Scientists Say Goodbye to Philae Comet Lander (cnn.com) 69
Today, scientists from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) announced that they are saying goodbye to Philae, the comet lander that is currently perched on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it races toward the sun. According to Stephan Ulamec, Philae's project manager, "Unfortunately, the probability of Philae re-establishing contact with our team at the DLR Lander Control Center is almost zero." Philae first made history when it successfully landed on a comet in fall of 2014, but problems soon began when commands were not able to reach the robot.
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The parts that failed (thruster and harpoons) were made by the German. For the thruster they worked with a Dutch company and built it in Switzerland...
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More disgusting corporate welfare.
Spinoff technology to fields other than space and space exploration? Better understanding of the Solar System, perhaps leading to the human race getting a colony *somewhere off this rock* in preparation for the next Earth-bound major extinction event?
I do tire of the "NASA has a $19 billion budget and world hunger is not yet solved plus no cure for cancer" mentality. The human race never has and never will pursue only one thing at a time, you know.
AC, would you eliminate 100% of all science research in favo
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Perhaps. Unlikely that anything needed for rendezvous with a comet would have commercial spin-offs, but there may be some materials improvements that trickle down.
Sure, that's a great thing - knowledge is good, and if this is purely in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, I'd be okay with that too.
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We're stuck on this rock for the foreseeable future, champ. Learn to love it.
We will be stuck on this rock forever, if you get your way.
There are certain things about space and space travel that you only can find out by doing it.
Learning about comets gives us the ability to see what sort of material makes up a solar system and how it interacts. We're not just doing this to go sightseeing.
There is some idea that we will somehow be able to magically be able to find all of those advances we need later if we just stay on Earth and focus no effort or money on space exploration. That ma
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Actually, the biggest threat to space exploration is actually the unwillingness of people to do it.
Even with current technology, we'd have a shot at a Mars landing now, if we focused our resources on it. However, I'm not asking for that. We can take our time on that, but you don't have to shut down one thing to make the other thing happen.
As for afterlife, I have other plans for the afterlife than floating in space. This isn't about that.
There are some people out there, apparently you included, who think
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Again, we have this odd fixation on if you want one thing, you couldn't have possibly done the other.
I've spent quite a bit of time exploring this planet. I have quite literally traveled to the other side of the world from where I live and many other places in between. What I don't understand is why this planet has to be "enough" for me.
You're making a poor assumption about who you're talking to, because it's all black and white to you. Either I agree with you, or I'm an Aspie who has never left his pare
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"Actually, the biggest threat to space exploration is actually the unwillingness of people to do it."
Actually the biggest threat to space exploration is Congress. NASA would have double the budget if they were given only what the military pays for air conditioning TENTS overseas.
WE spend such a miniscule portion of the budget on space it's embarrassing. Give NASA 10% of the military budget. OR we need to declare war on mars to get the full military budget in line.
Americans are more interested in killin
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WE spend such a miniscule portion of the budget on space it's embarrassing.
I agree.
Give NASA 10% of the military budget.
I disagree. Not about giving them that number, but that there is no reason for that number. Why is 10% special, why not 50% or 5% or an absolute number that has nothing to do with the military budget?
NASA would have double the budget
This is true for every government program, every private program, and every human on earth. We all want more money, but wanting more does not provide a reasonable argument for deserving more.
Look, I'm not arguing that NASA shouldn't be given more money but it's a hard sell when the only reason appear
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Look, I'm not arguing that NASA shouldn't be given more money but it's a hard sell when the only reason appears to be "I want it to be bigger".
Be gentle, action often begins with people sensing that something is wrong. When you're grasping in the air you think, maybe things could start happening if they just had more. But how much more? NASA is GO for what?
How about GO for a Hypervelocity Asteroid Intercept Vehicle (HAIV): An Innovative Solution to NASA's NEO Impact Threat Mitigation Grand Challenge and Flight Validation Mission Architecture Development [nasa.gov]?
Everything about self-sustaining colonies is (regrettably) some years away.
Exploration is nice
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"Actually, the biggest threat to space exploration is actually the unwillingness of people to do it."
Actually the biggest threat to space exploration is Congress.
Two sides of the same coin. Congress doesn't want to do it because either the representatives don't want to, or their voters don't. The usual reason is, as you mentioned, either some military program, or alternately, some social welfare program. Or maybe a bridge to Nowhere for their constituents.
But no, I don't think Americans are interested in killing people, we are interested in not being attacked. We just have the idea that we will get that by attacking other people *harder*, and Congress is happy t
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Actually, the biggest threat to space exploration is actually the unwillingness of people to do it.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps the reason that people a generally not that interested in this vision of the future is that you have failed to convince them? That the reluctance is not their fault, but yours?
That the case for space colonisation may not be compelling enough or realistic enough for the skeptical people to want to do it?
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It doesn't matter. Even if he means all 7 billion of us.
The problem with exploring space is space. It's big and it's empty - the clue is in the name - there's nothing to eat and nothing to breathe unless you bring it with you.
Did I mention that it's big?
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We're stuck on this rock for the foreseeable future, champ. Learn to love it.
We will be stuck on this rock forever, if you get your way.
This roch is big enough. Think it if full? There is enough room which may be called 'inhospitable' but is much much better than any space. The desert? Bottom of (shallow) sea? Much much better than anything in space that we know of.
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How 'bout dem Space Nutters, ain't they kooks?
Heads in the stars, readin' space booooooks!
Plannin' dem missions to launch men 'n probes
or spinny-dizzy colonies in LaGrangian lobes
wearin' them space suits on Halloween on Earth
chewin' the Space fat on for all that it's worth!
Dem nugger-mugger Space Huggers way down South
stuffin' Space Nutter Central for all that funds allow'th
How to be a Space Nutter, only one way to hack it
Get yerself a nuke, find an asteroid and smack it!
One in a growing series of 'them [slashdot.org]
Re: And how does this help the people? (Score:2)
Plus, if we would ever be able to muster the amount of resources needed for solar system colonies or interstellar space travel, those resources would probably be better spent on surviving any major disaster here on earth.
Even after massive nuclear war or an astroid impact, the earth would still be considerably more hospitable to human life than say mars or venus.
If a major cataclism is really your concern then invest in a space station with a few hundred people in it, including the means to repopulate the e
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Perhaps. Unlikely that anything needed for rendezvous with a comet would have commercial spin-offs, but there may be some materials improvements that trickle down.
Sure, that's a great thing - knowledge is good, and if this is purely in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, I'd be okay with that too.
Now you're just being stupid. Is the human race going to live on comets when we get "off this rock"? Orbital mechanics are well understood at this point, so rendezvous with an object traveling through space isn't really advancing the knowledge of the human race.
Yes it does. It helps understand the mechanics and logistics of landing over a comet (such type of landings are not just ruled by orbital mechanics alone.) When we learn to reliably and predictably land over such objects, then we open for ourselves the opportunity to mining them. There is a shitload of ice and building materials on those floating monsters. Not only you open the opportunity to mining them, but to alter their trajectories, or even hollow them up and spinning them to get 1g.
Imagine you can t
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Under continuous 1g acceleration, then turning around in the middle and decelerating at the same 1g, relativistic effects will become significant and shorten the subjective time for the people on board a ship greatly. You would reach relativistic speeds in about a year, and only climb back down out of them for about a year at the other end. Thus, the people on board could easily survive the trip in terms of subjective time, though by the time they got there, everyone they knew back home would be long dead f
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You'd have to bypass the rocket problem to some degree by launching the various parts separately and assembling them in orbit. This would allow the use of only less energetic but more efficient engines, since you would already be outside the atmosphere. Also, I admit I'm assuming fusion as a power source rather than fission. Calling fusion "an engineering problem" may in fact be premature, but I do expect it to get solved.
I think a bigger problem than the thrust would be the velocity itself. Hit anything, h
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I won't argue, you obviously can crunch the numbers (and I cannot, I just have to look them up), but 50 years may be good enough. It won't exactly be a fun trip, but it may be a survivable one. As for fuel sources, I was imagining we'd just flat-out steal asteroids whole and make them both hull and fuel.
Re:And how does this help the people? (Score:4, Interesting)
At some point in the future we're going to be acquiring large quantities of resources from off-planet and this is another step in that direction. Really, anything that eventually helps humanity move out among the stars is far more important to us than anything we locally do on Earth. We might make life more comfortable for a few, but eventually something disastrous will happen to our planet (some people are even pretty sure we'll be the ones that do it) and we'll need to have a backup. Colonizing other planets and eventually other solar systems (or just being able to survive out in space for extended periods) is incredibly important.
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You realize the internet that you're using to complain about government spending on started off as a government project right?
So did the freedom of speech. ;-)
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You realize the internet that you're using to complain about government spending on started off as a government project right?
You realise the 'manned spaceflight' experiment was effectively over before any government money was spent on the internet? That should give you a hint.
At some point in the future we're going to be acquiring large quantities of resources from off-planet
[citation needed]
Really, anything that eventually helps humanity move out among the stars is far more important to us than anything we locally do on Earth.
You do realise we are already moving out amongst the stars right? when it's night, go outside and look up. See those pinpricks of light?
We might make life more comfortable for a few, but eventually something disastrous will happen to our planet (some people are even pretty sure we'll be the ones that do it) and we'll need to have a backup.
Really?
You don't think the more responsible route would be for you to tell us what these impending disasters are so that we might save the lives of the earth's 9 billion residents, rather than advocate fo
Again, PR failure but engineering success (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, the lander worked exactly as intended for as long as intended. It's the extended mission that had issues, and that was always an "if possible"/"best effort" prospect .People are continuing to think that this mission was "troubled" and had a lot of problems but was just good, and they got a second shot - which was a very long shot.
I am no apologist for the ESA (far from it) but this was a very nice, well-executed program and they shouldn't and the world shouldn't getting a negative impression about it.
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It can be considered very successful, period. No qualifiers needed.
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The problem wasn't because they somehow didn't expect the low gravity environment, it was that the parts designed to deal with it failed.
The nitrogen thruster designed to push the lander down failed, something they knew beforehand, even though the reason is unknown. The harpoons designed to hold it in place also failed : reportedly the nitrocellulose propellant failed to ignite properly in a vacuum.
What they didn't expect that could have affected the lander's ability to stay in place is that the surface was
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What? It was almost a complete failure. It didn't land how or where it was supposed to. It couldn't drill or sample like it was supposed to. Nothing worked except the camera and that didn't work for long because they landed in a place where the batteries ran out.
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It was designed to accomplish all of its primary goals on battery power alone, which is a big factor in why they didn't want to complicate the mission with something like an RTG, while solar cells are simpler to add on in the hopes of getting an extended mission. Of the 10 instruments on board, 9 worked and collected useful data, with the drill being the one exception. Several of the instruments were of limited repeated use or would be unable to be powered under solar power even in ideal conditions. The
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The whole reason for a lander was to drill, capture, bake, and sample the surface. How do I know? I'm working on a nearly identical mission for NASA that will go to permanently shadowed craters on the poles. Because it's a cheaper mission the success criteria is very limited. We must land and take data. But the whole reason we are going is to drill, capture, bake, and sample. That is the only way to really know what is there. If we fail that everyone on the mission will feel we failed. But as long as we lan
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You proved my point. On missions like this publicly you set the requirements low in case you fail. You say the priority is the easy things. But the real reason to make a lander that could anchor was to drill and sample. If your priorities were the other things you could have made the whole thing more robust and capable.
If the project I'm working on flies and gets to the moon but can't drill we all feel like we wasted a decade. Sure the PR will play it down but taking a couple of remote sensor readings is no
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It was designed to accomplish all of its primary goals on battery power alone, which is a big factor in why they didn't want to complicate the mission with something like an RTG, while solar cells are simpler to add on in the hopes of getting an extended mission. Of the 10 instruments on board, 9 worked and collected useful data, with the drill being the one exception. Several of the instruments were of limited repeated use or would be unable to be powered under solar power even in ideal conditions. The only long term instruments would have been basically plasma monitoring equipment.
That's what people don't get. The lander was basically designed as if it wouldn't have reliable solar power. If it did, then there was an extended mission where it could continue to collect additional data. Really, the biggest failure was the landing system which was supposed to anchor it down. If that had worked, it wouldn't have bounced all over the place and it likely would have had enough light for the solar panels to work. It's also likely that they would have been able to use the drill. But even
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The orbiter (Rosetta) worked fine. The lander, not so much. Though it wasn't the total washout that the herp-derp-yerp crowd are claiming.
Planet X: 1, Earth: 0 (Score:2)
If it's the newly discovered tenth planet that's been nudging comets our way for all these years, I'd score it Planet X: 1, Earth: 0.
Where's your crew? (Score:2)
On the third planet . . .
. . . there is no third planet . . .
Backasswards (Score:5, Insightful)
maybe next time? (Score:1)
this round we lost it, but is it possible that the module on the comet will wake up next time it cames back to sun?
wiki says the orbit is 6.5 years, that's quite short time
"successfully landed" (Score:1)
Successfully landed, as opposed to ricocheting off, clattering into a hole upside down and failing to achieve most of the science. Every statement I've seen since has been studiously decorated with "successful".
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Successfully landed not once but three times!