They have to get the most information from the sensors with about 2 days of power in its batteries, maybe more if they can charge them up with solar panels. So much to learn, so little time.
This is the most mind-boggling achievement. Who would have bet on the success of a 10-year, billion-mile comet chase? Much kudos to the ESA.
Certainly amazing, but I think it's a couple orders of magnitude less impressive than what we did in 1969 with calculators and with men on board, and all that entails, and later with a dune buggy, and golfing, then returning home safe with samples over and over.
Even when we are good today, we are playing on the low rings with a safety net - a mere shadow of earlier men with more focus, more guts, and more imagination.
Compare the actual accomplishments, the difficulty, the depth of the discovery, the unfathomable difference in technology available, and most of all the incredible risk taken back then, which today is only accepted by our men in combat, and rarely anywhere else. What amazes me about this achievement today is how it pails by comparison. Still, I love it - it's all we got, and for some, it's still not worth even risking mere money. We have lost our imagination, our confidence, and our mojo.
At least we have the window washers to keep things gutsy. We need to take some of those washer dudes and teach them astrophysics and engineering, then we'd really do something impressive.
God could have given us a bigger world, and I heard that he doesn't do stuff by accident, but yea, why all the rocks. I mean back in the day we would venture out from some slum in England and end up in Martha's Vineyard.
I figured it would happen but I was hoping it wouldn't happen so soon. The astronomy lecture guy lost me completely this morning talking about maritime navigation and the relative motion of the Earth and the stars.
I remember some of it. Latitude is easy to get right but Longitude is very difficult which is why old maps look distorted compared to modern maps.
It's entirely possible I'm getting the latitude/longitude thing reversed.
The ecology lecture guy said that the moon rocks brought back by the astronauts proved that the moon was once part of the Earth, whacked off by some tremendous impact from some asteroid or planet or something.
I think the first four planets are referred to as the "terrestrial" planets because they're similar to one another in composition. The others? Not so much.
23 comments:
Washing machines in space!
ESA figured the arid environment of space would be sufficient to dry clothes.
I take it before washing machine it would have been impossible to land.
We would have need it an eagle again.
They have to get the most information from the sensors with about 2 days of power in its batteries, maybe more if they can charge them up with solar panels. So much to learn, so little time.
This is the most mind-boggling achievement. Who would have bet on the success of a 10-year, billion-mile comet chase? Much kudos to the ESA.
eeek!
Geniuses made this happen. How utterly improbable is it the this would happen? Big congratulations to the ESA people.
Nerds rule.
Nerds need to think big. Next time, send something up as big as a 1950's Buick
Fantastic achievement.
I read it and I was astounded.
We think of comets as all fire and ice.
An incredible achievement.
Michael Haz said...
Geniuses made this happen. How utterly improbable is it the this would happen?
In the Obamanation? Unheard of.
I'm just a working man in my prime - chasing comets.
Certainly amazing, but I think it's a couple orders of magnitude less impressive than what we did in 1969 with calculators and with men on board, and all that entails, and later with a dune buggy, and golfing, then returning home safe with samples over and over.
Even when we are good today, we are playing on the low rings with a safety net - a mere shadow of earlier men with more focus, more guts, and more imagination.
Compare the actual accomplishments, the difficulty, the depth of the discovery, the unfathomable difference in technology available, and most of all the incredible risk taken back then, which today is only accepted by our men in combat, and rarely anywhere else. What amazes me about this achievement today is how it pails by comparison. Still, I love it - it's all we got, and for some, it's still not worth even risking mere money. We have lost our imagination, our confidence, and our mojo.
At least we have the window washers to keep things gutsy. We need to take some of those washer dudes and teach them astrophysics and engineering, then we'd really do something impressive.
We'd shine up that comet, install an air freshener, and then steer it home and land it in central park on a dime.
So much to learn from dust and ice.
Good to see the Euros finally pulling something off like this.
And reported, ironically, by USA Today.
We went to the Moon. It was very exciting. We didn't know what we'd find. It turned out to be a big rock.
We went to Mars. It was very exciting. We didn't know what we'd find. It turned out to be a bigger rock.
Now we (the Europeans) have gone to a comet. It's very exciting. We don't know what we'll find.
God could have given us a bigger world, and I heard that he doesn't do stuff by accident, but yea, why all the rocks. I mean back in the day we would venture out from some slum in England and end up in Martha's Vineyard.
bagoh20 said...
God could have given us a bigger world, and I heard that he doesn't do stuff by accident, but yea, why all the rocks.
Silicates, Benjamin. Silicates.
I figured it would happen but I was hoping it wouldn't happen so soon. The astronomy lecture guy lost me completely this morning talking about maritime navigation and the relative motion of the Earth and the stars.
I remember some of it. Latitude is easy to get right but Longitude is very difficult which is why old maps look distorted compared to modern maps.
It's entirely possible I'm getting the latitude/longitude thing reversed.
The ecology lecture guy said that the moon rocks brought back by the astronauts proved that the moon was once part of the Earth, whacked off by some tremendous impact from some asteroid or planet or something.
I think the first four planets are referred to as the "terrestrial" planets because they're similar to one another in composition. The others? Not so much.
Those science guys are really smart.
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