Group Wants To Recover 36-Year-Old Historic Spacecraft From Deep Space 141
An anonymous reader writes "A band of space hackers and engineers are trying to do something never done before — recover a 36 year old NASA spacecraft from the grips of deep space and time. With old NASA documents and Rockethub crowdfunding, a team led by Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing is attempting to steer ISEE-3, later rechristened ICE, the International Cometary Explorer, back into an Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. Dennis says, 'ISEE-3 can become a great teaching tool for future engineers and scientists helping with design and travel to Mars'. Only 40 days remain before the spacecraft will be out of range for recovery. A radio telescope is available, propulsion designs are in hand and the team is hoping for public support to provide the small amount needed to accomplish a very unique milestone in space exploration."
Re:Satellite smash (Score:5, Informative)
Liability insurance would be cheaper than sending you to a community college class about statistics and probability.
Warning... grammar police! (Score:4, Informative)
"a very unique milestone in space exploration"
WTF?
"unique" is not a relative adjective. There are no degrees of "unique". Something is either unique or it's not.
Aaargh!
That's why there are no such words as uniquer or uniquest
</rant>
Re:Warning... grammar police! (Score:5, Informative)
"a very unique milestone in space exploration"
WTF?
"unique" is not a relative adjective. There are no degrees of "unique". Something is either unique or it's not.
Aaargh!
That's why there are no such words as uniquer or uniquest
</rant>
Funny thing about English - many words have more than one meaning:
http://www.merriam-webster.com... [merriam-webster.com]
unique adjective \yu-nk\
3: unusual <a very unique ball-point pen> <we were fairly unique, the sixty of us, in that there wasn't one good mixer in the bunch — J. D. Salinger>
Usage Discussion of UNIQUE
Many commentators have objected to the comparison or modification (as by somewhat or very) of unique, often asserting that a thing is either unique or it is not. Objections are based chiefly on the assumption that unique has but a single absolute sense, an assumption contradicted by information readily available in a dictionary....
Re:Satellite smash (Score:4, Informative)
Hi, this is Dennis Wingo, co-project lead for this effort.
There is no need for insurance as the probability of collision is extremely small, far less than for satellites in any other orbit. At no time is this orbit coming even as close as geosynchronous orbit.
Re:Pretty interesting, until... (Score:5, Informative)
Hi this is Dennis Wingo, co project lead for the ISEE-3 reboot project.
There is still a lot of very good use that this satellite can be put to. It can be used as a real time monitor for space weather or as a tool for education. That is dignified.
Re:Warning... grammar police! (Score:5, Informative)
There are no degrees of "infinity". Something is either infinite or it's not.
Aleph-null and Aleph-one would like a word with you.