No Samples On Japan's Hayabusa Asteroid Probe 147
eldavojohn writes "Reports are coming in that JAXA's Hayabusa probe may have come up empty-handed in its bid to collect asteroid matter. There may be gas in the probe but no dust samples as many hoped. Murphy's Law seemed to ride with Hayabusa. 'After landing in 2005 on the Itokawa asteroid, which is about one-third mile long and shaped like a potato, the probe's sample-capture mechanism went awry. To the public's dismay, JAXA officials said they were not sure whether any samples had been collected. Next, the probe's robotic rover, meant to take photos and temperature readings on the asteroid, inexplicably floated off into space and was never heard from again. Worse yet, after Hayabusa took off from the asteroid, all four of NEC's ion engines shut down. So did all 12 of the chemical-fueled rocket engines made by another space industry giant, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The probe was left drifting in space. Then, for more than seven weeks, for reasons still not clear, there were no communication signals from the probe. Public dismay quickly turned to derision and, eventually, indifference.' The probe did return, however, and JAXA hoped to salvage something, but now it appears that the only thing it accomplished was one long and error-prone journey."
Metric system.. Duh! (Score:5, Funny)
As is commonly cited here, everything NASA does screws up because stupid Americans don't use the metric system... if only the Japanese would use it they wouldn't have these prob...
[hushed whispering] Uh.. it has come to my attention that some people believe Japan uses the metric system. This cannot be possible for 2 reasons: 1. With the metric system there can't be any stupid screwups like what the Americans do. 2. Japanese always have the most badass robots and this is just a space robot, and therefore must work. I stand by my original statement.
The Seppuku line forms to the right (Score:5, Funny)
There's gas on asteroids!? (Score:4, Funny)
Man, oh man (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Metric system.. Duh! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Metric system.. Duh! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Metric system.. Duh! (Score:5, Funny)
But they go so well with the karaoke function!
Re:May be that... (Score:3, Funny)
Check the probe. They probably left a "Mega maid was here" bumper sticker.
Re:Vapor..gas!! (Score:5, Funny)
“Vapor gives us hope”
Isn't this the tagline from the upcoming Duke Nukem promo material?
Re:Metric system.. Duh! (Score:3, Funny)
My bet is that part of the Probe was actually created by Sony, and a firmware update blocked the Linux Sample Gathering OS from running.
Re:Man, oh man (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Man, oh man (Score:3, Funny)
what do you mean conspiracy theorists?
In all seriousness, people are trying to learn about the universe, and they are being stopped
there was all the CERN stuff last year... I mean, come on! a bird dropped a piece of bread and stopped it. and a few days ago we all learned that birds are very smart.
now this.
If there is a God, he might die laughing one day.
Re:the incompetent deserve to be fired, not suppor (Score:0, Funny)
maybe you should stick to your greeting job at walmart....
Re:the incompetent deserve to be fired, not suppor (Score:3, Funny)
Then since you're incompetent at judging the success of a space probe mission, you should not be surprised to hear that you've been fired from commenting on the internet.
Re:Probe succeeded in most of its mission (Score:3, Funny)
And was the floating-off of the rover also part of the mission? I can just imagine the Pixar movie of this:
"Rover! Rooooover! Come back!"
"I can't Busa. It's too late. Goodbye, goodbye..... Boy I hope space is kind to me."
Re:sad news (Score:5, Funny)
Far better it is to dare not mighty things, to live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat, than to rank with those poor spirits whose live lives checkered by failure, who suffer much because they live in the futile hope of winning glorious triumphs. - Eric the Bland