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STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 21st 17, 03:36 AM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
Mr. B1ack
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Posts: 7
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

As was well publicized, the Cassini Saturn Orbiter was
deliberately crashed into the planet a couple of weeks
ago. It's supply of maneuvering fuel was about exhausted
and scientists didn't want to risk it "contaminating" one of
Saturns interesting moons in a crash.

But ... ya know ... the rest of the spacecraft was apparently
in very good condition - the full array of scientific instruments
still operational, and would have remained so for quite a long
time to come.

So ... don't tell me the clever people and AIs at the JPL
couldn't have come up with a nice safe, essentially
perpetual, orbit for the thing - maybe a wide orbit around
Titan or just out between moons.

The whole "contamination" thing was a pretty big reach
as well ... Cassini was a relative fly-speck and space is
chock-full of radiation FAR more intense than anything
in its power pak.

What we did was throw away a perfectly good long-term
science/observation resource in the expensive-to-reach
corner of our solar system. That was just STUPID. It
was a huge waste of taxpayer money and a waste of
an unknown quantity of useful information the thing
could have been returning for decades if the power
was properly managed.

Let's NOT repeat such idiocy. NEVER throw away
an asset.

  #2  
Old October 21st 17, 05:25 PM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
SteveGG
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Posts: 163
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

I couldn't agree more !

The contamination issue would be totally laughable, if it wasn't so
sad and ridiculous, but that's the official "reason".

What a waste. It could have been parked in a stable orbit and made
available for future science, historians, etc.
  #3  
Old October 21st 17, 06:07 PM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
Mr. B1ack
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Posts: 7
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

On Sat, 21 Oct 2017 12:25:38 -0400, SteveGG
wrote:

I couldn't agree more !

The contamination issue would be totally laughable, if it wasn't so
sad and ridiculous, but that's the official "reason".

What a waste. It could have been parked in a stable orbit and made
available for future science, historians, etc.


Hey, it's got some memory space onboard ... it could
be instructed to save up periodic observations so
every once in a while we could download the stash.
Doesn't hurt to have an eye way "out there" either in
case something interesting happens.

The "contamination" thing is one of the worst excuses
I've ever heard. MIGHT, under some circumstances,
have some merit for Mars if we were worried about
mold spores or whatever, but Saturn ... nah. A nice
safe orbit was possible.

I think somebody said "Hey, let's CRASH it into
Saturn, that'd be like SO cool !" ... and there
went a taxpayer gigabuck.

Hmm ... Pence is now nominally the top dog of the
US space effort so it might not hurt to complain to
him about this sort of thing. Policy CAN change.
Gigabuck probes should not be considered part
of a first-person-shooter game by JPL nerds. If
it still mostly works, KEEP it around.

  #4  
Old October 21st 17, 07:31 PM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
SteveGG
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Posts: 163
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe


Hmm ... Pence is now nominally the top dog of the
US space effort so it might not hurt to complain to
him about this sort of thing.

What ?! Tell me it isn't true.

Sanctimonius, evangelical, stupid turd ! Doesn't even believe in
evolution. Universe is really only 6,000 years old, and was created in
7 days. All those fossils were put there by the devil to mislead man.
God presides over everything and His thoughts and actions travel
instantly across many millions of light years. Pence and all mankind
were made in God's image and likeness ...
  #5  
Old October 21st 17, 08:46 PM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
Mr. B1ack
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Posts: 7
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

On Sat, 21 Oct 2017 14:31:33 -0400, SteveGG
wrote:


Hmm ... Pence is now nominally the top dog of the
US space effort so it might not hurt to complain to
him about this sort of thing.

What ?! Tell me it isn't true.

Sanctimonius, evangelical, stupid turd ! Doesn't even believe in
evolution. Universe is really only 6,000 years old, and was created in
7 days. All those fossils were put there by the devil to mislead man.
God presides over everything and His thoughts and actions travel
instantly across many millions of light years. Pence and all mankind
were made in God's image and likeness ...


Hey, I voted for him ... because the alternative
was even worse in its own way :-)

Still, he's a conservative ... so appeal to the
penny-pincher aspect you usually see with
conservatives. Crashing Cassini was A BIG
WASTE OF MONEY. I don't know if he thinks
the universe is only 6000 years old, but he
WILL understand WASTED $$$.

BTW, most 'religious'/conservative people are
NOT young-earth/no-evo ultra-fundies. The few
that are tend to get all the press, makes them
SEEM like a bigger bloc. Like viewing stars and
planets, more local 'truths' often depend on
what wavelength filter you view them through :-)

  #6  
Old October 21st 17, 10:24 PM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
M.I.Wakefield
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Posts: 1
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

"Mr. B1ack" wrote in message
...

Still, he's a conservative ... so appeal to the penny-pincher aspect you
usually see with conservatives. Crashing Cassini was A BIG WASTE OF MONEY.
I don't know if he thinks the universe is only 6000 years old, but he WILL
understand WASTED $$$.


No, Cassini was well into bonus time ... the original mission was supposed
to end in 2008.

NASA tends to over-engineer ... Opportunity is closing in on 14 years on
Mars ... a mission that was scheduled for 3 months.

BTW, most 'religious'/conservative people are NOT young-earth/no-evo
ultra-fundies. The few that are tend to get all the press, makes them SEEM
like a bigger bloc.


They tend to be loud about it.

Like viewing stars and planets, more local 'truths' often depend on what
wavelength filter you view them through :-)


Speaking of which ... if you have the right combination of binoculars and
darkness, you can try and see the planet Uranus ... a blue-green dot
currently in the constellation of Pisces ... the first planet discovered
after the Babylonians looked up.

https://in-the-sky.org/skymap.php

  #7  
Old October 21st 17, 10:00 PM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

Mr. B1ack wrote:

On Sat, 21 Oct 2017 12:25:38 -0400, SteveGG
wrote:

I couldn't agree more !

The contamination issue would be totally laughable, if it wasn't so
sad and ridiculous, but that's the official "reason".

What a waste. It could have been parked in a stable orbit and made
available for future science, historians, etc.


Hey, it's got some memory space onboard ... it could
be instructed to save up periodic observations so
every once in a while we could download the stash.
Doesn't hurt to have an eye way "out there" either in
case something interesting happens.


How much memory do you think it has on board? How do you think we
normally talk to it. It was already extended for NINE YEARS.


The "contamination" thing is one of the worst excuses
I've ever heard. MIGHT, under some circumstances,
have some merit for Mars if we were worried about
mold spores or whatever, but Saturn ... nah. A nice
safe orbit was possible.


Not Saturn. The moons. Which we might decide to inhabit some day. In
some ways they're better than Mars. You can't just park it and forget
about it.


I think somebody said "Hey, let's CRASH it into
Saturn, that'd be like SO cool !" ... and there
went a taxpayer gigabuck.


I think you should let someone else do the thinking. That's a
preposterous notion.


Hmm ... Pence is now nominally the top dog of the
US space effort so it might not hurt to complain to
him about this sort of thing. Policy CAN change.
Gigabuck probes should not be considered part
of a first-person-shooter game by JPL nerds. If
it still mostly works, KEEP it around.


Policy CAN change but this one wouldn't have. A number of studies
were done to figure out a 'safe' way to dispose of or park the thing.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
  #8  
Old October 22nd 17, 03:06 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Scott M. Kozel[_2_]
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Posts: 160
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

On Saturday, October 21, 2017 at 5:01:02 PM UTC-4, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Mr. B1ack wrote:

Hmm ... Pence is now nominally the top dog of the
US space effort so it might not hurt to complain to
him about this sort of thing. Policy CAN change.
Gigabuck probes should not be considered part
of a first-person-shooter game by JPL nerds. If
it still mostly works, KEEP it around.


Policy CAN change but this one wouldn't have. A number of studies
were done to figure out a 'safe' way to dispose of or park the thing.


The thruster fuel tank was almost empty. Once the fuel runs out
there is no way to align the spacecraft so that its antenna can
point to Earth, meaning that no data can be sent to and from Earth.

So the spacecraft would effectively be dead.
  #9  
Old October 22nd 17, 03:10 AM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
Mr. B1ack
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 7
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

On Sat, 21 Oct 2017 14:00:58 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

Mr. B1ack wrote:

On Sat, 21 Oct 2017 12:25:38 -0400, SteveGG
wrote:

I couldn't agree more !

The contamination issue would be totally laughable, if it wasn't so
sad and ridiculous, but that's the official "reason".

What a waste. It could have been parked in a stable orbit and made
available for future science, historians, etc.


Hey, it's got some memory space onboard ... it could
be instructed to save up periodic observations so
every once in a while we could download the stash.
Doesn't hurt to have an eye way "out there" either in
case something interesting happens.


How much memory do you think it has on board? How do you think we
normally talk to it. It was already extended for NINE YEARS.


We could get some useful stuff form it NINTEEN years
from now. Why did we waste that opportunity ??? The
Voyagers seemed useless relics too ... until we got
all interested in the heliopause. Surprise, we had
usable spacecraft in the vicinity because nobody'd
bothered to crash them into anything.

The "contamination" thing is one of the worst excuses
I've ever heard. MIGHT, under some circumstances,
have some merit for Mars if we were worried about
mold spores or whatever, but Saturn ... nah. A nice
safe orbit was possible.


Not Saturn. The moons. Which we might decide to inhabit some day. In
some ways they're better than Mars. You can't just park it and forget
about it.


How long have those moons been there ? Yes, we could
have parked it and pretty much forgotten about it. And if
grey aliens kicked it into a moon, so what ? It's a flyspeck.
Those moons get bombarded with random galactic crap
all the time.

I think somebody said "Hey, let's CRASH it into
Saturn, that'd be like SO cool !" ... and there
went a taxpayer gigabuck.


I think you should let someone else do the thinking. That's a
preposterous notion.


Um ... not so much actually ......... socialize with
some tech-nerds for awhile and you'll see :-)

Hmm ... Pence is now nominally the top dog of the
US space effort so it might not hurt to complain to
him about this sort of thing. Policy CAN change.
Gigabuck probes should not be considered part
of a first-person-shooter game by JPL nerds. If
it still mostly works, KEEP it around.


Policy CAN change but this one wouldn't have. A number of studies
were done to figure out a 'safe' way to dispose of or park the thing.


It didn't need to be disposed of AT ALL.

  #10  
Old October 22nd 17, 09:19 AM posted to talk.politics.misc,sci.space.policy,alt.politics,alt.politics.trump,soc.culture.usa
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default STUPID To Crash Cassini Probe

Mr. B1ack wrote:

On Sat, 21 Oct 2017 14:00:58 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

Mr. B1ack wrote:

On Sat, 21 Oct 2017 12:25:38 -0400, SteveGG
wrote:

I couldn't agree more !

The contamination issue would be totally laughable, if it wasn't so
sad and ridiculous, but that's the official "reason".

What a waste. It could have been parked in a stable orbit and made
available for future science, historians, etc.

Hey, it's got some memory space onboard ... it could
be instructed to save up periodic observations so
every once in a while we could download the stash.
Doesn't hurt to have an eye way "out there" either in
case something interesting happens.


How much memory do you think it has on board? How do you think we
normally talk to it. It was already extended for NINE YEARS.


We could get some useful stuff form it NINTEEN years
from now. Why did we waste that opportunity ??? The
Voyagers seemed useless relics too ... until we got
all interested in the heliopause. Surprise, we had
usable spacecraft in the vicinity because nobody'd
bothered to crash them into anything.


Because it was done. It had no fuel. The team supporting it already
has more years of data to work with than they can handle. It was a
hazard to other things in the Saturn system. DSN is a scarce resource
and is needed for other things. I could go on. Voyager never went
inactive and was always intended to keep going out.

The "contamination" thing is one of the worst excuses
I've ever heard. MIGHT, under some circumstances,
have some merit for Mars if we were worried about
mold spores or whatever, but Saturn ... nah. A nice
safe orbit was possible.


Not Saturn. The moons. Which we might decide to inhabit some day. In
some ways they're better than Mars. You can't just park it and forget
about it.


How long have those moons been there ? Yes, we could
have parked it and pretty much forgotten about it. And if
grey aliens kicked it into a moon, so what ? It's a flyspeck.
Those moons get bombarded with random galactic crap
all the time.


Congratulations on demonstrating that you don't know **** about
orbital mechanics. No, you can't just 'park it and forget it'. And
if you could, it quickly goes out of communication and you can't get
it back again. And no, they don't get "bombarded with random galactic
crap all the time" and what little they do get is not from Earth.

I think somebody said "Hey, let's CRASH it into
Saturn, that'd be like SO cool !" ... and there
went a taxpayer gigabuck.


I think you should let someone else do the thinking. That's a
preposterous notion.


Um ... not so much actually ......... socialize with
some tech-nerds for awhile and you'll see :-)


Well, actually, I AM a rocket scientist. The people doing this work
are very different from your random semi-literate nerd friends.

Hmm ... Pence is now nominally the top dog of the
US space effort so it might not hurt to complain to
him about this sort of thing. Policy CAN change.
Gigabuck probes should not be considered part
of a first-person-shooter game by JPL nerds. If
it still mostly works, KEEP it around.


Policy CAN change but this one wouldn't have. A number of studies
were done to figure out a 'safe' way to dispose of or park the thing.


It didn't need to be disposed of AT ALL.


You're in denial of reality at this point.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
 




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