8 ms·

Seems like this entire Pluto mission has opened up quite a few questions for Geologists. For such a small world so far from the sun, it sure has some very inter

by leemac 11y ago

Seems like this entire Pluto mission has opened up quite a few questions for Geologists. For such a small world so far from the sun, it sure has some very interesting features and characteristics. The recent mountain range photo/3D map was incredible. We live in some exciting times. Every few months we have a new probe somewhere teaching us so much about our tiny corner of the universe.

melling 11y ago
Exciting times is a bit of a stretch. I was cutting black and white pictures from newspapers of Viking on Mars when I was a kid. 40 years later we're finally checking out Pluto. Things will get exciting when the cost drops 100x and we're beaming back hi-def video and images 24x7 from all the planets and moons in our solar system. Let's dream a little bigger and set the goal much higher.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  Some people will always see the glass half empty. They are no fun to be around.
  - melling 11y ago
    Half empty? We put a drop of water in the glass! :-) Don't worry someone is working on making space flight cheap. In 20 years, the drone craze will go interplanetary. Gonna fund my Kickstarter?
    - happyscrappy 11y ago
      It takes a certain personality flaw to belittle such an engineering accomplishment.
      - CamperBob2 11y ago
        Either he's editing his posts, or people are going a little nuts with the downvote button. He's not belittling anything, just expressing the same impatience that many of us feel when we regard how little progress has been made in space exploration during our lifetime.
        melling 11y ago
        No editing. At least one person got it. Cost me a lot of karma. If you're 20 something, everything seems great. Guess we're not getting NASA's budget doubled.
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        (shrug) Moderation abuse is a fact of life on HN, so we might as well own it. I've got more hacker karma than the Dalai Fuckin' Lama, so I'll try to distract some of the assholes for you.
        Roboprog 11y ago
        Too bad "NERVA" never was developed for unmanned missions like this. Forget the little thermocouple can for electricity - give me an ENGINE, "Heinlein" style! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA
        GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
        I was in my teens when Voyager was a thing, and I am really impressed with the volume, variety, and quality of the modern space probe fleet. (Of course I want more, like Uranus and Neptune orbiters, but between Pluto and comets and asteroids and all those things on and around Mars, 2015 is a really incredible time for space)
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        I think the really unfortunate aspect of the question is highlighted by the proverbial "problems here on Earth." Namely, there are still only three DSN sites, and mission planners are said to have to fight with each other for receiver time. The fact that planetary science still has to contend with Voyager-era terrestrial resources is a crying shame.
      - melling 11y ago
        No, it takes a certain personality to want great engineering accomplishments to be routine. Because if they're not, we'll probably be trapped on this rock for several more centuries. [UPDATE to answer without burning karma] Someone says "We live in some exciting times." and I try to explain how exciting it could be. Unless we actually have the "glass is only half full" discussion there's little chance of improving the situation. We have this political correctness problem where you need to always be positive.
        mburns 11y ago
        Everyone wants more great engineering to happen. You're not a snowflake in that regard. You're complaining because you can imagine it happening faster than it is, which is unhelpful and unpleasant. Thus, downvotes.
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        Everyone wants more great engineering to happen. No, they do not. Otherwise we'd have three dozen New Horizons-class spacecraft flying throughout the solar system and Kuiper Belt by now. Right now, there's a sizable contingent of people who are looking at the Pluto imagery and muttering to themselves, "So what? How does this affect the Kardashians?" Some of those people -- not all of them, but enough of them -- vote. All of this self-congratulatory stroking on our part just empowers them.
        mburns 11y ago
        I should have said "(nearly) everyone reading on Hacker News wants..." He's complaining to the choir (of sorts) while disparaging the very real progress we are making because it isn't as good as it could have possibly been if reality were different.
        baudehlo 11y ago
        Absolutely true. When a co-worker saw the picture I posted on hipchat of Charon, he said "so what, looks just like our moon." Thankfully he was chewed out by another science fan in the channel, but a sad number of people care less about this achievement than about the latest sports team win.
    - istorical 11y ago
      There's some real haters who are downvoting your realism. Sorry about that, I think you are simply being truthful.
- sp332 11y ago
  This mission was launched 9 years ago. I'm surprised it even had 40GB of storage space. Mars gets within 0.3 AU of the Earth when the orbits line up. Pluto is at best 29 AU away. That's almost 100x harder, and it's amazing it took only 40 years.
  - melling 11y ago
    And all those other problems like getting people to Mars, or the moons of Jupiter, for example, will be easier? All things with space are difficult, expensive, and possibly dangerous. Sure, getting to Pluto was difficult and cool, but that's the nature of space exploration.
  - noselasd 11y ago
    Well it doesn't :) It has 8GB storage (and the backup has that much too).
    - sp332 11y ago
      Hm, maybe it was 40 gigabits = 5 gigabytes of data that it gathered from the flyby?
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Folks, I appreciate that you don't like melling's opinion here, I have problems with it too. But can we not create an echo chamber by downvoting it into oblivion? That's not what voting is for. Let him have his say, if you disagree, then post a response. The way to win an argument is not to bludgeon the opponent into silence.
  - NhanH 11y ago
    On HN, it's completely appropriate to use downvote for disagreement (this has came up over and over again, but I doubt it's gonna change). Generally, I tried not to downvote for just disagreement, but melling's comment is pretty much the text book sample of the middlebrow dismissal, or gratuitously negative that we try to avoid.
    - melling 11y ago
      That's incorrect. Why don't you read this 10 times then reread what I said. " We live in some exciting times. Every few months we have a new probe somewhere teaching us so much about our tiny corner of the universe." It's simply not accurate.
      - NhanH 11y ago
        I was not one of those who downvoted you. And on further reading of your comments, it looks like you are commenting on the political climate of our society (no one cares about space/ science etc.), rather than specific engineering ability of the probe/ the team involves. It is a popular sentiment, and I can say that a lot of us would agree with it. But your original comment read very much like belittling the current Pluto mission, which is a different thing and very much not welcomed here. I mean, we even try not to complain too much for the 10000 JS frameworks being posted here, let alone another probe in space.
        eCa 11y ago
        > very much not welcomed here While I agree with your first paragraph, I have issues with sweeping statements as to which viewpoints are welcome here. While I, as stated, disagree with melling's opinion in this matter, he is more than welcome to have it and make it known. Just as those who don't agree, through downvote or response, are welcome to their view.
melling 11y ago
"We live in some exciting times". Here's another perspective about the times: "The dark future of American space exploration" http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8052365/nasa-budget-europa http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8052365/nasa-budget-europa Submitted to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9906017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9906017 "If NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto is extended beyond 2017, the entire active human presence at the outer planets will consist of a single probe the size of a grand piano"
- trhway 11y ago
  you're right. Yet what do you want from an ape species who makes beheading videos and posts them on entertainment sites? There are huge chances that we may be at some bifurcation point before very possible fall into Dark Ages or into collapsing into a planetary-sized self-centered ant colony (which i think is among the main traps what most early technological civilizations in the Universe fall into (other trap being of course is an all out nuke war)).
  - ChrisGranger 11y ago
    ISIS and their ilk are such a small percentage of what humanity is all about. Don't look at them and think that we're moving towards a new Dark Age. Life in much of the world is as good as it has ever been.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  I would love it if NASA's budget was ten times bigger but the U.S. already spends more than everyone else combined.
  - melling 11y ago
    The last time the NASA budget was this low as a percentage of the federal budget was 1961. It's really bad that this isn't well understood on a site like HN. If we can't justify it here... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:N...

by leemac 11y ago

melling 11y ago

Exciting times is a bit of a stretch. I was cutting black and white pictures from newspapers of Viking on Mars when I was a kid. 40 years later we're finally checking out Pluto. Things will get exciting when the cost drops 100x and we're beaming back hi-def video and images 24x7 from all the planets and moons in our solar system. Let's dream a little bigger and set the goal much higher.

happyscrappy 11y ago
Some people will always see the glass half empty. They are no fun to be around.
- melling 11y ago
  Half empty? We put a drop of water in the glass! :-) Don't worry someone is working on making space flight cheap. In 20 years, the drone craze will go interplanetary. Gonna fund my Kickstarter?
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    It takes a certain personality flaw to belittle such an engineering accomplishment.
    - CamperBob2 11y ago
      Either he's editing his posts, or people are going a little nuts with the downvote button. He's not belittling anything, just expressing the same impatience that many of us feel when we regard how little progress has been made in space exploration during our lifetime.
      - melling 11y ago
        No editing. At least one person got it. Cost me a lot of karma. If you're 20 something, everything seems great. Guess we're not getting NASA's budget doubled.
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        (shrug) Moderation abuse is a fact of life on HN, so we might as well own it. I've got more hacker karma than the Dalai Fuckin' Lama, so I'll try to distract some of the assholes for you.
        Roboprog 11y ago
        Too bad "NERVA" never was developed for unmanned missions like this. Forget the little thermocouple can for electricity - give me an ENGINE, "Heinlein" style! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA
        GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
        I was in my teens when Voyager was a thing, and I am really impressed with the volume, variety, and quality of the modern space probe fleet. (Of course I want more, like Uranus and Neptune orbiters, but between Pluto and comets and asteroids and all those things on and around Mars, 2015 is a really incredible time for space)
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        I think the really unfortunate aspect of the question is highlighted by the proverbial "problems here on Earth." Namely, there are still only three DSN sites, and mission planners are said to have to fight with each other for receiver time. The fact that planetary science still has to contend with Voyager-era terrestrial resources is a crying shame.
    - melling 11y ago
      No, it takes a certain personality to want great engineering accomplishments to be routine. Because if they're not, we'll probably be trapped on this rock for several more centuries. [UPDATE to answer without burning karma] Someone says "We live in some exciting times." and I try to explain how exciting it could be. Unless we actually have the "glass is only half full" discussion there's little chance of improving the situation. We have this political correctness problem where you need to always be positive.
      - mburns 11y ago
        Everyone wants more great engineering to happen. You're not a snowflake in that regard. You're complaining because you can imagine it happening faster than it is, which is unhelpful and unpleasant. Thus, downvotes.
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        Everyone wants more great engineering to happen. No, they do not. Otherwise we'd have three dozen New Horizons-class spacecraft flying throughout the solar system and Kuiper Belt by now. Right now, there's a sizable contingent of people who are looking at the Pluto imagery and muttering to themselves, "So what? How does this affect the Kardashians?" Some of those people -- not all of them, but enough of them -- vote. All of this self-congratulatory stroking on our part just empowers them.
        mburns 11y ago
        I should have said "(nearly) everyone reading on Hacker News wants..." He's complaining to the choir (of sorts) while disparaging the very real progress we are making because it isn't as good as it could have possibly been if reality were different.
        baudehlo 11y ago
        Absolutely true. When a co-worker saw the picture I posted on hipchat of Charon, he said "so what, looks just like our moon." Thankfully he was chewed out by another science fan in the channel, but a sad number of people care less about this achievement than about the latest sports team win.
  - istorical 11y ago
    There's some real haters who are downvoting your realism. Sorry about that, I think you are simply being truthful.
sp332 11y ago
This mission was launched 9 years ago. I'm surprised it even had 40GB of storage space. Mars gets within 0.3 AU of the Earth when the orbits line up. Pluto is at best 29 AU away. That's almost 100x harder, and it's amazing it took only 40 years.
- melling 11y ago
  And all those other problems like getting people to Mars, or the moons of Jupiter, for example, will be easier? All things with space are difficult, expensive, and possibly dangerous. Sure, getting to Pluto was difficult and cool, but that's the nature of space exploration.
- noselasd 11y ago
  Well it doesn't :) It has 8GB storage (and the backup has that much too).
  - sp332 11y ago
    Hm, maybe it was 40 gigabits = 5 gigabytes of data that it gathered from the flyby?
InclinedPlane 11y ago
Folks, I appreciate that you don't like melling's opinion here, I have problems with it too. But can we not create an echo chamber by downvoting it into oblivion? That's not what voting is for. Let him have his say, if you disagree, then post a response. The way to win an argument is not to bludgeon the opponent into silence.
- NhanH 11y ago
  On HN, it's completely appropriate to use downvote for disagreement (this has came up over and over again, but I doubt it's gonna change). Generally, I tried not to downvote for just disagreement, but melling's comment is pretty much the text book sample of the middlebrow dismissal, or gratuitously negative that we try to avoid.
  - melling 11y ago
    That's incorrect. Why don't you read this 10 times then reread what I said. " We live in some exciting times. Every few months we have a new probe somewhere teaching us so much about our tiny corner of the universe." It's simply not accurate.
    - NhanH 11y ago
      I was not one of those who downvoted you. And on further reading of your comments, it looks like you are commenting on the political climate of our society (no one cares about space/ science etc.), rather than specific engineering ability of the probe/ the team involves. It is a popular sentiment, and I can say that a lot of us would agree with it. But your original comment read very much like belittling the current Pluto mission, which is a different thing and very much not welcomed here. I mean, we even try not to complain too much for the 10000 JS frameworks being posted here, let alone another probe in space.
      - eCa 11y ago
        > very much not welcomed here While I agree with your first paragraph, I have issues with sweeping statements as to which viewpoints are welcome here. While I, as stated, disagree with melling's opinion in this matter, he is more than welcome to have it and make it known. Just as those who don't agree, through downvote or response, are welcome to their view.

melling 11y ago

"We live in some exciting times". Here's another perspective about the times: "The dark future of American space exploration" http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8052365/nasa-budget-europa http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8052365/nasa-budget-europa Submitted to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9906017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9906017 "If NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto is extended beyond 2017, the entire active human presence at the outer planets will consist of a single probe the size of a grand piano"

trhway 11y ago
you're right. Yet what do you want from an ape species who makes beheading videos and posts them on entertainment sites? There are huge chances that we may be at some bifurcation point before very possible fall into Dark Ages or into collapsing into a planetary-sized self-centered ant colony (which i think is among the main traps what most early technological civilizations in the Universe fall into (other trap being of course is an all out nuke war)).
- ChrisGranger 11y ago
  ISIS and their ilk are such a small percentage of what humanity is all about. Don't look at them and think that we're moving towards a new Dark Age. Life in much of the world is as good as it has ever been.
happyscrappy 11y ago
I would love it if NASA's budget was ten times bigger but the U.S. already spends more than everyone else combined.
- melling 11y ago
  The last time the NASA budget was this low as a percentage of the federal budget was 1961. It's really bad that this isn't well understood on a site like HN. If we can't justify it here... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:N...