Posted on 09/15/2013 9:51:05 AM PDT by chessplayer
Dr Carolyn Porco is one of the world's leading planetary scientists and was part of the Voyager-1 imaging team. She helped Carl Sagan set up Voyager's famous "Pale Blue Dot" portrait of Earth when the probe had reached beyond Neptune in 1990. Here, she reflects on what it means to see the veteran craft finally make the leap to interstellar space.
It is a momentous occasion. We know now with certainty that the Voyager spacecraft, launched 36 years ago to spend the 1980s touring the outer solar system, has finally slipped beyond the protective magnetic bubble created by our Sun and into the nothingness of interstellar space.
Such an event happens for the first time in human history only once. And as reported in a publication today in the journal Science, it happened last summer.
Voyager was a mission of mythic proportions, with all the elements of Homeric legend, and I was unspeakably fortunate to have been a part of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
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The future belongs to unmanned spacecraft.
They have gone and will go where no man can. In fact man may never be able to match these accomplishments...It would take man probably thousands of years, or possibly never just to match the data these unmanned spacecraft have already achieved.
Ya see unmanned spacecraft will go and have gone on suicide missions for the sake of exploration and data. There are some places where you will not be going along for the ride...Ever.
It's what makes unmanned spacecraft so valuable.
It's why I said, they have gone and will go where no man can.
Of course you are right, the government “subsidized” R&D, as the contractors never built anything like that before and would not have done so unless the government reimbursed them for that expense. . .non-recurring R&D is a specific budgeting line item for government programs.
Point is, contractors responded to an RFI/RFP and bid on the contract and the one’s that won did so because they were the lowest bidder (and in some cases “best value”).
The contractors built the kit for profit. Sounds harsh, but true as corporations/contractors are in the game to make money, to stay in business, to get repeat business, etc.
The government, by law, is prohibited from making a profit.
So, the government had a program they wanted and they contracted private industry to build the products necessary to execute the program.
Yep. Those were different times. I was there. Nowadays, NASA is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the "global warming" scam to steal untold trillions of dollars, without end, from taxpaying, traditional American families. It's time for private business to step up and take the next steps. Get the stinking government out of the space business, except for military programs, and let visionary billionaires take over the exploration of space. Government turns whatever it touches to turd.
Yep. Those were different times. I was there. Nowadays, NASA is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the “global warming” scam to steal untold trillions of dollars, without end, from taxpaying, traditional American families. It’s time for private business to step up and take the next steps. Get the stinking government out of the space business, except for military programs, and let visionary billionaires take over the exploration of space. Government turns whatever it touches to turd.
As I said, this mission would NEVER have happened if private business ran the space program.
To be that far out is an acomplishment to be sure but its got a very long way to go before it actually leaves the solar system.
To technically leave the solar system it will need to be outside the sun’s influence beyond the most distance orbiting objects. It shouldn’t take but another 26,000 years or so. Its still inside the closest orbit of Sedna.
They believe Sedna may be a member of the Oort Cloud, and the Oort cloud extends over two light years from the sun. If two light years from the sun isn’t interstellar space, then there is no such thing as interstellar space. I doubt you will find many who believe two light years from the sun isn’t interstellar space, and that our Solar System extends over two light years.
Two light years? Really, I’ve never read that 50k to 100k AUs is what I have read, with most folk favoring the 50k AU figure. 50k AU = 1/2 light year.
Its a subjective call kinda like the Pluto decision. I personally consider anything to be under the gravitational influence of our sun to be in the solar system.
Voyager is outside the heliosheath of Sol but that’s only one of at least 3 different camps of scientific thought. Another is the group that considers the solar system to include the kuiper belt objects. I consider myself in the 3rd camp that puts the solar system at Ort cloud or long period comet size.
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=374
Agreed. Those were the good old days.
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