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Space Science

Happy 30th Birthday, Pioneer 10 170

Posted by timothy from the not-yet-over-the-hill dept.
tlon writes: "Pioneer 10, the spacecraft that brought us the first pictures of Jupiter, turned 30 today. Launched in 1972, the probe is now some 7.4 billion miles away, as it cruises out towards Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus. NASA will attempt to contact the spacecraft today, (it was successfully contacted last year), but the round trip time is over 22 hours. How's that for a ping latency? See Nasa's Pioneer 10 Page for more details."
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Happy 30th Birthday, Pioneer 10 More

Happy 30th Birthday, Pioneer 10

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  • Ping. (Score:4, Funny)

    by saintlupus ( 227599 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @04:32PM (#3098765)
    the round trip time is over 22 hours. How's that for a ping latency?

    Could be worse. They could be trying to get to it through @Home.

    --saint

    • Re:Ping. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @05:03PM (#3098881)
      Ping time don't bother me. My skillz are so 1337, I could dial in from that rocket and still rack up a couple dozen frags per game with the rail gun.

      Those poor sux0rs just wouldn't know they lost until the next day.

    • You'll be lucky if you can get a ping back in less than a week....
    • Hey, my wife's been pinging me all day about the chores, and I still haven't answered. But then, I'm exactly nine years older than the satellite, so I'm entitled.

      gm (won't look so good with so many miles on me)

    • Re:Ping. (Score:2, Informative)

      by limber ( 545551 )
      They appear to have contacted Pioneer! Here's a short article [torontostar.com] on it.

      "The signal was loud and clear and I'd like to say this contact worked like a charm," said Larry Lasher, the mission's project manager.

      A radio telescope in Spain received the response 22 hours and six minutes after the signal was sent from us on friday.

      Cool!

  • Hah! (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Quixote ( 154172 )
    the round trip time is over 22 hours. How's that for a ping latency?

    My ISP does that sitting here on earth. Beat that, NASA!

    • I think NASA beat everybody with this: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      All the wear, pitting, and erosion that Pioneer 10 has sustained are probably over now. The asteroid belt and the severe conditions of Jupiter have already been experienced. Now, Pioneer is in the vacuum of space where the average spatial density of molecules is one trillionth the density of the best vacuum we can draw on Earth. We expect Pioneer to last an indeterminate period of time, probably outlasting its home planet, the Earth. In 5 billion years, the Sun will become a red giant, expand, envelop the orbit of the Earth, and consume it. Pioneer will still be out there in interstellar space. Erosional processes in the interstellar environment are largely unknown, but are very likely less efficient than erosion within the solar system, where a characteristic erosion rate, due largely to micrometeoritic pitting, is of the order of 1 Angstrom/yr. Thus a plate etched to a depth ~ 0.01 cm should survive recognizable at least to as distance ~ 10 parsecs, and most probably to 100 parsecs. Accordingly, Pioneer 10 and any etched metal message aboard it are likely to survive for much longer periods than any of the works of Man on Earth.

      Read that last sentence again. Pioneer 10 is likely to become one of the longest lasting things that mankind has ever created. Think deeply.... that is one heavy-duty accomplishment.

  • Now that is engineering (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ColGraff ( 454761 ) <maron1 AT mindspring DOT com> on Saturday March 02, 2002 @04:39PM (#3098791) Homepage Journal
    If they do actually manage to contact the probe, that would be very, very cool. They don't build 'em like this anymore, gentlemen - all you need to do to see that is look at the Mars probes. What's really goofy is how now, one of the farthest man-made objects from Earth is completely, mind-bogglingly obsolete from a computing standpoint.
    • Maybe that way it won't pose as much of a threat to anybody who finds it and they won't bother to come and investigate. It still amazes me how a bunch of scientific types can be so naive that they assume anyone they manage to contact will be just oh so friendly and willing to coexist. Kind of like George Adamski's "space brothers," don't you think? Have these characters all lost their blinking minds? Do we really want to advertize our existence before we have a decent sized fleet in orbit? But then again, they *are* engineers.
      • Remind me never to move next door to you. Most people I know respond to new neighbors by bringing over food and generally being nice. Your first instinct, I take it, would be to kill them.

        Sweat
      • Engineers aren't na&ïve; scientists are. The difference between theory and practice & all that. The engineers of my acquaintance have been fairly realistic about this sort of thing; the physicists, astronomers, chemists & suchlike have tended to be rather more starry-eyed. There have been some notable exceptions, of course.
      • It doesn't even have 1-wheel drive.
      • Apparently, fuel mileage is horrible, as they only got it out of our atmosphere with enough drive to get it to go a certain way.
      • No steering wheel... in fact, no steering at all.
      • The only radio it's equipped with is one with NASA, which mainly consists of things that remind you of 11th grade pre-calc, which makes CB in Iowa sound like the greatest radio station ever.
      • No brakes, which would definitely help when you get a little too close to a star.
      • No reverse. No park. Apparently, no stopping for a bathroom break or for lunch.
      • No legroom. No room for anyone period.
      • No Internet. The only computer on there has the processing power of a stapler.
      • No climate control, which would certainly help in -350 F temperatures in space.


      The biggest plus I can think of that Pioneer 10 has with a car is cruise control. Of course, on Pioneer you can't turn it off.
    • They don't build 'em like this anymore, gentlemen
      In fact, they rarely built 'em like that back then. My birthday is 2 March 1973, exactly one year younger than Pioneer 10, and I already feel like I'm falling apart. ;^)

    • The reverse may apply, too (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rob Cebollero ( 242701 ) <thecenterfordece ... AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday March 02, 2002 @05:26PM (#3098937)
      Imagine if one day we *do* see an extraterrestrial probe land here. As far advanced as it will appear to us, it may only be an ancient relic of its creating civilisation.

    • Re:Now that is engineering (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @06:17PM (#3099114) Homepage
      and that is another example of writing bug-free code. (something that programmers still claim cannot happen) That probe was built by some awesome engineers... with a awesome budget...
      • [...]and that is another example of writing bug-free code.

        Actually, I seem to remember reading that Pioneer 10 didn't have on-board computers, as in 1969 it was impractical to build a radiation-shielded computer with the space and cost constraints of the Pioneer project.

        I couldn't find a description of the Pioneer 10 hardware, so I could be wrong, though. I did find this page [us-tech.com], which is a sort of an interesting piece about how they replaced the PDP-11 which was used to talk to the Pioneer.
        • Actually, I seem to remember reading that Pioneer 10 didn't have on-board computers[...]

          Well, what do you know. According to Intel, the Pioneer 10 had a 4004 on board [intel.com]. Neat. So, as the old joke goes, in 1972 it took an Intel 4004 to operate a deep-space probe. In 2002, it takes a GHz PIII to run Windows. Things have gone terribly wrong.
      • A quick rummage on Intel's site for the '4004' that Ivan found reveals a tech specs [intel.com] sheet which shows that the 4004 had 640 bytes of addressable memory and a 4-bit bus. Since the number of bugs in code is broadly proportional to the size of the code, it is not unreasonable to achieve bug-free in 640 bytes (or at least, free of bugs that actually cause a problem that cannot be resolved without modifying the code).
    • They don't build 'em like this anymore, gentlemen - all you need to do to see that is look at the Mars probes.

      You mean Mars Surveyor, which is doing a fantastic job and sending back detailed information... or do you mean probes like Galleo and NEAR, which lasted long past their designed missions and went on to perform many extra tasks well past their termination date?

      Landing a craft is still risky business... doing flybys is pretty simple in comparison (though still fantastically complicated).

      --
      Evan

    • Not sure but is it running a RCA 1802 on some gem substrate or was that a later one?
    • "They don't build 'em like this anymore, gentlemen - all you need to do to see that is look at the Mars probes."

      You should really compare Pioneer 10 v. Galileo, Cassini or other, similar-costing, "full QA" projects from NASA. The "better, faster, cheaper" Mars probes that gained a lot of noteriety in their failures are NOT good comparisons based on their cost and lack of equivalent QA/testing.

      Simple engineering risk analysis showed NASA that the orders of magnitude in additional cost are worth it to guarantee an over 99% chance of success, versus less than 50% in the BFC approach. NASA will no longer attempt to build probes like those three Mars BFC projects (of which, only one was a success) again.

  • Google Cache (karma whoring...) (Score:3, Informative)

    by H0NGK0NGPH00EY ( 210370 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @04:48PM (#3098818) Homepage
    Google Cache [google.com]

    Enjoy!

  • google cache (Score:5, Informative)

    by SevenTowers ( 525361 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @04:48PM (#3098819) Homepage
    here [google.com]
    and
    here [google.com]

  • Klingon Target Fodder (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02, 2002 @04:53PM (#3098839)
    Once this sucker crosses the neutral zone, it becomes fair game
  • NASA will attempt to contact the spacecraft today, (it was successfully contacted last year), but the round trip time is over 22 hours

    How, exactly, is "today" defined? Do they send out a signal at 1AM and hope to get a reply back at 11PM?
    • Actually, I'd say they'd probably wait until the transmitter that is still capable of talking to the probe is 1 hour past being lined up with it, send 'PING', and wait for the earth to go around to the 1-hour-short mark. But that's just me and my illusion of a round Earth speaking.

      • Actually, I'd say they'd probably wait until the transmitter that is still capable of talking to the probe is 1 hour past being lined up with it, send 'PING', and wait for the earth to go around to the 1-hour-short mark. But that's just me and my illusion of a round Earth speaking.



        Wouldn't that make the signal go off at an angle that would never come close to where the probe was? Imagining that the probe is at the 0 degree mark, you would try to get this to work by blasting a signal at the 345 degree mark and then listen for it at the 15 degree mark? With the probe 7.5 billion miles away, basic trig says that you are shooting the beam 4.33 billion miles to the one side of the probe and listen for it 4.33 billion miles to the other side of it. The earth might be rotating, but the beam is taking a straight line path from where you fired it.



        I would imagine that you have one ground station send the ping fired at the 0 degree mark and 22 hours later another ground station would be listening for it while lined up at that 0 degree mark or somewhere within a cone of reception. Aren't there some communications satellites set up in places near earth to catch the transmissions of probes like this in case the right listening stations are not lined up, sort of as a relay system?

        • What I was saying is that those satellites you mention are a lot newer than this deep space probe is, so it may be that there is only one ground station that can talk to the probe. But note that you can aim radio signals, 15 degrees east or 15 degrees west or whatever it takes, such that at any time within the 12-hour span that you're on the side of the earth that can 'see' the probe, you can beam a signal off to it and listen for one back.
  • I'm impressed that something built in 1972 is still functioning. Especially when you consider the rigors of space travel, that's quite a feat!
    • rigors of space travel.
      sure.
      the thing is in VACUUM and goes at a CONSTANT velocity.
      The probability of it hitting ANYTHING out there is like throwing a stone off of a telsat above europe and hitting a winning lottery ticket.
      • True, true. But you gotta remeber it's hella cold out there. So you gotta build circuts that work in very low temperatures. and yes, there is stuff out there. Plus all sorts of radiation, etc to deal with.
      • The thing is traveling very fast and is known to have been hit by teeny rock fragments a number of times. All you need is one little thing to hit it in the right spot to end it all. I'm not sure it's going to make it to Aldebaran since it wasn't built with the smarts to make it through the Oort cloud.
        • And considering that it would take a few million years to do so anyway, I don't think really matters whether it gets there or not. Let's all hope a comet hits it or something so we see something cool in our lifetime.

  • talk about clear reception.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by supernova87a ( 532540 ) <kepler1@@@hotmail...com> on Saturday March 02, 2002 @05:04PM (#3098882)
    The amazing thing is that the satellite is sending out a signal with as much power as maybe a watch battery, and we're receiving it from over 10^9 km away...

    Of course, the receiving dish is as big as a football field, but still.
  • How can it be going to Alderaan? Don't those NASA geeks know that Alderaan was destroyed by the first Death Star a long time ago?

  • IP address? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ZaneMcAuley ( 266747 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @05:13PM (#3098908) Homepage Journal
    So what is the ip address of this thing so i can perform a port scan :D

    Would make a killer proxy tho :)

  • I have an idea (Score:2, Interesting)

    by crystalplague ( 547876 )
    What if NASA sent out a space probe every year with pretty much the same trajectory. This way each probe could have modern technology, be able to probe faster/better, and if they kept launching them every year, the farthest one would only have to transmit as far as the one release the year after the first was launched so that the 2nd one would amplify and retransmit to the 3rd one and so on and so on.

    ok, now bring on the inevitable jokes about a beowolf cluster of probes.

    • Re:I have an idea (Score:5, Informative)

      by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @05:29PM (#3098945) Homepage
      Two major problems:

      First, hardware fails occasionally. The probes would have to be able to send their signals back at least two hops in order to avoid having one failed probe "orphan" many others.

      Second, the trajectories rely upon a particular alignment of planets. If we sent out probes year after year, they'd end up going in completely different directions.

  • pioneer 10. (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Hollow Room ( 561885 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @05:18PM (#3098921)
    why contact it? Whats it going to say? Still dark. Still dark. Still dark.
  • it'll take 22 hours for the server to recover from being Slashdotted.
  • I know that these probes are currently unmanned - but there is always talk of putting people on mars, or sending crews to far away galaxies.

    What do they do for communications then? I mean, Pioneer 10 isn't that far away in terms of the space that we know of. And it takes 22hrs to receive a response.

    Is there anything that will go faster than radio (light does, but isn't as easy to use I don't think). Even with light, it still takes an extremely long time.

    Does anyone know what sort of data rates you can support over these distances, and what kind of mad FEC and other tricks you would have to implement to make a usable system?

    I suppose if they do all this going through tunnels that warp time and space, they'll work out something better than conventional radio, it's just that in films, they seem to have things like phones, never mind being a million light years away
    • light is going at the same speed as "radio".
      • Radio waves actually tends to propagate slightly slower than light. Which is why I said that. Going 1% faster over these distances would save a considerable amount of time.
        • Radio waves ARE light. they travel at the same speed, cuz they are the same thing.
        • Actually, as has been pointed out by another reader, light and "radio" are both just various wavelengths of electromagnetic energy. In a vacuum, they travel the same speed. On Earth, radio is slower because air affects radio wavelengths and visible light differently.
          • To be fair to the poster, there is also an effect due to traveling through the dilute plasma of interstellar space. Honest to goodness, there is an Insterstellar Medium whose magnetic properties affect the propogation of radio waves. See, for example, this page [unh.edu].
            • True, the interstellar medium would have a slowing effect, but it would be the same value for all frequencies of electrmagnetic radiation, and therefore no difference in speed between radio and light.
              • Actually, no. The time delay is a frequency-dependant thing. To quote this paper [nrao.edu] (or rather, its googlized text at this location) [google.com],

                The ionized interstellar medium causes a dispersion ofthe pulses, such that pulses emitted at low radio frequencies arrive later than those emitted at higher frequencies

                So radio waves will travel slightly less quickly than visible light.
          • And I point out again, that radio waves, over any given distance, will travel slightly slower than light. In the earths atmosphere, they will travel slower. I did not know the exact terms for it, but gilroy pointed out other effects. Magnetic fields and ionised gases, more so than any conventional medium, will slow radio waves down. It does depend on wavelength.

            This means that radio transmissions are slower than light transmissions. It wasn't really the issue of the post either, I was interested in fast than light communications

            Incidentally, they have known that radio waves travel slower than light for many years. Look up data on radio telescopes.

        • Re:Lond distance comms (Score:2, Informative)

          by Erazmus ( 145656 )
          Check out The Speed of Light [utk.edu] for a reference to the fact that light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation are the same thing, and therefore travel at the same speed.

          Now, if they're travelling through different mediums, then their speed is different. An interesting chart showing the different speeds through different mediums can be found here [what-is-th...-light.com].
    • Light and Radio are both forms of electromagnetic radiation. They both travel at the same speed - 2.998x10^8 m/s in a vacuum.

    • Re:Lond distance comms (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      first, as everyone here has said, in space radio = light in speed.

      second, noone has cracked quantum physics enough to discover a way to transmit using another dimension or creating or using wormholes or other FTL technology theories. AS soon as you see proof of multi-dimensional detection, or wormholes, trans-positional quarks, etc.. then I would guess that comms would be the first to follow.

      so either you need to wait about 100 years or hope that a major breakthrough in chaos mathematics or quantum physics.
      • The biggest kink in any method of faster-than-light travel OR communication is not the actual method of locomotion (wormholes, hyperspace, warp drive, other dimensions, pixie dust) but the problem of causality and the unsolvable paradoxes that can be created with a faster-than-light signal that carries information (or the FTL courier ship carrying a message).

        Check out the Relativity and FTL Travel FAQ [purdue.edu] for a better explanation than I can give. I for one hope that Einstein is wrong... the universe is so much more exciting in Star Wars.

      • There is a tangle Quantum effect that basicaly locks two particles together. Was proven just a few weeks about. So shake one partitle shakes the other. Not much futher in creating instant radio from that.
    • A Flatmate and I came up with the idea of sending information by gravity fluctuations, which we think should transmit data instantaneously. But short of dipping control rods in and out of a very big nuclear reactor, we can't think of how this could be achieved.

      Furthermore, one of us is a pure mathematician and the other an elec eng attempt, so neither of us has a clue about the physics, although we suspect quantum physics probably breaks everything in our cunning little scheme :-)

      --
      From Phil
  • I wonder if the ping will be faster than the links in the story after they've been slashdotted...
  • I wonder if it's still doing something... like distributed.net [distributed.net].

    Or is it just flying through space, 100% idle? :-)
  • > probe is now some 7.4 billion miles away, as it > cruises out towards Aldebaran

    Alderaan? Oh, aldebaran... Pardon.

    > it was successfully contacted last year), but
    > the round trip time is over 22 hours

    I remember we shashdotted a C-64 once, but a spacecraft?
  • "That's not a moon, that's a space probe!"

    *ducks, runs*
  • " Oh my god...it's full of stars!"

  • Say in a hundred years... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vishniac ( 548699 ) <adfoiusdf@noSPam.sariuoisdkl.com> on Saturday March 02, 2002 @07:05PM (#3099259)
    ...we invent faster-than-light travel. Should we go out there and collect Pioneer 10 and the Voyager probes and everything else we've launched and put them in a museum for posterity? Or should we let them continue to drift through space, humanity's silent ambassadors to the stars?

    Just a question.

    • We could probably collect them without FTL travel. They're not exactly moving at c. But to do that we'll need something much more economical than our current propulsion technology.
    • I vote for letting it continue on its way. The interesting conclusion on the Pioneer status page is that "Pioneer 10 and any etched metal message aboard it are likely to survive for much longer periods than any of the works of Man on Earth." This is because in about 5 billion years - give or take a few months, our sun will expand and consume Earth.

      One of the most enjoyable parts of reading the DUNE series of books by Frank Herbert is that the Mona Lisa pops up after having been removed from Earth many thousands of years previously.

      To ensure Pioneer 10 is not all that's left of us, we need to start crating things up now and storing them off planet.

      • Wasn't there an article that was submitted to Slashdot stating that in 3 billion years our galaxy would collide with a neighboring galaxy? In that case there would certainly be a lot less time that we think. Being closer to the outer rim, we might be on the leading edge of that and be consumed should we pass too close to another star. No space probe is going to survive that.
        • No; in most cases, when galaxies collide, no stars even collide at all. The interstellar distances are great enough to make it improbable, even with the millions and billions of stars involved in such a collision.

          So the same luck of numbers probably protects Pioneer 10, and some of our other probes ...

    • .we invent faster-than-light travel. Should we go out there and collect Pioneer 10 and the Voyager probes and everything else we've launched and put them in a museum for posterity? Or should we let them continue to drift through space, humanity's silent ambassadors to the stars?

      We will let them drift. However, once extra-solar system travel becomes dirt cheap, these probes will become tourist traps. Whole shiploads of little brats will go to visit them on field trips. They will become surrounded by porta-potties, discarded hamburger boxes, and T-shirt stands (in all 3 dimensions).

    • All the wear, pitting, and erosion that Pioneer 10 has sustained are probably over now. The asteroid belt and the severe conditions of Jupiter have already been experienced. Now, Pioneer is in the vacuum of space where the average spatial density of molecules is one trillionth the density of the best vacuum we can draw on Earth. We expect Pioneer to last an indeterminate period of time, probably outlasting its home planet, the Earth. In 5 billion years, the Sun will become a red giant, expand, envelop the orbit of the Earth, and consume it. Pioneer will still be out there in interstellar space. Erosional processes in the interstellar environment are largely unknown, but are very likely less efficient than erosion within the solar system, where a characteristic erosion rate, due largely to micrometeoritic pitting, is of the order of 1 Angstrom/yr. Thus a plate etched to a depth ~ 0.01 cm should survive recognizable at least to as distance ~ 10 parsecs, and most probably to 100 parsecs. Accordingly, Pioneer 10 and any etched metal message aboard it are likely to survive for much longer periods than any of the works of Man on Earth.

      Read that last sentence again. Pioneer 10 is likely to become one of the longest lasting things that mankind has ever created. Think deeply.... that is one heavy-duty accomplishment. We should leave it out there just for that reason.
    • No.

      Just an answer.

  • Scene from a future alien press conference... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Robber Baron ( 112304 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @08:29PM (#3099484) Homepage
    In what has proven to be one of the most sensational discoveries in recent times, scientists have announced that they have discovered a probe originating from a far away alien race. This probe contains a plaque containing a mysterious cryptic message. [nasa.gov] We go live to an update from the scientific team studying the probe...

    "After much careful studying of the plaque and it's contents we believe we have determined the approximate nature of the message it contains..."

    "It says: Get your free porn here!"

  • So what's in the ping? Top 10: (Score:4, Funny)

    by phloda ( 530937 ) on Saturday March 02, 2002 @09:06PM (#3099571) Journal
    1. Are wethere yet?
    2. Are we there yet
    3. Arewe there yet?
    4. Arewe there yet?
    5. Are we there yet?
    6. Arewe there yet?
    7. Are we there yet?
    8. Are wethere yet?
    9. Are we there yet?
    10. Are we there yet?
  • Of corse, you already knew that (0.04c would be too good to be true).

  • Gravity Mystery (Score:2, Informative)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )

    Pioneer 10 is part of a Gravity Mystery that is yet to be solved. A story about it:

    http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/05/21/gravity.m ystery/ [cnn.com]

    Gravity still stumps physicists like almost nothing else. This may be a hint for a new breakthru in our understanding of gravity.

  • Apperently the attempt to contact the Pioneer 10 spacecraft was sucessfull!!! This story [yahoo.com] over at Yahoo has all the details.

  • Contact made! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gogo Dodo ( 129808 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @04:06AM (#3100565)
    Pioneer 10 has responded! [yahoo.com]
  • Someone correct me if I'm wrong here...

    7,400,000,000 miles = 119,066,000,000 kilometers
    speed of light = 299,792,458 meters per second
    which equals 299,792.458 kilometers per second

    119,066,000,000 / 299,792.458

    approximately equals 397,161 seconds
    which equals 110.3225 hours

    So, if the Pioneer spacecraft were going the speed of light from the beginning, it would have only taken it less than 5 days to get where it is today, 30 years later. Wow! Anyone getting close to inventing speed of light travel yet?

  • Pioneer 6 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Catmeat ( 20653 )
    I suppose I better submit the obligitory comment to a Pioneer 10 story, that is the oldest functioning spacecraft is actually Pioneer 6. This was launched on the 16th of December 1965 and orbits the sun, roughly midway between Earth and Mars. It was last contacted in 2000. Story [space.com]

    Deep-space spacecraft tend to me much longer lived than Earth orbiting ones as they aren't subject to Van-Allen radiation, nasty atomic oxygen effects plus the thermal cycling stresses you get from going from sunshine into shadow and back into sunshine every obit.

  • Wow I suppose my latency wasn't all that bad with counter-strike...

    Wow Pioneer is 30, I am a little over that and I almost share a birthday with her and we also talk to our family once a year...=)

  • Happy Birthday Pioneer 10..

    http://beldin.nu/pioneer_10_ping.jpg [beldin.nu]

  • UPDATE 12:05EST - CONTACT MADE (Score:3, Informative)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <[moc.liamg>maps ... uj>maps_evomer> on Sunday March 03, 2002 @01:09PM (#3101484) Homepage
    Just saw on CNN that contact was made via a radio telescope just east of Los Angeles.
  • Too bad there are no harddrives big enough on that thing to be able to backup all the earth's history as we know it. We could still do it, back up everything we can possibly think of onto non magnetic storage devices, some DVDs I guess and send all this stuff to space.

    On a lighter note, what are the taxes for running a business out of a satelite flying some 7.4 billion km away from earth in space? Could we have a beow... sorry

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