NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Begins Trek to Asteroid Belt

Space.com ^ | 27 September 2007 | Tariq Malik

[saganite]

It's eight year mission, to explore strange new worlds, to boldly go where no probe has gone before!

Sorry, couldn't resist. It's the geek in me.

[Slapshot68]

Westerners continue to explore the expanse of space...meanwhile, Muslims continue to sit in the dirt and perfect the science of the suicide belt.

[RightWhale]

The LIVE launch thread

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1902160/posts

1325 GMT (9:25 a.m. EDT)

“With the launch of Dawn, ULA is continuing to show its dedication to providing safe, cost-effective, reliable access to space for U.S. government missions,” said Mark Wilkins, vice president of Delta Programs at United Launch Alliance. “ULA has brought together the most talented professionals in the launch industry and we are honored to launch spacecraft, such as Dawn, supporting NASA’s critical national mission to explore the universe.”

---

The entire universe! but first, this here asteroid.

[Izzy Dunne]

the Atlantis Ocean splashdown zone

Interesting.

[GreenOgre]

Now that is too funny.

The best humor contains just a little bit of truth.

[saganite]

Did a search for Dawn and didn’t come up with the live thread. Seems to happen to me a lot!

The most exciting thing to me about this mission is the use of the Ion engine. First operational mission. Go baby go!

[RightWhale]

I don’t know how many ion motors have flown, but they seem to run forever and get no respect since they are quiet and low impact. Ion motor tech will open space to resource development once the Treaty is repealed.

[cyborg]

Event Horizon

[PrairieLady2]

“Each of the three ion engines weighs about 20 pounds (nine kilograms) and is about the size of a basketball.”

I wonder how much ion’s cost per barrell....

[DoughtyOne]

You know, it's not that I mind these probes.  I like seeing some of the data derived by the efforts, no doubt about it.  I must point out though, that it has been since the mid-70s, some thirty years ago since we have ACTUALLY (AS HUMAN BEINGS) gone where no man has gone before.  And in truth, it hasn't been since 1969 that we actually did, some 38 years ago.
It is with this in mind that I relate what my first reacion is every time I hear of another one of these missions.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States.

I'm glad you all could be here this afternoon, or listen in by radio or television.  I would like to tell you about plans that I have developed to get us back to the moon and beyond.

Today I am initiating a process that will get us back to the moon by 1980, 1987, 1993, 1995, 2001, 2007, 2012, 2017...

Every time one of these probes takes off, it puts off the day when we'll finally get boots on a firm surface outside the confines of our planet or near earth space.  Enough already!

I actually expected to enter space myself at one point, even if only on a spacecraft, or perhaps to visit a space hotel, or maybe even a moon base.

Our space program is so lost in space, it doesn't even realize it's main purpose has been dumped so humans playing with remote controled toys can have their bundle of fun, while the rest of us give up our dreams.

We are standing at the edge of the frontier.  It's time to adventure out in our own covered wagon.  Thank God our forefathers didn't have electronics, or the people in Jersey would only have sand from the pacific coast, and some great pictures of redwood forests and other noteable points.  No Europeans would have stepped foot out here in the west yet, but man what great pictures they would have had, and of course some sand.  Can't forget the sand...

NASA, if you can't get your ass out of that comfy chair, turn out the F'n lights, close the door, put a padlock on it and lets start to spread the money around to someone who will build their covered wagon and venture out from behind their desk.

Yeah, I know.  We've got those wagons that go to Topeka a few times a year and return, but that doesn't cut it for people who really do want a space program for something other than glorified tinker toys to go where no glorified tinker toys have gone before.

Whiz or get of the pot.

Forward ho...

[saganite]

Deep Space One was flown by NASA as a test bed which included proving the Ion Engine and the Japanese currently have Hayabusa on it’s return trip to Earth, hopefully with some asteroid soil samples. ESA flew one last year on a moon mission and in addition to those missions there are several ion engines performing on Earth satellites as station keeping thrusters.

Over a year ago I read an article about some Australian engineers and scientists who had developed a new ion thruster 10 times as efficient as the ones currently in use. Four times the thrust too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa

[Captain Beyond]

bump

[saganite]

Manned space flight as currently structured is an enormous waste of resources. NASA scientists have to beg to get missions like this one funded which will return actual science. Meanwhile we spend twice the total cost of Dawn every time we put the Shuttle up there to carry new parts and supplies to the ISS and go in circles. I’m looking forward to the private sector taking over manned flight and near earth exploration. At least it will be cost effective.

[RightWhale]

The Hyabusa ship has been lost and recovered several times. It should have disappeared a couple years ago, but the engineers have somehow kept it going. It wasn’t going to be possible to return to earth, but here it comes. This is a story of the impossible and would be dramatic if it weren’t happening so slowly and so far from earth and just a robot.

[saganite]

ping

[RightWhale]

The Mars Rovers are also still roving:

Spaceflightnow.com

Opportunity has descended the inner slope of the 800-meter-wide crater (half a mile wide) to a band of relatively bright bedrock exposed partway down. The rover is in position to touch a selected slab of rock with tools at the end of its robotic arm, after safety checks being commanded because the rover is at a 25-degree tilt. Researchers intend to begin examining the rock with those tools later this week.

[saganite]

I’ve kept track of the mission and it’s amazing the number of glitches and near disasters they have overcome to get it headed back this way. Here’s hoping they can bring it home.

[saganite]

I saw that too. Amazing little machines.

[DoughtyOne]

Okay. Then close NASA down and let some other people pick up the torch. We waste billions of dollars each year on this nonsense and we’re getting nowhere.

We could have been living on other planets by now. Instead we have developed some science that I’m not all that sure we couldn’t have lived without.

If it comes down to it, I’d rather have humans exploring and do with a little less science.

How many hundreds of billions of dollars are we going to burn through, while other nations develop plans to do what we have simply refused to do?

If you want the private sector to do it, then simply tell the feds you’re done. Pack it in.

[cripplecreek]

I wouldn’t mind seeing JPL take control of NASA and NASA’s budget for a few years just to see how it goes. JPL at least seems to want to get into space.