RichA wrote in
:

On Saturday, 2 December 2017 11:34:12 UTC-5, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
On Fri, 1 Dec 2017 18:43:15 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:

On Friday, 1 December 2017 20:41:25 UTC-5, palsing wrote:
This is so cool!

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.p...7014&utm_sourc
e=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&u tm_content=
daily20171201-1

"If you tried to start a car that's been sitting in a garage
for decades, you might not expect the engine to respond. But
a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft
successfully fired up Wednesday after 37 years without
use..."

Thank goodness for miracle of radio-thermal generators. Still
providing 300 watts of power after all these years.

They're a great way to power deep space probes. But they
weren't the remarkable thing here. The remarkable thing was
that moving parts actually moved after decades in a vacuum.
That's a very tricky thing to manage.

That, and unless they built it at -270 deg. C, they would have
had to be very careful with mechanical tolerances.

Given that they had to work for quite a few years anyway, I suspect
they brough all their expertise to the problem.

It's the sort of thing NASA is very good at, except when they're
very bad at it.

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.