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Doesn’t it undermine the credibility of NASA if something goes wrong? The public who is the audience for this article is also paying the bills (through taxes).

Doesn’t it undermine the credibility of NASA if something goes wrong? The public who is the audience for this article is also paying the bills (through taxes). I’d settle for just changing “won’t melt” to “shouldn’t melt”. I think that appropriate for something that’s never been attempted.

dawnerd 8y ago
Either way we’re chucking lots of money at the sun so if it fails we still learn something, not to mention developed a lot of technologies along the way.
- netfire 8y ago
  For sure, but it would be a shame if NASA lost confidence and trust (and possibly funding) with their stakeholders (the public), because they weren’t more upfront about the potential risks. As a scientific organization that has experienced significant (and expensive) failures before, I expect better.
  - natep 8y ago
    It seems like you want to discredit NASA now ("shouldn't melt") vs some imagined possibility("won't melt" but it does). With the amount of design, analysis, testing, and independent review and verification of the systems, backup systems, triply redundant systems, and autonomy, we can be as sure of it not melting as we can be sure of anything. And we certainly spent a large amount of money on this (about 1/10th of the World Cup), but in performance and value per $, it's a great deal.
    - netfire 8y ago
      Not at all. I expect NASA has done as much due diligence, planning, testing, and verification as possible. I just don’t think they are being upfront as they should be about the possible risks for a previously unattempted scientific endeavor. We’ve had massive failures (including NASA itself), in environments that are much better understood and with systems that have actually had exposure to those environments.
    - netfire 8y ago
      I also didn’t intend on “shouldn’t melt” to be taken sarcastically. I was trying to show how I would like something changed in the article. Probably a bad use of quotes on my part...
natep 8y ago
(former software engineer on PSP here) It's a certainty that it will melt eventually, but that's not a satisfying answer to the question "why won't it melt?" The satisfying answer is "for the time period when it won't melt, it won't melt because of..."

dawnerd 8y ago

Either way we’re chucking lots of money at the sun so if it fails we still learn something, not to mention developed a lot of technologies along the way.

netfire 8y ago
For sure, but it would be a shame if NASA lost confidence and trust (and possibly funding) with their stakeholders (the public), because they weren’t more upfront about the potential risks. As a scientific organization that has experienced significant (and expensive) failures before, I expect better.
- natep 8y ago
  It seems like you want to discredit NASA now ("shouldn't melt") vs some imagined possibility("won't melt" but it does). With the amount of design, analysis, testing, and independent review and verification of the systems, backup systems, triply redundant systems, and autonomy, we can be as sure of it not melting as we can be sure of anything. And we certainly spent a large amount of money on this (about 1/10th of the World Cup), but in performance and value per $, it's a great deal.
  - netfire 8y ago
    Not at all. I expect NASA has done as much due diligence, planning, testing, and verification as possible. I just don’t think they are being upfront as they should be about the possible risks for a previously unattempted scientific endeavor. We’ve had massive failures (including NASA itself), in environments that are much better understood and with systems that have actually had exposure to those environments.
  - netfire 8y ago
    I also didn’t intend on “shouldn’t melt” to be taken sarcastically. I was trying to show how I would like something changed in the article. Probably a bad use of quotes on my part...

natep 8y ago

(former software engineer on PSP here) It's a certainty that it will melt eventually, but that's not a satisfying answer to the question "why won't it melt?" The satisfying answer is "for the time period when it won't melt, it won't melt because of..."