5 ms·
Are Voyager 1 & 2 the greatdst scientific achievement of the human race? I think it's an easy argument to make. I'm very impressed about figuring out this prob
by NotSammyHagar 2y ago
Are Voyager 1 & 2 the greatdst scientific achievement of the human race? I think it's an easy argument to make.
I'm very impressed about figuring out this problem and working around it. It would take 50 years to repeat, because it would take so long to send another mission that far out (47 years, depending on how much delta-V we could give it), and the odds that it survives that long is low anyway. We are too poor, too involved in arguing about other stuff to come close. There are the interesting ideas to send tiny specs of space ships using lasers to another solar system.
- cbanek 2y agoWell it's not just how much delta-V but all the gravity assists. The planets were in a "grand tour" alignment which happens every 175 years, so voyager would have an even longer lead. But doing something like that with an ion drive, on some of our more powerful rockets, and another hundred years of space tech, that thing would be amazing!
- ethbr1 2y agoNuclear pulse engines for 2151-2154!
- dylan604 2y agoNew Horizons was launched without being part of the alignment used for the grand tour, but it is moving much faster than Voyagers. The Parker Solar probe is moving even faster. These are just examples showing the gravity assists work very well. It would be interesting to see how long it took Parker to get up to speed, and then add that to the time to the Voyager distance and compare that to the nearly 50 years of Voyager as the baseline.
- nwiswell 2y ago> Are Voyager 1 & 2 the greatdst scientific achievement of the human race? I think it's an easy argument to make. I can't really agree. Voyager 1 & 2 have been extraordinarily successful machines but that's aided by the simplicity of their mission and their design. The core scientific purpose of the missions (visit and survey the outer planets) has been repeated many times over by other craft (Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini–Huygens, New Horizons, Juno) with greatly improved instruments. Compare Voyager to the Large Hadron Collider, the Manhattan Project, sequencing the genome, or even the Opportunity rover. All of these projects were successful despite being massively more complex undertakings. It's comforting to know that the human race will leave a trace beyond the gravity well of our own star, but hurling a chunk of metal away from the sun is not an inherently great achievement.
- booi 2y ago[flagged]
- vikingerik 2y agoHN rules: please don't intentionally take an uncharitable interpretation of the post you're replying to. The personal attack isn't necessary either. Nowhere did he say the Voyagers weren't great. He cited other projects that were/are greater, which was the original question. Including other space probes that have delivered thousands of times more data.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- serf 2y agoi'm so sick of this lame line of reasoning, it oozes out every time anyone is even minorly critical of anything. an individual can criticize something without having produced something greater than the thing itself, it's just comparison. There isn't any rule out there that says that critics must have mastered the art of whatever before-hand.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tomxor 2y ago> but that's aided by the simplicity of their mission and their design. Simplicity is a property of good engineering, especially where reliability and longevity is concerned. Weighing the achievement of a project by it's complexity alone ignores the wisdom of the process that arrived at that solution.
- aplummer 2y agoIt's up there, but for the greatest, also hard to beat vaccines and a couple others.
- Retric 2y agoSmallpox vaccine is by far the most impactful scientific achievement. Imagine something deadly enough that the first solution variolation killed 1-2% of those who took it and people still lined their kids to take such lifesaving medicine. Historically, Smallpox killed ~1/3 of the infected and the survivors were often blind and or horrifically scared and it was literally doing this for thousands of years. And yet it’s been almost completely forgotten about today. Something like a billion lives saved and counting.
- nxobject 2y agoNot just the vaccine – the complete _eradication_ of smallpox, too. One of humanity's finest moments.
- Retric 2y agoThe eradication was a major achievement, but not strictly a scientific achievement IMO. I find it hard to imagine 300-500 million people died from smallpox in the 20th century. Yet we both eliminated it May 8, 1980 and had drastically reduced the number of cases well before that point. The last US case was in 1949 and the vaccine was being administered starting in 1796.
- LeoPanthera 2y ago"The printing press" has got to be up there. No single invention caused a faster shift in the knowledge level of humanity. It's tempting to suggest the latin alphabet, too. Thank the Phoenicians.
- zeroimpl 2y agoWhile great inventions, neither of those are "scientific achievements" IMO. The silicon transistor on the other hand is a good example of an invention that came directly as a result of science.
- ethbr1 2y agoMechanical engineering and paper science are sciences too. That we're had them for so long shouldn't diminish the fact that they have specific physical characteristics that need to be discovered and optimized.
- mikestew 2y agoAntibiotics: less than 100 years ago, you could die from a splinter in your finger. (I read an article in the past month or two with the title "My Grandmother Died of a Splinter", but damned if I can find it.)
- jgalt212 2y agoI think that's pretty bold, but in my mind I have trouble ranking Apollo, Voyager, and Hubble. They are all just so darn impressive.
- ngcc_hk 2y agoThat is what I call “or” thinking. Sometime ther is a tendency to rank because like the other post we all naturally want to rank and compare. And even worst may have to say one is the best, in exclusion of others. Market, government, community, public goods, knowledge …. Down to these 3 you have mentioned. Can all good? Have they have their different impact and their contribution? And can we have all, as we have them all already. As said it is interesting to have you with us. All of you.
- jgalt212 2y agoThis is the most obtuse comment I've read in quite some time.