[BenLurkin]

"U.S. flags, decals solemnly placed on one of Messenger's most heat-resistant surfaces. The spacecraft team wanted to leave a flag on Mercury to show, for all time, that Americans were there."

And NOT "the world" as some NASA putz said about the Mars lander program.

[martin_fierro]

Bachtell used X-Acto blades to cut the 3M Nextel fabric and then - relying on sewing tips from his mother - used an industrial sewing machine to stitch the off-white pieces together into an 8-by-9-foot quilt

*chuckle*

[NonValueAdded]

From SPACE.com presents information about the Next Launch from planet Earth

Boeing Delta 2
Aug. 2, 2004
2:16:11 to 2:16:23 a.m. EDT
(0216:11 to 0216:23 GMT)

A Boeing Delta 2 rocket is set to launch the Mercury probe MESSENGER from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

[RightWhale]

Good luck to Johns Hopkins. Everything checked? Twice?

[DoctorMichael]

Cool!

[BMCDA]

Mercury Ping

[Aracelis]

Thanks for posting this!

[RadioAstronomer]

handmade ceramic-cloth quilt just one-quarter of an inch thick

We used something similar on the Magellan. Astroquartz bonded to MLI.

[BikerNYC]

...and so the spacecraft must swing once past Earth, twice past Venus and thrice past Mercury before slowing down...

Thrice past Mercury? Ya gotta be pretty comfortable with yourself to throw the word 'thrice' around in casual conversation.

Having said that, way cool mission.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

[P.O.E.]

Photo of Mercury approaching the sun:

[Mr. Jeeves]

Even though Mercury is 50 million miles from Earth at closest approach, Messenger will travel 5 billion miles to get there.

Sounds like the mission was designed by the same people who put together Democrat social spending programs. ;)