NASA Probe Orbiting Asteroid Vesta

astroengine writes "Mission managers of NASA's Dawn asteroid probe had a long Saturday, waiting for news from the asteroid belt. Eventually they got the news they were hoping for: Dawn had entered Vesta orbit. This is the first time in history that an object in the asteroid belt has been orbited by an artificial satellite. It's taken four years for the ion thruster-propelled spacecraft to reach the asteroid and there was some uncertainty as to whether the probe had been captured by the asteroid's gravity at all. But after a long period of waiting, mission managers received the signal after Dawn was able to orientate its antenna toward Earth."

Re:Sending astronauts?

[wsxyz]

Vesta is a Taliban stronghold.

Re:Sending astronauts?

[rubycodez]

Why are you so fixated on U.S. capabilities, it only matters that mankind can put people into orbit, and the U.S. space program has a large number of useful missions in progress or soon to launch, and many as collaboration with other nations. Patriotism has no place in science.

This is Madness!

[Comboman]

The possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.

Patriotism is not compatible with science

[rocket rancher]

Science is a collaborative effort. Nearly every advance the parent cited can be traced back to development work done by people who were not born in the US. Von Braun, Tsiolkovsky, and Fermi come to mind immediately, along with Einstein, Turing, Goedel, Bohr, Pauling, Dirac, Mendeleev, and Roentgen. National pride is fine, but it rings kinda hollow when one is aware of just how connected all scientific advancement is. The idea that all of those achievements are somehow the sole purview of the US is absurd.