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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Stone It would be nice to see an occasional mission like Voyager. Every f

by tocs3 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Stone It would be nice to see an occasional mission like Voyager. Every few years just send something out to take some pictures of something we have not seen close up yet. Let it keep going and looking around (and back).

dylan604 2y ago
looking around at what though? there's nothing else out there. when Sagan proposed to turn the cameras back to look at earth, ultimately resulting in the Pale Blue Dot and family portrait, there was push back that looking back at the Sun might ruin the sensor. the response was essentially, so what if it does. there's nothing else it will ever be close enough to that would require using the camera. New Horizons was the closest attempt at what you are suggesting in that they were able to aim for another body after the Pluto fly-by, but that was just luck in the alignments. The only thing I can think that might be useful would be having observatories with opposite trajectories for ever increasing parallax info, but I don't know what that would actually be useful for. The fact that nobody is doing it means people much smarter than me don't think it'd be useful either.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  > New Horizons was the closest attempt at what you are suggesting in that they were able to aim for another body after the Pluto fly-by, but that was just luck in the alignments. An orbital mission to Pluto would be amazing. Maybe we can get its planetary status back. It is interesting and important to note that New Horizon's computers crashed for a bit as the probe was nearing Pluto. During the time the computers were down Horizon was scheduled to be scanning for as yet undiscovered moons of Pluto. If it had found a bunch more, perhaps Pluto would have already regained its rightful planetary status.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Compare how long New Horizons took to get to Pluto in a fly-by against how long it would take to get there at a slow enough speed to actually park in orbit. I don't know what those numbers are for the comparison, but my gut says it'd be a really long time. Maybe they could use some gravity assists to speed up the journey out to Saturn/Neptune, and then use aerobraking to slow down again for the rest of the journey??? I find the trajectories that they use for these kinds of missions very interesting. Even the Parker solar probe has a seemingly very complicated trajectory.
    - tivert 2y ago
      > Maybe they could use some gravity assists to speed up the journey out to Saturn/Neptune, and then use aerobraking to slow down again for the rest of the journey??? Or an gravity assist at Neptune to slow down? Given their orbits cross it maybe it would be practical and relatively fast someday, but maybe not for a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist https://www.theplanetstoday.com/the_planets.html https://www.theplanetstoday.com/the_planets.html
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      Outer solar system distances are large. Pluto occasionally orbits within Neptune's orbit, but can be up to about 1.5 times more distant (49 AU vs. 30 AU at aphelion). Which means you'd be braking with 40% of the voyage to complete, worst case. Your larger problem is that there aren't very many outer-solar-system planets, and their orbits don't align in ways useful to gravitational slingshots (for acceleration or deceleration) or aerobraking very often, as in on the order of many decades or centuries. The Voyager "Grand Tour" missions (launched in 1977, primary encounters from 1979 through 1989, both missions ongoing presently in the Heliopause) relied on one such rare alignment. Those occur at roughly 175 year intervals: "When is the next Outer Planet lineup (Voyager)" <https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/5075/when-is-the-next-outer-planet-lineup-voyager https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/5075/when-is-the-n...> Getting to Pluto is hard. Stopping at or orbiting it is harder. That said, there are at least three proposals for such a mission. One is a fusion-enabled pluto orbiter and lander (the propulsion system envisioned is still theoretical). Another a "hop, skip, and jump" mission utilising Pluto's own highly tenuous atmosphere for aerobraking. A third is called "Persephone" of which I have no further details on propulsion, though Wikipedia links several very vague descriptive articles. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Pluto#Future_mission_concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Pluto#Future_mi...>
- tocs3 2y ago
  Another comet,asteroids, another mission to Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and moons. More data on heliosphere. A modest space telescope measuring parallax. I am not proposing flagship missions just something so we can see something new a little more often.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    "JWST isn't providing enough new for you?" he asks sarcastically. I think the budgets required would make any of the things you describe as flagship missions. Taking years after launch before the mission can start is a hard sell. The couple of months for JWST to become operational seemed like it was killing some anxious/excited people in that wait. Nevermind the decades long wait from delays in getting it launched too. It could literally something where the designers/builders never see the results. So I guess we should have started 10 years ago?
    - tocs3 2y ago
      Power way out there is hard and I do not know the best ways to deal with it but a standard sort of "explorer" class spacecraft the gets produced and sent out every few years. avoiding he development costs and some of the risk. Maybe one or two in Earth orbit to chase down interstellar interlopers. I suspect (but do not know, maybe someone else does) some of those that worked on JWST did not get a chance to see it launch (but an amazing project non the less). Also, JWST is mostly looking at things kind far away and sort of a long time ago (with some closer that is incredible. It cannot really compare to the images from Voyager(s) of the outer planets.
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      For both technical and scientific reasons (e.g., fundamental limitations of optical resolving power), there are things which cannot be seen via JWST or any other near-Earth telescope which a probe might be able to observe. There are also observations which extend beyond the electromagnetic spectrum itself, or sample physical conditions in the neighbourhood of outer-solar-system planets. (These are not knocks on JWST which is absolutely phenomenal for what it does. These are simply observations on the limits of JWST or any comparable near-Earth telescope or remote-sensing resources.)
xcv123 2y ago
[flagged]
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9913629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9913629>
  - xcv123 2y ago
    It wasn't a swipe. I pointed out that haven't been paying attention to probe launches. Nothing offensive about that. I also wasn't paying attention for years. So what?
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9378899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9378899> I'm pretty confident in my understanding of HN's guidelines and dang's views on them. He's the site moderator (I am not). Note that most of HN's actual moderation is, however, by ordinary members. I'm not going to argue the point. I strongly encourage you to read through dang's comments and admonitions on this point, which makes clear just what constitutes a swipe: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20swipes&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...> And ... you've been admonished before on this specific point, more than once: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39696275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39696275> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925316> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37906769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37906769>
      - xcv123 2y ago
        It was not a swipe. You are hallucinating a swipe that does not exist. I won't be replying to any more of this nonsense. If you see a comment you don't like then just flag it and downvote it. You're not a moderator here and even if you were, you're not good at the job. You are polluting the thread with noise. Not everyone pays attention to the NASA probe launch schedule. So what? It's not a swipe. As I said, I wasn't paying attention to that for years.

by tocs3 2y ago

dylan604 2y ago

looking around at what though? there's nothing else out there. when Sagan proposed to turn the cameras back to look at earth, ultimately resulting in the Pale Blue Dot and family portrait, there was push back that looking back at the Sun might ruin the sensor. the response was essentially, so what if it does. there's nothing else it will ever be close enough to that would require using the camera. New Horizons was the closest attempt at what you are suggesting in that they were able to aim for another body after the Pluto fly-by, but that was just luck in the alignments. The only thing I can think that might be useful would be having observatories with opposite trajectories for ever increasing parallax info, but I don't know what that would actually be useful for. The fact that nobody is doing it means people much smarter than me don't think it'd be useful either.

jgalt212 2y ago
> New Horizons was the closest attempt at what you are suggesting in that they were able to aim for another body after the Pluto fly-by, but that was just luck in the alignments. An orbital mission to Pluto would be amazing. Maybe we can get its planetary status back. It is interesting and important to note that New Horizon's computers crashed for a bit as the probe was nearing Pluto. During the time the computers were down Horizon was scheduled to be scanning for as yet undiscovered moons of Pluto. If it had found a bunch more, perhaps Pluto would have already regained its rightful planetary status.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Compare how long New Horizons took to get to Pluto in a fly-by against how long it would take to get there at a slow enough speed to actually park in orbit. I don't know what those numbers are for the comparison, but my gut says it'd be a really long time. Maybe they could use some gravity assists to speed up the journey out to Saturn/Neptune, and then use aerobraking to slow down again for the rest of the journey??? I find the trajectories that they use for these kinds of missions very interesting. Even the Parker solar probe has a seemingly very complicated trajectory.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > Maybe they could use some gravity assists to speed up the journey out to Saturn/Neptune, and then use aerobraking to slow down again for the rest of the journey??? Or an gravity assist at Neptune to slow down? Given their orbits cross it maybe it would be practical and relatively fast someday, but maybe not for a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist https://www.theplanetstoday.com/the_planets.html https://www.theplanetstoday.com/the_planets.html
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    Outer solar system distances are large. Pluto occasionally orbits within Neptune's orbit, but can be up to about 1.5 times more distant (49 AU vs. 30 AU at aphelion). Which means you'd be braking with 40% of the voyage to complete, worst case. Your larger problem is that there aren't very many outer-solar-system planets, and their orbits don't align in ways useful to gravitational slingshots (for acceleration or deceleration) or aerobraking very often, as in on the order of many decades or centuries. The Voyager "Grand Tour" missions (launched in 1977, primary encounters from 1979 through 1989, both missions ongoing presently in the Heliopause) relied on one such rare alignment. Those occur at roughly 175 year intervals: "When is the next Outer Planet lineup (Voyager)" <https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/5075/when-is-the-next-outer-planet-lineup-voyager https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/5075/when-is-the-n...> Getting to Pluto is hard. Stopping at or orbiting it is harder. That said, there are at least three proposals for such a mission. One is a fusion-enabled pluto orbiter and lander (the propulsion system envisioned is still theoretical). Another a "hop, skip, and jump" mission utilising Pluto's own highly tenuous atmosphere for aerobraking. A third is called "Persephone" of which I have no further details on propulsion, though Wikipedia links several very vague descriptive articles. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Pluto#Future_mission_concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Pluto#Future_mi...>
tocs3 2y ago
Another comet,asteroids, another mission to Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and moons. More data on heliosphere. A modest space telescope measuring parallax. I am not proposing flagship missions just something so we can see something new a little more often.
- dylan604 2y ago
  "JWST isn't providing enough new for you?" he asks sarcastically. I think the budgets required would make any of the things you describe as flagship missions. Taking years after launch before the mission can start is a hard sell. The couple of months for JWST to become operational seemed like it was killing some anxious/excited people in that wait. Nevermind the decades long wait from delays in getting it launched too. It could literally something where the designers/builders never see the results. So I guess we should have started 10 years ago?
  - tocs3 2y ago
    Power way out there is hard and I do not know the best ways to deal with it but a standard sort of "explorer" class spacecraft the gets produced and sent out every few years. avoiding he development costs and some of the risk. Maybe one or two in Earth orbit to chase down interstellar interlopers. I suspect (but do not know, maybe someone else does) some of those that worked on JWST did not get a chance to see it launch (but an amazing project non the less). Also, JWST is mostly looking at things kind far away and sort of a long time ago (with some closer that is incredible. It cannot really compare to the images from Voyager(s) of the outer planets.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    For both technical and scientific reasons (e.g., fundamental limitations of optical resolving power), there are things which cannot be seen via JWST or any other near-Earth telescope which a probe might be able to observe. There are also observations which extend beyond the electromagnetic spectrum itself, or sample physical conditions in the neighbourhood of outer-solar-system planets. (These are not knocks on JWST which is absolutely phenomenal for what it does. These are simply observations on the limits of JWST or any comparable near-Earth telescope or remote-sensing resources.)

xcv123 2y ago

[flagged]

dredmorbius 2y ago
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9913629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9913629>
- xcv123 2y ago
  It wasn't a swipe. I pointed out that haven't been paying attention to probe launches. Nothing offensive about that. I also wasn't paying attention for years. So what?
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9378899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9378899> I'm pretty confident in my understanding of HN's guidelines and dang's views on them. He's the site moderator (I am not). Note that most of HN's actual moderation is, however, by ordinary members. I'm not going to argue the point. I strongly encourage you to read through dang's comments and admonitions on this point, which makes clear just what constitutes a swipe: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20swipes&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...> And ... you've been admonished before on this specific point, more than once: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39696275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39696275> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925316> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37906769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37906769>
    - xcv123 2y ago
      It was not a swipe. You are hallucinating a swipe that does not exist. I won't be replying to any more of this nonsense. If you see a comment you don't like then just flag it and downvote it. You're not a moderator here and even if you were, you're not good at the job. You are polluting the thread with noise. Not everyone pays attention to the NASA probe launch schedule. So what? It's not a swipe. As I said, I wasn't paying attention to that for years.