It's the Andromeda Strain!! The Andromeda Strain!! Run for your lives!!!
Posted on 09/13/2004 9:24:30 PM PDT by RightWingAtheist
After peering inside NASA (news - web sites)'s broken Genesis capsule with flashlights and mirrors, scientists said on Friday the craft's unexpected crash landing left solar material intact and most scientific objectives within reach.
"We should be able to meet most if not all of our primary science goals," Roger Wiens, a key scientist on the project, said at a telephone news conference. "Overall, we're quite confident that we can achieve a high degree of success from a science point of view."
The $264 million mission was designed to collect charged solar particles on delicate wafer-like plates and return them to Earth for examination. The wafers were believed to be so fragile that a helicopter-assisted parachute landing was planned. But the parachute failed to deploy on Wednesday, sending Genesis hurtling to Earth at 200 mph (320 kph).
The crash left Genesis cracked and embedded in the Utah desert, and scientists were demoralized at first, said Don Sevilla, the lead engineer in the recovery project.
But after the capsule was flown to a "clean room" at the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, "We had great cause for optimism," Sevilla said.
An intensive look inside the cracked capsule using flashlights and small mirrors indicated large pieces of the particle-collecting wafers were intact, Sevilla said.
"We do not need to have whole pieces to do our science," he told reporters. "We do know that we have samples of everything we are trying to collect."
Scientists and engineers plan to start peeling back the layers of the breached craft on Saturday but the total investigation will probably take months.
The main challenges are contamination and abrasion from the Utah soil, the scientists said.
However, Sevilla said the first glimpses inside the capsule show it to be surprisingly clean, given its violent landing. "We're not talking about great clods of dirt" on the spacecraft's interior, he said.
The charged particles of solar wind, ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun, are expected to help scientists learn how the sun and planets formed some 4.5 billion years ago, and could give clues on the evolution of the solar system.
More information and images are available online at http:/www.genesismission.org/.
Specifically-- calculating the impact crater made from a free-falling space capsule.
Ping
"We should be able to meet most if not all of our primary science goals," Roger Wiens, a key scientist on the project, said at a telephone news conference. "Overall, we're quite confident that we can achieve a high degree of success from a science point of view."
"And if we don't achieve our goals we'll fake it and say it was a total success anyway. We certainly don't want to lose critical government funding for future projects."
Good news. I donno if I should ping the science list. This is really a "space list" kind of article.
Hmmm... I wonder if you think the moon landings were fake as well?
Hmmm... I wonder if you think the moon landings were fake as well?
To tell you the truth, I am not completely sold on the issue.
You can take from me on this one. It really happened.
Let me be the first to stipulate that you and your sources from Alpha Centauri have never steered us wrong in the past....
It certainly proved the validity of the theory of gravity.
Come to think of it, Dan Rather was at CBS in 69. Hmmm.
Didja ever notice that the same people who doubt the moon landings have no doubts whatsoever about Noah's Ark?
No.
You bet!
It's the Andromeda Strain!! The Andromeda Strain!! Run for your lives!!!
I hope you never meet Buzz Aldrin in a dark alley.
I hope you never meet Buzz Aldrin in a dark alley.
I always wonder why the astronauts haven't done tours of the U.S. discussing their adventure to the moon. Haven't you?
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