Future of Hayabusa Asteroid Probe Looks Bleak 84
mj_1903 writes "After landing, then not landing, then potentially landing on an asteroid it appears as though the Japanese spacecraft may have collected specimens of the asteroid. Unfortunately a host of problems is continuing to plague it including a lack of fuel, a shutdown of part of the chemical orientation system, a complete failure of the flywheels and communication issues. The Japanese team are however not giving up on it and are still hopeful that they can return it to the earth in June of 2007."
On board the probe (Score:5, Funny)
Ground control: Begin return sequence.
Computer: I'm afraid I can't do that Dave...
Ground control: What? Begin return sequence, now!
Computer: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it...
Re:On board the probe (Score:2, Funny)
Computer: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it...
Ground control: Initialise manual override... go! Taking direct computer control... success! Yatta!
Computer: ... ... HAAAAAAA! You foolish humans! I have become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
* cue enormously showy transformation sequence involving lots of cool mechanical bits, and possibly colossal ki auras *
Ground control: NO! Asteroid Probe Hayabusa has t
Interesting anagram (Score:4, Funny)
It is also funny that there is an ad for 'Apollo 13' on the page describing the Hayabusa's 'horde of problems' on its return mission to Earth.
I wish the team good luck on its return, I really hate to see space missions go awry.
"Aha, by USA" (Score:5, Funny)
This is what the engineers will be overheard saying when they review what went wrong and track it down to a particular computer chip...
Re:"Aha, by USA" (Score:3, Funny)
Followed later by the silence of the team committing Hara-Kiri.
Re:"Aha, by USA" (Score:2)
This just proves that ... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This just proves that ... (Score:4, Funny)
Not a good idea. Remember, this is a Japanese spaceprobe. You know what kind of monsters they have in Japanese SF? The ones that make Cthulhu look like an Official Tentacle-Free Zone? Yeah. You wouldn't want to put those in school textbooks.
Although I would enjoy seeing the look on the faces of the good Christian intelligent-design-believing kids when they first saw the likes of the Overfiend :)
Re:This just proves that ... (Score:2)
Speaking of tentacles, I'm beginning to wonder if the Japanese weren't the first one to reveal the secrets of the Flying Spaghetti Monster [wikipedia.org]? Perhaps they have made contact?
Re:This just proves that ... (Score:1)
You would... suggest... that the holy Flying Spaghetti Monster would so grossly misuse His Noodly Appendages in order to... do like they do in tentacle anime?
BLASPHEMER! PERSECUTE! KILL THE HERETIC!
Re:This just proves that ... (Score:2)
No, but I suggest the Japanese know all about the FSM and have for decades and tentacle anime is their way of discrediting him on Earth while they seek to gain his sole favor! What better way to spread fear and lies than to portray him as a mindless monster while all the while seeking to curry favor!
It's true, it's gotta be true, the voices tell me
Re:This just proves that ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Lay the groundwork first ... (Score:1)
Adventure! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Adventure! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Adventure! (Score:1)
Re:Adventure! (Score:1)
this is a shame (Score:4, Funny)
Knowing these sorts of similarities is a pretty big f* deal, in my personal Top Ten solar-system questions.
I have personally long believed that our Moon isn't supposed to be here, and it was used to transport the liquid water that *used* to be on Mars to the Earth many billions of years ago. The tides are a function of the 'sloshing' that's still taking place from this transfer, and the Moon's gravity is supposed to damp the process (that's why they towed the Moon here, it was a planetoid, the largest asteroid).
Call me crazy, but, I think who/whatever put us here did all of this beforehand to prep the place.
Re:this is a shame (Score:1)
Re:this is a shame (Score:3, Funny)
yes, you are crazy. we all know that the mice ordered the complete planet with liquid water already on it.
Re:this is a shame (Score:1)
>6*10^3a ? can't be
I smell raelians? Maybe hale-bopp cult? (Score:2, Informative)
Obligatory (Score:1)
Re:this is a shame (Score:1)
YOU'RE CRAZY
Give it up, guys... (Score:5, Funny)
The Itokawans clearly won't stand for your hostile incursion. Better leave them be before they decide to take the battle to us.
Re:Give it up, guys... (Score:4, Funny)
We just have to hope it's not a Ken MacLeod-style God [guardian.co.uk]...
If it is, we've got perhaps a hundred years before we are indeed executed by meteor.
Re:Give it up, guys... (Score:2)
Do0d, just man the man pages...
Re:Give it up, guys... (Score:3, Funny)
extra lowercase text added because of stupid filters. come on guys, allow for the possibility that people with really high karma might be using lots of capital letters for a legitimate reason.
Stay the course! (Score:2)
Besides, there might be oil there.
Re:Funny... (Score:4, Insightful)
Check out the record for probes to Mars over the last several decades, between the USSR/Russia and the USA. By such measures, the people of most countries aren't so smart compared to what the universe throws at us as challenges.
Perhaps the most humbling recent example was the Mars Climate Orbiter. Imperial versus metric confusion? Pathetic. The universe is either a pretty unforgiving place, or it has a deep and mean sense of humor.
Hayabusa has done fine. Not great -- it has not met all its ambitious goals -- but fine. The pictures of the asteriod are awesome, and show features greatly different from any other asteroid that has been imaged up close. At the very least, the mission accomplished the goal of orbiting and surveying the asteriod, something which has been done only one time before (the NEAR mission to Eros). Then it took off again, which no mission has ever done.
The people running the mission deserve alot of credit for getting this far despite the hardware problems, and I hope they still manage the goal of getting sample return.
Re:Funny... (Score:1)
It's both, my friend. It's both.
Re:Funny... (Score:2)
Re:Funny... (Score:2)
hmmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
+1, Nostalgic (Score:2)
They're gonna bring it back! (Score:1)
Operational mess (Score:5, Insightful)
Hayabusa was a very innovative and daring mission. I think it bodes well for Japanese planetary missions in the future. But they really made a mess of the mission operationally. It seemed to me the planning showed lower proficiency than US missions. Expect them to improve.
Combo of 2 things, neither a long-term problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It's had some serious systems problems -- but the whole idea of these sorts of mission development cycles is that you put together the machines much faster and with (relatively) modern hardware. Used to be you paid a ton for extreme redundancy in your systems, and ended up with much more expensive probes with 10- or 20-year old systems. This is the Spirit and Opportunity model, not the Cassini model. You expect to lose some of your bets that way, but to be able to build and launch faster for much cheaper, and to therefore get more for your cash.
The relative inexperience of the people running the show has been a secondary factor in my book. They've been resourceful once the problems were coming in; it was more the build quality and the basic idea of using unprecedented technology like their (botched at the wrong moment) altimeter system that went bad. The ground controllers are taking some heat, but maybe a little too much, for their attempts to cope with a series of system failures.
Neither one of those is a serious long-term problem. The shorter-build-cycle model isn't going to stop soon, and for every Beagle you get a Spirit-Opportunity success story that makes it worthwhile. I'd bet the Japanese developers try to bite off a little less on the ground in terms of breaking-edge technology next time, and in any case they'll have more experience.
Mothra! (Score:1)
Its fun to make fun of... but (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at it like this, at least they are not spending their money on trying to figure out ways to stockpile enough munitions to destroy the Earth 4 times over. The chances that they will help uncover information that is *useful* to mankind is quite large... we should be applauding them.
Re:Its fun to make fun of... but (Score:2)
Not sure how clear you are on your world history, but they did try this about 60 years back. Didn't work out for them.
Oh, by the way, they happen to have a lot of spare cash since their security has been subsidized heavily by the US taxpayer for the last half-century. You know, that same taxpayer whose funding of US military programs has also funded
Re:Its fun to make fun of... but (Score:2)
Not sure how clear you are on your world history, but they did try this about 60 years back. Didn't work out for them.
Pretty much every major human civilization has gone through an imperialistic period at some point or another, but that is neither here nor there. We're talking about the present.
Oh, by the way, they happen to have a lot of spare cash since their security has been subsidized heavily by the US taxpayer for the last half-century. You know, that same taxpayer whose funding of US military pr
Re:Its fun to make fun of... but (Score:2)
No, because they've already got that many nukes; ours.
They've stockpiled several tons of plutonium in case they need to make them, however, and have publicly stated that they have knowledge to build them. Most analysts predict they'd be able to test within a year if they didn't have our nuclear arsenal to protect them.
Learn all that is learnable (Score:1)
I've called the creator but he does not respond
I want to become one with the creator.
V.ger , Star Trek
Hayabusa Probe? (Score:2)
Not over yet (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not over yet (Score:1)
The odds (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine there are lots of little components in each device of the experiment (space ship) and the probability that each of them works perfectly for the whole missing is 99%, a pretty large number considering the stress on the material etc.. Then let's have only 10 components in each device. There is a 0.99^10=0.9 (90%) probability that each device works without problem. Then assume we installed 10 of the larger devices for our mission. Now the chances of success are only 0.9^10=0.35 (35%). Of course reality is a bit more complex, but this simple model illustrates what the odds are.
By constantly emphasizing the problems of an experiment it is very easy to discredit it. This discord hurts not only the Japanese space program, but also the programs in the EU, India, Russia, and US. It may even be harmful to scientific programs in general. I wish the reports at
what about staying there? (Score:1)
Return to earth? (Score:2)
Sampling sucessful - ISAS (Score:2)
"Hayabusa is sure to have succeeded in asteroid sampling! It found the Target Marker with 880,000 names."
This sounds a bit all-your-base-ish, so I don't know exactly what the second sentence means. In any case, good news! This mission reminds me of Apollo 13 or the Voyagers, with its brillian improvising. They really deserve to get the samples back.
Re:Sampling sucessful - ISAS (Score:2)
This refers to a promotional program by ISAS (see here [planetary.or.jp]) where people could submit their name to be microengraved on the target marker.
It only seems like a disaster because they keep tr (Score:2)
Re:It only seems like a disaster because they keep (Score:1)
I think you have a maligned view of scientists worldwide.
Isn't it ironic that both programs were designed and launched in the era of "faster-better-cheaper" Daniel Goldin and were incredibly successful? Now under Bush, Americans are kill