NASA Genesis space probe crashes

[photon]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5942268/

The probe was in orbit around the sun with earth gathering samples of solar wind, and was supposed to come back, deploy a parafoil, and be caught by stunt men flying choppers... Unfortunately the chutes either didn't deploy, or were sheared off, and it hit the ground at 100mph.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

I saw a thing about this on TV last night. I thought it was a bit of a strange plan and it looks like they kinda shat the bed. Granted the plan was okay, it was just a malfunction in the equipement.
Too bad. I wonder what the deductible is on a $260 Millon insurance policy is.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by photon@Sep 8 2004, 05:20 PM
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5942268/

The probe was in orbit around the sun with earth gathering samples of solar wind, and was supposed to come back, deploy a parafoil, and be caught by stunt men flying choppers... Unfortunately the chutes either didn't deploy, or were sheared off, and it hit the ground at 100mph.

Well, there was always a fair chance the helicopters wouldn't catch it and it would hit the ground fairly hard with parachutes, potentially damaging or contaminating the results

But to just drill itself into the ground . . . . ouch.

Cowperson

[octothorp]

One of these times, NASA is going to screw up and crash-land something like this right ontop of a mid-sized midwestern town. They may be the smartest guys in the world, but in my opinion they're not smart enough to be sending objects crashing towards the earth at 11km a second.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by octothorp@Sep 8 2004, 05:44 PM
One of these times, NASA is going to screw up and crash-land something like this right ontop of a mid-sized midwestern town. They may be the smartest guys in the world, but in my opinion they're not smart enough to be sending objects crashing towards the earth at 11km a second.

Well, it hit where they said it would.

It just hit harder than they said it would.

Cowperson

[photon]

THUD instead of thud...

It wasn't going at 11km/s when it hit though, it'd be going about terminal velocity depending on how it's shaped and how it's tumbling, I think they said 100mph in the article.

I guess it could have hit one of the choppers.

[octothorp]

Originally posted by Cowperson+Sep 8 2004, 11:27 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cowperson @ Sep 8 2004, 11:27 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-octothorp@Sep 8 2004, 05:44 PM
One of these times, NASA is going to screw up and crash-land something like this right ontop of a mid-sized midwestern town. They may be the smartest guys in the world, but in my opinion they're not smart enough to be sending objects crashing towards the earth at 11km a second.

Well, it hit where they said it would.

It just hit harder than they said it would.

Cowperson [/b][/quote]
Yeah, I'm just saying that they constantly make mistakes, and so far they're lucky that the mistakes have cost the lives of only a few dedicated astronauts. If they're wrong about how a parachute is going to open, they could just as easily be wrong about some element of the tragectory.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Come on man. I can only think of one example of them actually messing up a calculation that sent a probe to the wrong place. In this case and in the case of the space shuttles (Columbia or Challenger) it was unexpected things that were impossible to account for. (I'll grant you that there is some evidence that they knew there was a problem on challenger).

It's not like these guys are building matchstick houses. The stuff they build goes into Space. I mean it's not like it's rocket science....oh wait it is. Yes there have been accidents, but you go ahead and put a probe in space for 3 years and see if everything works 100% like you thought it would.

Edit: You say that they constantly make mistakes....okay, give me a few examples.

[Tron_fdc]

(BBS) Edit: You say that they constantly make mistakes....okay, give me a few examples.

I think what you guys are getting at is the small margin of error these guys work with, and the magnitude of the repercussions of those mistakes if they miss something. In everyday life it doesn't really matter if PI=3.14, but in the life of a NASA scientist not carrying PI to the 300th digit could be the difference betwen send a probe to Pluto or a probe mistakingly into Uranus.

[Reaper]

Originally posted by octothorp@Sep 8 2004, 11:44 AM
One of these times, NASA is going to screw up and crash-land something like this right ontop of a mid-sized midwestern town. They may be the smartest guys in the world, but in my opinion they're not smart enough to be sending objects crashing towards the earth at 11km a second.

Terminal Velocity for the Probe = 162 kmh

or

45 metres per second.

If anyone could make some something go 11km/second then I would imagine that they would probably do whatever they wanted to given that kind of destructive power.

[octothorp]

I'm being somewhat tongue-and-cheek, I'm not actually that critical of NASA. But there's the Hubble's optical problems, the stuck antenna the Galileo, problems with the mars rover, etc. You're completely right, when you send something way up into space for three years, there's a reasonable chance of things not going as expected, infact, that's exactly my point; it's just a scary concept how high the margin for error is. And as I said in my previous post, these guys are some of the smartest in the world--they've probably done better, overall, than other programs such as the russian cosmonaut programs. And of course, they do all their risk analysis studies, and in a case like this, I'm sure they calculated the possibility that the parachutes wouldn't open, and they eventually decided that it wasn't a large enough risk to have a contingency plan.

[octothorp]

Originally posted by Reaper+Sep 8 2004, 01:43 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Reaper @ Sep 8 2004, 01:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-octothorp@Sep 8 2004, 11:44 AM
One of these times, NASA is going to screw up and crash-land something like this right ontop of a mid-sized midwestern town. They may be the smartest guys in the world, but in my opinion they're not smart enough to be sending objects crashing towards the earth at 11km a second.

Terminal Velocity for the Probe = 162 kmh

or

45 metres per second.

If anyone could make some something go 11km/second then I would imagine that they would probably do whatever they wanted to given that kind of destructive power. [/b][/quote]
From the article:
--
As Earth's gravitational pull brought it closer, the capsule picked up speed rapidly, reaching velocities of 25,000 mph or 11 kilometers per second. The capsule's descent was then slowed by atmospheric re-entry.
--


Sounds to me like what I said was true. The object was approaching earth and travelling at 11 kilometers per second. I never suggested that this was the actual speed of impact. The article itself says that the impact was at 309 km per hour.

[Reaper]

Originally posted by octothorp+Sep 8 2004, 02:49 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (octothorp @ Sep 8 2004, 02:49 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Terminal Velocity for the Probe = 162 kmh

or

45 metres per second.

If anyone could make some something go 11km/second then I would imagine that they would probably do whatever they wanted to given that kind of destructive power.

From the article:
--
As Earth's gravitational pull brought it closer, the capsule picked up speed rapidly, reaching velocities of 25,000 mph or 11 kilometers per second. The capsule's descent was then slowed by atmospheric re-entry.
--


Sounds to me like what I said was true. The object was approaching earth and travelling at 11 kilometers per second. I never suggested that this was the actual speed of impact. The article itself says that the impact was at 309 km per hour. [/b][/quote]
Sorry, my bad.

85 metres per second was the impact velocity.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

I'm amazed that no one is concerned about the possibility about contamination of the probe but of Earth.... part of those air tight labs is to protect the samples from contaminants but also to prevent the accidental release of who knows what from any cosmic samples...

*hack, sniffle, cough. stupid cold*

[ChipOne]

Originally posted by I-Hate-Hulse@Sep 9 2004, 01:04 PM
I'm amazed that no one is concerned about the possibility about contamination of the probe but of Earth.... part of those air tight labs is to protect the samples from contaminants but also to prevent the accidental release of who knows what from any cosmic samples...

*hack, sniffle, cough. stupid cold*

that's what i was thinking to...first thing to hit my mind was "here comes the next big plague".

so we sent something up to catch sun beams. i sure as hell hope they either:
1) know exactly what is in a sun beam and what it might do to the earth without first having to travel through our built-in humanizing filter called 'atmosphere'

or

2) they didn't actually catch anything at all.

[photon]

Lol, I think that's a wee bit too paranoid.. It was catching small amounts of atomic particles that have been travelling millions of km through the hard cold vacuum of space.. if there were deadly man eating trees on the sun and we caught one of their seeds, they probably wouldn't grow here.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

I fully expect this controversy to be even higher when Stardust returns with a sample of comet. It's widely though that a comet make have seeded life on this planet in it's dirt and snow core.... who knows what will grow and florish in what it brings back.

(there's an Edmonton joke here somewhere, but my Dayquil filled head isn't processing it right now)

[Cowperson]

An update:

Most of the contents of NASA's Genesis space probe appear to be intact and usable despite the craft's crash landing in the Utah desert, researchers said today.

"We should be able to meet many, if not all, of our science goals," said co-principal investigator Roger C. Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Parachutes?

We don't need no stinking parachutes!!!

You may need to register at the LA Times to view

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/12...tab_print.html

Cowperson

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Hmmm perhaps they should aim the re-entry point at something nice and soft next time just in case... a bog, an ocean, a pillow factory....or the Leaf's blueline.....

[troutman]

Bugs in space: can bacteria survive the harsh conditions of space?


http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/astrobio/index.cfm

Why should the particular polymer combinations of Earth reign supreme?

http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/news_stories...tail.cfm?ID=18

Microbes from edge of space revived:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993186

Could Alien Infections Wreak havoc on Earth?

http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/1/2003...1/story001.html