Huygens probe

Last winter, NASA launched the Cassini spacecraft to explore Saturn. This fall, it started returning its findings. Tomorrow, it will release the Huygens probe to fall to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. On January 15, it will touch down.

Aside from Mars, Titan is probably the most earthlike body in our solar system. While it's average surface temperature is much too cold to be covered in liquid water, it gets smashed by comets and volcanoes often enough to heat at least part of the surface to liquid water temperatures for a few thousand years, possibly allowing life to form and continue to exist beneath the ice. If we're serious about finding life elsewhere in our vicinity, Titan is probably a great place to start (after Mars of course). Maddeningly, we know very little about the moon's surface because its atmosphere has a reflective orange haze to it. On January 15, that will all change when Huygens lands on the moon's surface.

In my opinion, the Cassini-Huygens mission promises to be one of the greatest accomplishments of our space program. It will be the most remote landing ever of any human spacecraft, and while it's chances of actually discovering life are remote, it should at least be able to tell us if Titan and the Saturn system are good candidates.

 

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I can't wait, this should be quite interesting.... NASA doesn't get enough credit these days, some of their accomplishments really are quite amazing...

 

Two points:

First I think we have only to find evidence of one microbe out there and we then know life is teeming throughout the Universe.

Second, NASA has been lame in getting credit for its accomplishments for decades. Their PR department is not only asleep at the wheel but probably dead. They are amazingly inept at promoting themselves ... they need Trump to take over NASA and next thing you know there would be a 5-star hotel on the Moon ...

 

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Well I think there is an anti-science bias in the media actually, not just anti-NASA.

In fact if you want a population of zombie "consumers", which the media need for their livelihood - advertising - why would you want people questioning everything all the time? Better to create mindless idiots who never wonder about anything, who simply do what they're told, wander around in a daze spending money they don't have on junk they don't need. Check out any mall right now if you don't believe me.

The next time I hear one of these dolts tell me that space exploration is a waste of money I am going to kill someone, probably myself.

But NASA also has itself to blame. I mean the early Moon-landing program required the rapid miniaturization of components which led to the development of Pacemaker heart-implants, among other things. Not one in a thousand people seem to know this because NASA didn't publicize it!

And while morons in Congress like Maxine Waters yell from the roof-tops to take money from the NASA budget and spend it "on the poor", NASA stands there with it's dick in it's hand!

 

One of the problems is that NASA is a victim of its early successes. 35 years ago we were landing on the moon while today's manned missions are just a couple hundred miles up. I'm not trying to belittle their accomplishments (I worked at NASA for a few years and have the greatest respect for the people who work for the program). Its just that the general public likes big, sensational accomplishments, and nothing beats landing on the moon.

 

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Maybe they are more concerned with their research than PR? Who can blame them....

 

That's horrible......

 

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Shaggie I think I will defer to Lenin's statement in November 1917 after he took over Russia..," A great many people need to be shot"

LOL

Look it is disheartening because how can they just stand there like Rocky and take all these punches without fighting back? NASA TV was OK while it lasted but it was BORING! You cannot bore Americans especially (who mostly have the attention-span of a gnat on LSD) if you want any kind of public support.

I agree that NASA does amazing stuff, and the US has done amazing stuff but no one knows and no one gives a damn. I'm disgusted.

Fuckit I'm off to watch a Baywatch repeat!

 

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The best way for NASA to improve its image (and efficiency, and funding) is quite simple: Do more things like Cassini/Huygens and the Voyager mission, where new things are actually being discovered and taxpayer money is used efficiently. They also need to do fewer things that truly ARE a waste of taxpayer money, such as manned missions, the International Space Station, and SETI. All of those things are economic black holes, because they cost huge amounts of money for little or no scientific progress.

I think more people would be sympathetic to funding NASA if they perceived that their tax dollars were being well-spent.

 

Maybe if they convince bush there may be oil on other planets......
I read NASA got a new SGI supercomputer... That at least is good...

 

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