"New Horizons", Pluto mission to launch January 17th

[TAE]

 

[MarkMark]

It's already in space and the Atlas rocket stage has finished its job, with the Centaur stage engine firing.

 

[golightly]

Good thing the launch window and my dinner window coincided. I'm off out now

Yeah, I thought the delay because of cloud cover was just an excuse.

 

[MarkMark]

Bon voyage

 

[TAE]

Cool, they're showing the launch again - from different angles.

 

[guinnessdrinker]

I dunno but heard one of the mission controller say something about it intefering with the optics. Maybe its to do with tracking it visually. If it develops problems and have to self-destruct it, they'll need to see it, if possible, to make that decision I suppose (?)

with thirty odd kilos of plutonium inside

 

[Crispy]

with thirty odd kilos of plutonium inside

It's designed to survive a mission abort. There's one sitting on the seabed right now, from a faulty crash in the 70s - nothing has leaked. They'll probably pull it up at some point but for now it's completely inert.

 

[frogwoman]

sorry to bump such an old thread but i was just looking for a thread on this. Apparently it's going to get there in July 2015. So the tories will be gone and a probe will be flying by Pluto

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php

 

[frogwoman]

I thought it was also pretty amazing that it's carrying the ashes of the guy who discovered Pluto as well.

 

[King Biscuit Time]

Not only is it carrying (some of) the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, it's also carrying a cermonial Florida State Quarter. Presumably to pay Charon, The Ferryman to transport him across the Styx to the underworld.

Brilliant.

 

[ferrelhadley]

We dont know much about Pluto but it is one of a large number of bodies in our solar system that we are only just discovering. Its make up could help us understand the processes that helped build the solar system. We live in the greatest era of exploration ever. Far far more science is being done by the robots than was done on the moon. Since Viking and Voyager we have had the most incredible journeys of discovery ever. Like rolling Magellan, Cook, the Vikings and Amundsen into 40 epic years.

 

[frogwoman]

that mars stuff is quite interesting, they reckon they might have found bacteria don't they?

 

[DrRingDing]

So what's the point of spunking all this cash to gawp at a non planet in a totally unreachable place?

 

[frogwoman]

theres loads of reasons, it keeps some people in work for one thing
nah i think it's great we're exploring the solar system - it's not totally unreachable if we can fly a probe there is it? and there might be other resources on pluto like minerals and so on and if we run out of resources on earth maybe we could use those.

 

[DrRingDing]

theres loads of reasons, it keeps some people in work for one thing
nah i think it's great we're exploring the solar system - it's not totally unreachable if we can fly a probe there is it? and there might be other resources on pluto like minerals and so on and if we run out of resources on earth maybe we could use those.

I'll just pop over with my van a pick up a hundred weight of coal BRB!

 

[DrRingDing]

Ignore me I'm being Grumpy McGrumpkins.

 

[frogwoman]

Ignore me I'm being Grumpy McGrumpkins.

no worries i'm beginning to think that earth is becoming so shit that going to distant worlds may be our only option

 

[frogwoman]

there wouldn't be any tories on pluto for one thing.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

My daughter (5.6) is doing planets at school, I was all ready to jump in with "Plutos not a planet, it's just a kuiper belt object".
I was pleasantly surprised that they were already learning that . . . it doesn't appear in their planet songs, their planet tables and remained silent in a recent assembly.

 

[DotCommunist]

will there be aliens?

 

[frogwoman]

will there be aliens?

i hope so!

 

[ferrelhadley]

So what's the point of spunking all this cash to gawp at a non planet in a totally unreachable place?

$43 million a year for 15 years.

And in return we get our first look at a dwarf planet and Kuiper Belt objects. We do not know much about the outer solar system and if the bodies out there have anything more to tell us about how our solar system formed. But for a relatively small price we can do novel science and look at whole new bodies for the first time.

Here is some imagery taken from New Horizon of Io with a gigantic volcano erupting. When Pioneer 10 and the Voyagers were sent out to Jupiter, it was assumed the gas giants were where all the excitement would be and the moons would be nice to look at but balls of rock and ice. Now science and science enthusiasts tends to regard the moons of the gas giants, especially, Io, Europa and Titan, as being just about the most interesting places in the solar system. They are genuine dynamic worlds in their own right. We are headed to the unknown, we do not know what to expect. This is a true adventure. We are all made of the same dust that this far distant worlds are made of, when we look at them we are also trying to piece together our own origins.

 

[frogwoman]

I was watchin a documentary about black holes last night. Our galaxy is also orbiting around a black hole! And they think that's how the universe started.

 

[frogwoman]