NASA Contour Probe May Not Be Broken After All 16
RedPhoenix writes "A few friends & I got together this morning to visit the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Communication station open day, just outside of Canberra Australia. One of the NASA team mentioned that there have been indications early this morning (AESTime) of a contact with the 'Contour' probe, that has been reported to have broken in two. Perhaps some cause for optimism? The most interesting part of the day though, was probably the little old wooden crate out the back of one of the warehouses, stamped with 'NASA Voyager 1 Mission' ... Now that would look nice as a geek coffee-table."
Re:I hope NASA are getting facts right (Score:3, Funny)
Yep-- 15 more like that every year, and we're talking 1% of the defense budget.
Re:I hope NASA are getting facts right (Score:1, Insightful)
NASA's "faster, cheaper" experiments (Score:5, Insightful)
Woops, I meant to comment on this. :-)
In another thread on this probe someone said something like, "I wish NASA would make probes that work darn it!"
I thought the "faster, cheaper" experiment, where NASA would build more probes, but cheaper probes, which would carry fewer instrument packages, and be easier to build -- I thought it was a good idea. It was an experiment. NASA's plan was to accept a greater failure rate, which was supposed to be balanced by the probes overall smaller budgets. A greater proportion of these probes did fail. The public didn't like hearing about these failures.
But was the experiment a failure? Did NASA get more instruments out there, for cheaper, than if they had built a fewer number of gold-plated probes? Either way, I would say the experiment was worth trying.
Has NASA officially announced the abandonment of the faster, cheaper experiment?
And, if so, was the CONTOUR one of the last "faster, cheaper" probes.
If NASA were sending cosmonauts out there, the probes would have to be really reliable, and consequently a lot more expensive. NASA sends robot probes knowing some will fail. I wish there wasn't all this criticism when it happens.
Re:NASA's "faster, cheaper" experiments (Score:5, Interesting)
It is all about cost/benefit analysis. At some point there is an optimum spending per probe where the extra costs are not worth reducing failure risk. I don't know where that point is, but it seems like bad press tends to push the costs up a bit too high on this curve.
One approach is to do what they did in the 1960's: launch 2 identical probes at the same time. Mariner 4's partner and I think Mariner 9's partner failed, but people only remember the successful twin.
The cost of a twin probe is not double the cost of one because much of the effort is research and control software rather than just manufacturing.
Perhaps they could make the probes half-size, put 1/2 the instruments on one, and 1/2 on the other. That way if one fails you still get half the science rather than all or nothing. (Put cameras on both, however, or you have nothing for the papers if the eyed one fails.)
NASA has to also think about managing expectations, regardless of whether such expectations are rational or not. That is just part of life living with humans.
Re:NASA's "faster, cheaper" experiments (Score:1)
Can split probe still talk? (Score:4, Funny)
Thus, if it can still communicate, then what is that second spot? It looks about the same brightness, so it must be roughly the same size (barring a lucky reflection).
It would be a miracle for it to have exploded during the boost phase, yet enough of it to survive to communicate.
BTW, the links appear to have be slashdotted, if not by us, then by the press. (I guess that would be pressdotted.)
This may be the first time that Nasa gets two probes for the price of one:
Con and Tour
I have a crate (Score:1)
Or maybe I should put it on eBay.
i hadn't heard about this (Score:1)
Hmmmm....? (Score:1)
Re:Hmmmm....? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hmmmm....? (Score:1)
Re:Hmmmm....? (Score:1)
It didn't split in two...... (Score:1)