nears the sun the charging opportunities will be longer.
The next stage is to land the "orbiter" on the comet, the team plan to make a controlled "crash" (it isn't a designed lander) and to kill the machine in a worthy way.
- 11,274
- Sweden
- eran0004
Let's just end it at the moon landing. The Russians are still flying their rockets.
That is a false description. First of all there's no looting. Second, it has never been a matter of bragging rights and national pride. Sure, people have taken the opportunity to create propaganda out of space flight, but propaganda have never been the reason why they've spent so much money on it.
The space programmes started with the goal of developing rockets capable of carrying nuclear warheads to any target on the surface of Earth. Sputnik had no scientific purpose, it was a way to demonstrate power. And not power as in "look, we can launch satellites", more like "look, we can drop nasty things on you from space".
Then, as the cold war got a little less chilly, space flight became a peace project. During this era scientific and commercial values became more and more important, as USA and USSR couldn't really develop weapons together and they needed to have some reason to fly into space. Again, while they were flying into space anyways, one might as well take a moment to be proud of it. But still, propaganda was not the main purpose.
Then the scientific and commercial values grew, while the peace project became less relevant. Today commercial and scientific as well as military purposes are why we fly into space. Again, while we fly into space one might as well take a moment to be proud of it, but pride is still not the reason why we fly into space.
Finally: Looking at what we've got from the space programmes, I'd argue that it's worth a lot more than it has cost. We have a much better understanding of our planet, of our solar system, of other stars, of our galaxy, of the history of the universe. We have a much better understanding of what it means to be human, what it means to be alive, what it means to have a healthy ecosystem. We have GPS, we have global communications, we have satellite TV, we have detailed and accurate weather and climate data.
Without space flight, humanity would be a lot less wealthy.
- 13,905
- Adelaide
- Neomone
Just having a thought, I imagine landing a very hot generator on what is essentially a frozen ball of ice/rock/metal/whatever would be a fantastic way to cause an explosion.
It's a good job I don't work at NASA, because I've been thinking about that since @Robin. posted that and I only just figured it out today.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
