Last of the Great Observatories to Launch 19
jqpublic writes "The last in NASA's
Great Observatory Program, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), is set to launch in the
wee hours on Monday. The launch can viewed live on NASA's Countdown web site. Interestingly, SIRTF will not be in Earth orbit, but will drift away from Earth by about 15 million kilometers per year. This allows the telescope to cool to very low temperatures (30K), which reduces dramatically the amount of cryogens it needs to carry."
Norms Observation (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe thier they will all spell just like me.
Could it be the Planet of the Apes?
\. *.*
Re:Norms Observation (Score:2, Funny)
If not, why do I keep meeting all these hairy women? Oh god, they're lying to me, ahhhhhhg, now I need a shower.
Re:Norms Observation (Score:3, Funny)
Crash coming soon (Score:2, Funny)
It's new name... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's new name... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's new name... (Score:2)
Re:It's new name... (Score:3, Informative)
Why wait till after the launch? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's new name... (Score:2)
the last... (Score:2, Funny)
The year is 1987 and NASA launches the last of America's deep space probes....
15 mil km/yr?1 (Score:3, Insightful)
But, I guess on a solar system scale, it's not exactly speeding, either
Great Observatories (Score:2, Informative)
It sure took them long enough to launch *half* of the GO-IR-telescope. The original Great Observatories IR telescope was redesigned several years ago into two less expensive versions, one in shuttle serviceable orbit, one in far earth orbit. The serviceable one was cancelled, and the other one was redesigned to become the current SIRTF
There's a problem with NASA currently though, they ditched Compton, compromising the promise of the Great Observatories series. Without the Gamma Ray Observatory, they can't
Re:Great Observatories (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to keep in mind that NASA depends on public funding, and that "the public", not to mention the current US president, have absolutely no clue about what counts as good science vs smoke and mirrors.
Hubble takes the most "pretty" pictures, thus people can ooh and aah over all the great "science" it does. Compton may have discovered features of our universe that blow away anything Hubble has done in terms of importance (such as the isotropism in GRBs), but how do you make that into a pretty picture? So, it gets axed, and we'll replace Hubble to create even more eye-candy for the public. Perhaps, if we get lucky, NASA can pad the budget on JW enough to launch a few "real" missions over its lifetime.
Hmm, reading that, I sound overly critical of Hubble - I don't mean to, I realize it serves a number of very useful and scientifically-valid purposes. I just see its popularity (and the answer to your question) as relating more to its flashyness than to its utility.
That's a big satellite (Score:2)
Retrolaunchers - the better way (Score:3, Interesting)
As some astronomer pointed out at the time, the repair mission for the Hubble cost more than all the proposed ground-based observatories put together, like the Very Large Telescope [eso.org] and the California Extremely Large Telescope. [ucolick.org]
NASA - The government version of Hollywood.
Re:Retrolaunchers - the better way (Score:1)