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The Cassini space probe is officially no more.
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On 15/09/2017 13:00, clipka wrote:
> The Cassini space probe is officially no more.
>
Didn't it do well?
--
Regards
Stephen
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Am 15.09.2017 um 20:25 schrieb Stephen:
> On 15/09/2017 13:00, clipka wrote:
>> The Cassini space probe is officially no more.
>>
>
> Didn't it do well?
I guess it did. Just ran out of gas, with no spare canister on board and
miles from the next gas station. So rather than risk it ending up
crashing into a potentially-inhabited moon with 40 kg of Pu238 and who
knows how many colonies of earth microbes on board, they decided to let
it burn up in Saturn's atmosphere.
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On 15/09/2017 19:57, clipka wrote:
> Am 15.09.2017 um 20:25 schrieb Stephen:
>> On 15/09/2017 13:00, clipka wrote:
>>> The Cassini space probe is officially no more.
>>>
>>
>> Didn't it do well?
>
> I guess it did. Just ran out of gas, with no spare canister on board and
> miles from the next gas station.
Em! Who forgot got to buy a fuel scoop, then?
> So rather than risk it ending up
> crashing into a potentially-inhabited moon with 40 kg of Pu238 and who
> knows how many colonies of earth microbes on board,
I hope not with all the trouble they go to to keep it sterile.
> they decided to let
> it burn up in Saturn's atmosphere.
>
That's the way to do it! ;-)
--
Regards
Stephen
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Am 15.09.2017 um 22:40 schrieb Stephen:
>> So rather than risk it ending up
>> crashing into a potentially-inhabited moon with 40 kg of Pu238 and who
>> knows how many colonies of earth microbes on board,
>
> I hope not with all the trouble they go to to keep it sterile.
Even with all that trouble, they can't get space probes perfectly
sterile. And they know it.
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clipka <ano### [at] anonymous org> wrote:
> Am 15.09.2017 um 22:40 schrieb Stephen:
>
> > I hope not with all the trouble they go to to keep it sterile.
>
> Even with all that trouble, they can't get space probes perfectly
> sterile. And they know it.
Indeed. NASA/JPL could probably bombard the craft with intense ultraviolet light
for a YEAR, and a few viruses would still laugh at our feeble attempts to
eradicate them.
If the idea of 'panspermia' has any validity, WE could be 'contamination' of a
sort (along with all life on the Earth)--the initial 'seeds' brought here by
comets and meteorite strikes eons ago.
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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> The Cassini space probe is officially no more.
Gets rather emotional for those involved. I get it, having been in the company
of some "space mission" people. BBQ including Space Shuttle astronauts at
parents friends house once, and lunch another time during making of
International Space Station. All years ago.
Lots of time involved in space science, whereas I get the vantage point like
everyone else courtesy the publicly available images and science info. More of
an instant gratification for me, because I sure do like space science and happy
I don't have to work at it.
As much as I tried to be online to watch NASA TV (don't get the televised
channel), I let a simple thing like a software update restart on my notebook go
ahead while I waited for the time of plunge. Which of course was to be nothing
more than a lost signal vigil. Missed seeing that by minutes, so just watched
the replay about an hour and a half later.
Single most important thing about Cassini to me is the revealing of Saturn's
moon Titan via lander Huygens. The "salt water" fountains of Enceladus next. But
even more so is probably the fact extraterrestrial environments have become a
known thing instead of only guesses.
Hints that if we had stopped with the Moon, and maybe Mars, that we could have
been limited to believing lifeforms might not exist anywhere else. Not that it
ever stops imaginative people, or the scientists, and that's still a question
mark, but at least shows the possibility is more and more likely some place
other than Earth.
I spent my growing years thinking things looked bleak for a realism about life
in outer space. There's also the incredibly long and short of it all, centuries
of speculation and woefully lacking concepts. Nothing even yet, although its
vastly changing within decades now. However, to be honest and pessimistic at the
same time, it could be centuries again before actual events bring about the
knowledge of tangible evidence of higher forms of life. Not without the more
instantaneous and remote signaling of outside sources being watched for. Or true
extraterrestrial visitation sans UFOs.
Anyway... I consider our current time to be in between. And often like a rock
and a hard place. It's only through the better things about the world that can
soften it. Thankful for that.
Bob
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