Genesis: Data in good condition 193
Oxidation writes "Space.com is reporting that the Genesis satellite crash isn't as bad as it appeared to be in the first place. Furthermore, a prime particle-gathering device "appears intact" states Don Sevilla. (Genesis payload recovery leader at NASA's JPL)"
Thing is. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thing is. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if they were not contaminated already, taking them with a pinch of salt would do the trick....
Future scientific analysis... (Score:5, Funny)
Future scientific analysis will show that the matter of our solar system is made out of a sandy substance that comes from a region of space called yootah. It is everywhere and permeates everything as we know it.
This also has lead to new techniques at Nasa that will allow them to rescue expensive space missions with a pair of tweezers.
All in all, I'd call it a good day.
Re:Thing is. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Thing is. (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise, with a few dozen micrograms of total material, tossing in several kilograms of dirt and doubtlessly several grams of fine dust inside the capsule will make determining what materials are extraterrestial in origin difficult indeed. Determining quantities of any substance which is more than a few parts-per-billion in earth soil or atmosphere is going to be extraordinarily difficult, and any results will be very questionable, unfortunately.
Re:Thing is. (Score:2)
With a clod of dirt, actually.
--riney
Re:Thing is. (Score:3, Funny)
should be easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:should be easy (Score:2, Troll)
Re:should be easy (Score:5, Informative)
utah dust particles didnt impact the collectors at several km/s.
if that had actually happened, the probe would have been completely vaporized, there would have been a crater a hundred meters wide instead of a few meters. instead of the probe going 'crunch' as it did, there would have been a huge explosion, blast wave, and lots of dead bystanders.
the collector was sealed, and only broke open after the probe hit the ground at only 200km/h instead of several km/s.
so there's no problem after all.
+1 insightful? methinks some
Re:should be easy (Score:3, Interesting)
For that matter, we do learn cheesy physics that young even here, but it tends to be in a very pop, sound-bitey way. For example, "
Re:Thing is. (Score:2)
Re:Thing is. (Score:5, Funny)
Pure: We only dropped a little on the floor.
Extremely pure: We didn't drop any on the floor.
NASA has now added this:
Adequately pure: We slammed it into the Utah desert floor, but at less than 200 miles per hour so it's probably okay.
Re:Thing is. (Score:3, Funny)
Actually they tried to hit SCO but missed.
Kirk. Kirk, you're still alive, my old friend. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Kirk. Kirk, you're still alive, my old friend. (Score:2, Funny)
I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you & I intend go on hurting you. I will leave you as you left me, as you left her, marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet...... buried alive. buried alive. buried alive.
Re:Kirk. Kirk, you're still alive, my old friend. (Score:2, Funny)
Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
Buried alive,
Buried alive,
Buried aliiiivvveee...
KHHHHAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!
(So I'm feeling a bit cheeky today. So sue me. No, I'm not worth anything.)
Kirk says (Score:5, Funny)
Khan "Then you will transfer all data pertaining the project named..Genesis"
Kirk "Genesis? What's that?"
Khan "Don't insult my intelligence Kirk"
Kirk "Im not, the enterprise "SuperComputer," is working busily to find money-saving deals for you. You can even name your own price for this 'Genesis' "
Khan "Damn, I payed too much for staying at Ceti Alpha V"
Good news from NASA! (Score:5, Funny)
They just saved a ton of money on their car insurance...
Re:Good news from NASA! (Score:4, Funny)
Whoever knew there'd be real Men In Black-- and they'd work for JPL?
Re:Good news from NASA! (Score:2)
Speaking of sci-fi, does anyone know if this is the same Gentry Lee that co-wrote the latter part of the Rama Series with Arthur C. Clarke? I seem to recall hearing he's an engineer of some kind...
Maybe by "future sample returns", he means a big honking cylinder full of robots and aliens, on a mission for God?
Re:Good news from NASA! (Score:2)
Re:Good news from NASA! (Score:4, Informative)
Over who, though? NASA employees had been eligible to get insurance from Government Employee's Insurance COmpany long before said company opened their doors to the general public, so maybe their rates aren't as good as they imply...
Re:Good news from NASA! (Score:2)
Re:Good news from NASA! (Score:3, Interesting)
Probe (Score:5, Interesting)
No matter how much dirt you pour into that system, any particles that are not common on earth would still be a very interesting finding!
"It is amazing given the amount of breach in the canister just how clean it is inside" Sevilla said. "We're not talking about great clods of dirt."
As much as they were overestimating the initial amount of damage, I think they are underestimating now. No matter how little amount of dust has entered into that system, it still has contamination. Contamination is like pregnancy. Either it is, or it isn't. "Genesis brought back a tiny sampling of the raw material of the Sun, a sample weighing no more than a few grains of salt." [genesismission.org] Likely many particles that were captured in space are similiar the particles here on earth; however, with the contamination I am not sure how you can seperate the true origin of the particles... especially when such small amounts are involved. Earth dust >>> sun dust.
Can you tell which of these are covered with space particles [genesismission.org] and which are covered with space dirt?
Re:Probe (Score:5, Interesting)
They just have to be very careful cleaning the surface, and they can still extract the trapped particles.
Re:Probe (Score:2)
Did we need research to know that?
Re:Probe (Score:5, Interesting)
I's sorry, but I think these pictures tell a hilarious story! Photo 1 with the helicopters overlooking the carnage is quite good!
Re:Probe (Score:2)
Re:Probe (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Probe (Score:3, Funny)
I guess you didn't see (or read) "The Andromeda Strain."
Just kidding, of course.
Re:Probe (Score:2)
Are you saying that some breach reaked into the cannister?! Werr... at reast this way we can be sure it is squeaky-crean!
-b
Budget cuts (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Budget cuts (Score:3, Funny)
I think you might be taking your knowledge of the English language for granite. ;)
Re:Budget cuts (Score:3, Funny)
I think you might be taking your knowledge of the English language for granite.
Heh. That wasn't gneiss.
Re:Budget cuts (Score:2)
The fact that it crashed aside, of couse.
Re:Budget cuts (Score:2)
The crash itself could be used as an excuse for budget cuts, especially if nothing could be salvaged.
If NASA wants to get creative, it could be used to greatly increase funding as in: "Senator, did you know we have dozens of things that size in orbit? Did you know we can make them land with an accuracy of....OH, about the size of a car?"
Queue speil about accident insurance.
lol... (Score:5, Funny)
And to think I freaked out when I dropped my bookbag with my laptop inside it. They should have used something better than a parachute.
Re:lol... (Score:5, Informative)
Should've gone with the Copper-Top! (TM) =)
Re:lol... (Score:2)
No wonder the probe chose to off itself.
That's a huge relief. (Score:4, Funny)
Great news! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's good to see that at least some of my tax dollars went into some worst-case scenario planning. =)
Re:Great news! (Score:4, Informative)
worst case scenarios (Score:4, Insightful)
i wouldnt be suprised if they engineered the probe in such a way that even in catastrophic failure (eg lawn dart) there would still be a good chance of viable data.
Re:Great news! (Score:4, Funny)
Well, the body of Genesis appears to be rather soundly built. Of course, the parachute that was designed to slow it down was not soundly built. When you think of it that way, your statement can be interpreted this way:
"Hey, that's a well-built car! Except for the friggin' brakes!"
Re:Great news! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll just jump in and be serious here -- actually, according to the article, the parachute was working, but what happened was instead a communications failutre. Seems like they couldn't tell it to use them for some reason.
A semi-automatic thing knowing when it enters the atmosphere like the Spirit/Opportunity probes would maybe have been safer?
But then again, this whole thing was designed to be a publicity stunt with a cool
Re:Great news! (Score:2, Funny)
Anyway, the guys that built this probe probably kicked ass on that exercise...
Re:Great news! (Score:2, Informative)
IIRC, the team that tried a radical teepee design lost because their parachute failed to open and the egg suspended in a pair of pantyhose in the crumpled nosecone got scrambled.
The winning team had a conventional design that had an impressive lift-off, had a nice recovery deployment and had a good payload compartment that protected the egg from the shock of landing.
Preliminary Results (Score:5, Funny)
"We're finding embedded silicon dioxide particles that are unique to Utah."
First thought (Score:3, Funny)
"You're the ones who come up with this shit! Why, I bet you have a bunch of guys sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up, and somebody backing them up. What's your contingency plan?"
And then I went, "eww," and had to look away..
Article (Score:5, Informative)
The craft was supposed to deploy a parachute and be retrieved in the air by a helicopter. Instead it broke apart on impact. Amazingly, scientists say, much of the contents -- microscopic particles that once rode the solar wind and are now embedded on shattered collector plates -- should be salvageable.
In a teleconference with reporters today, mission officials said contamination is their greatest worry, since desert dirt entered the capsule. They need to retrieve the Sun samples in pristine form. The goal is to learn more about the Sun's composition and the history of the solar system and planet formation.
The team might seek advice on handling the wafer-thin collector devices from the semiconductor industry, said Don Burnett, Genesis principal investigator from the California Institute of Technology.
Surprise
"We should be surprised that we have anything," said Don Sevilla, Genesis payload recovery leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Sevilla said experts are "peeling back the layers of the onion," using a flashlight and a small mirror on a stick to explore inside the fractured, garbage-can-sized capsule. A prime particle-gathering device "appears intact," he said, and another appears to be "in very good condition."
But pieces of the fragile collectors are "strewn about the canister," so scientists are being very methodical about extracting them.
"It is amazing given the amount of breach in the canister just how clean it is inside" Sevilla said. "We're not talking about great clods of dirt."
No timetable has been created for moving the science samples from a Utah facility to a NASA center for ultimate study. Sevilla said engineers are still busy collecting tools to do unexpected "sawing and snipping" that will take place over the weekend.
Genesis, which launched in 2001, carries a $264 million price tag.
The scientists said they were demoralized when they first saw the craft stuck more than halfway into the desert floor. Attitudes have changed.
"The science team is really excited," said Roger Wiens, flight payload leader from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Wiens expects to "meet many if not all" of the mission's initial goals.
The investigation
Meanwhile, Sevilla said three pyrotechnic devices that were supposed to deploy the parachute system failed to trigger as planned. They have been "safed" to allow study of the capsule.
"None had been fired," he said. "This points to a command and control problem," not to any failure of the parachutes themselves.
NASA also announced today that Michael Ryschkewitsch, director of the Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, would lead the Genesis Mishap Investigation Board (MIB) in an effort to determine the exact cause of the disaster. The group is due to report back in mid-November.
The optimistic assessment led one reporter to ask if future sample-return missions might forego the theatrics of using Hollywood stunt pilots to make mid-air retrievals of capsules, and instead simply design the shells to survive a freefall.
"The lessons from this one will affect all future sample returns," said Gentry Lee, a JPL engineer.
Make money fast! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Make money fast! (Score:2)
ObKhan (Score:4, Funny)
My ears are in better condition (Score:5, Funny)
Oh,the other Genesis...
Mirror and Stick? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mirror and Stick? (Score:2, Funny)
During the space race back in the 1960's, NASA was faced with a major problem. The astronaut needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space. NASA went to work. At a cost of $1.5 million they developed the "Astronaut Pen". Some of you may remember. It enjoyed minor success on the commercial market.
The Russians were faced with the same dilemma.
They used a pencil.
(However, this space pen story is a fake. Snopes.com for more detail.)
Re:Mirror and Stick? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mirror and Stick? (Score:2)
Actually, he does. My dentist has this small camera probe he uses to display magnified images of the hard to see places on teeth on a television monitor so the patient can see up close what kind of nastiness they've got on their molars and stuff. It's pretty crazy, but it does a good job scaring people into flossing regularly.
Re:Mirror and Stick? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mirror and Stick? (Score:4, Funny)
First reaction: Over-engineered solution. Why use a multi-thousand dollar miniaturized camera when a $2 mirror on a stick can accomplish the same task?
Second reaction: Who am I to talk about over-engineering? After all, I spend my weekends geocaching, which is best summed up by this quote [cafepress.com]:
Sensitive NASA Instruments (Score:5, Funny)
A flashlight and a small mirror on a stick...only cutting edge technology will do for NASA...
Re:Sensitive NASA Instruments (Score:2)
$264 million dollars of spacecraft... (Score:3, Funny)
This is not a fairground, and you are not trying to catch plastic fish from a pond in exchange for a giant teddy-bear.
Black Box (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess I'm not too surprised. Commercial airliner black boxes seem to be able to survive all sorts of crashes and accidents, and while I realize that the weight limits on components sent into space are far more strict than the weight limits on regular aircraft, I'd expect (hope) that NASA has better technology to work with.
Of course there's also the differences between the scientific equipment used by NASA and the simple recording equipment used in aircraft, but again I'd like to think that NASA is on top of such things.
Good Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
Local Paper got it wrong (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory 2001 reference (Score:4, Funny)
interesting... they appear to have collected shards of a large, shiny black object...
(queue the trumpet)
My god, it's full of sand!
Imagine sorting through that mess....... (Score:5, Funny)
Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah, Solar!, Utah, Utah, Utah......
"Utah Utah Utah... Solar!" (Score:2)
Re:Imagine sorting through that mess....... (Score:2)
Priceless (Score:5, Funny)
Sucks to be the parachute design team. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's just the innate lack of confidence in human nature, but of course NASA's going to say that they were still able to get valuable information despite the crash. Their funding is probably on the line, and they don't wish to say "Oh yeah. That was a complete waste of money".
parachute design not implicated in the crash (Score:3, Informative)
"None had been fired," he said. "This points to a command and control problem," not to any failure of the parachutes themselves.
So it's management's fault! (Score:2)
Another first for the space program! Headlines: "Management Accepts Blame, Engineers OK"
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
A means of saving money??? (Score:2, Redundant)
But wait (Score:5, Funny)
Who is going to verify their findings? What if this is all just some smoke and mirror news stories now so we all thing "yea they'll get something for the $260 million spent" only to never ever hear about it again.
Before the thing even entered the atmosphere we had JPLers saying ANY crash would destroy the experiments. Well we got 200+ mph into the earth, split open, dust everywhere, broken little bits but everything is going to be A OK.
Huh?
Re:But wait (Score:5, Interesting)
Before the thing even entered the atmosphere we had JPLers saying ANY crash would destroy the experiments. Well we got 200+ mph into the earth, split open, dust everywhere, broken little bits but everything is going to be A OK.
There's a difference between "we can get useful scientific information from it" and "A-OK".
There's also a difference between dust and other contaminants deposited at low speed and what's mostly monatomic gas implanted at high speed (look up "ion implantation" in a semiconductor fabrication glossary for further discussion of this).
Processing will get a lot more difficult, as they have a bucketful of dust-contaminated shards instead of nice, organized, uncontaminated collection plates, but it's far from impossible.
Just not an option the mission team would have chosen if it could possibly be avoided.
Clean room procedures? (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, maybe one of you lab rats can answer this but...
Call me irresponsible, but this guy went to all the effort to cover himself, then he leans over WITHOUT A MASK to work on a plate full of DUST!
I need a mask! [nasa.gov]
Achoo! *sniff* "oh, sh!t... where did it go? (Score:2)
HEY GUYS....I FOUND SOME!!! (Score:2)
Re:Clean room procedures? (Score:2)
When I think pate, I think of an aggregate of material that hangs together, something that demonstrates viscosity. That stuff looks pretty dry and crumbly to me, like one good sneeze would mean a really bad day!
Re:Clean room procedures? (Score:2)
Whew!
Thank God for cynicism, I can sleep better tonite knowing the hundreds of millions they spent to bring back a couple grains of salt are safe!
Is this REALLY the Genesis project? (Score:3, Funny)
Scientists apply 5 second rule (Score:5, Funny)
Homer: It's just a little dirty. It's still good, it's still good!
Extra space material found... (Score:3, Funny)
For some reason, one of the datasets retrieved from the device is a human finger. Upon closer inspection, it appears to match other fingers collected from the Hollywood region of the southwestern coastal United States.
NASA can offer no conclusions at this time, but one NASA insider has speculated that this may indicate that California may, at one time, supported life.
restraint (Score:2, Funny)
told ya so (Score:2)
just like my 3 yr old... (Score:4, Funny)
Where is the outrage at the waste of money???? (Score:2, Insightful)
When is this agency going to get off its ass and come up with something that is meaningful to our nation and humanity as a whole instead of just pure science? I completely underst
conflict of interest for NASA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What are they analysing? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:money saving recovery procedure (Score:4, Funny)
Because lawn dart in the middle of a Utah testing ground
A lawn dart in the middle of Salt Lake city would be a hell of a thing to list on the morning traffic reports. "Aaaand on route-92 we've got all lanes blocked, after NASA's newest probe bulls-eyed a Silverado. Damage should be cleared out in the next two hours, but it'll take a week to get rid of all the idiot tourists. Suggest you take a different route."
____________________
Re:Hollywood ending (Score:2)
They thought that there was no way a touchdown - even with a parachute [best way of getting a low terminal velocity] - would leave the sample plates intact.
They were right.
Re:So why the parachute? (Score:2)
Re:Genesis: Data in good condition (Score:2)
-aiabx
Re:If only every American.. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's still part of the Government you know.