Stellar Impact

Steve

Steve

Enjoying life!
Comet Tempel 1 was successfully impacted with an 800 pound copper probe at about 2:00 a.m. EST. I watched it all unfold on NASA TV via computer. What a sight! What a front row seat! Very cool (for us geeks). Tempel 1 was in a position in Jupiter's apparent orbit. Spectacular images from the observer ship. More to come from Hubble. Awsome! And great job to NASA, JPL, and CIT! As I watched the cheers going on at CIT on the west coast, I couldn't get the smile off my face. Very cool stuff, in real time no less! Unbelievable...
 
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Steve

Steve

Enjoying life!
Okay, the comet was about 90 million miles away. But with only the speed of light limiting the quickness of seeing the results of the impact, the images were here to see in a matter of moments! In about 40 seconds the results were known.
 
Steve

Steve

Enjoying life!
Can you tell I'm jazzed about this? LOL It took about 8 seconds for transmissions from the Moon to reach us back in '69, and those were grainy images, and choppy. More like pictures with voice-over. But to sit here and watch via computer in near-real time, all of it unfold....very, very cool. The Production crew did a great job, covering all the key positions and personnel during the approach. And all the while, I heard and watched on video the interplay among the Mission Controllers making final adjustments. Think of what you would hear on final from a commercial jet on approach to landing. It was AWESOME!!

LOL, I just wanted to share. It's the next best thing to actually being there....
 
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Steve

Steve

Enjoying life!
The final impact was a great glow of light, as 800 pounds of copper metal impacted the southern tip of the comet. To put it in scale, it would be like Pax River, the entire base, being vaporized should something the size of a washing machine impact at 6 miles per second! Without atmospheric waves as we would see here on Earth, all of the impact energy erupted straight out into space, at high velocity. A large plume of stimulated matter, vibrant enough in energy to cast a huge glow for the cameras.
Awesome!
 
Railroad

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
What strikes me as amazing is the math and the planning (not to mention FLAWLESS hardware) that made this happen. Here we are on a spinning planet orbiting the Sun, and we have to figure out how to launch a spacecraft at a certain velocity and trajectory to (a) leave the earth and (b) intersect the path of the comet (also orbiting the Sun at some rate of speed - which we calculated from obsevations) at a pre-planned location in 3-dimensional space! Absolutely incredible, the number of variables and other dynamics to be taken into account!
 
Lenny

Lenny

Lovin' being Texican
Railroad said:
What strikes me as amazing is the math and the planning (not to mention FLAWLESS hardware) that made this happen.
Click to expand...

Until RR came on line this thread was looking like one great episode of Onanism.
:lmao:
 
Christy

Christy

b*tch rocket
Lenny said:
Until RR came on line this thread was looking like one great episode of Onanism.
:lmao:
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:lol: You realize he stayed up until 5:00 AM glued to the NASA live webcast. :rolleyes: :Iammarriedtothebiggestnerd: :jet:
 
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Railroad

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
Christy said:
:lol: You realize he stayed up until 5:00 AM glued to the NASA live webcast. :rolleyes: :Iammarredtothebiggestnerd: :jet:
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But a very bright boy, nonetheless!

I remember staying up all night watching TV coverage of our first landing on the moon. By comparison, the effort to get there was massive (as was the press coverage), but the math and the technology were primitive.

I'd imagine your hubby is aware of all these things, and for that reason he regards this as quite an achievement, an historical achievement, and I agree with him 100%. I just hope the gains from this endeavour are worth every bit of it!
 
Steve

Steve

Enjoying life!
Well, it didn't take long. I saw on Drudge this afternoon that a female "astrologer" in Russia is now suing NASA for tampering with the balance of the universe! She sites her now "deformed horoscope" as justification for the $300 million(!!) she is seeking in damages. Rather than toss this women out of the nearest and highest window, the Russian court is apparently going to hear the merits of the case! Now, will anyone be surprised if the Russian court finds NASA at least minimally culpable of harm to this woman's sense of self and her place in the cosmos? Not really. Maybe I should have thought of this angle first? :shrug:
 
Railroad

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
Steve said:
Well, it didn't take long. I saw on Drudge this afternoon that a female "astrologer" in Russia is now suing NASA for tampering with the balance of the universe! She sites her now "deformed horoscope" as justification for the $300 million(!!) she is seeking in damages. Rather than toss this women out of the nearest and highest window, the Russian court is apparently going to hear the merits of the case! Now, will anyone be surprised if the Russian court finds NASA at least minimally culpable of harm to this woman's sense of self and her place in the cosmos? Not really. Maybe I should have thought of this angle first? :shrug:
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Old news, Steve. The press was talking about that last year. It burnt me then and burns me now; talk about "frivolous!"
 
Steve

Steve

Enjoying life!
Railroad said:
Old news, Steve. The press was talking about that last year. It burnt me then and burns me now; talk about "frivolous!"
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Well I guess the "old news" has been activated into legitimate shiznit since then. This went on for a year? And this Russian babooshka is still alive? LOL Why is this even news?
 
hvp05

hvp05

Methodically disorganized
Railroad said:
What strikes me as amazing is the math and the planning (not to mention FLAWLESS hardware) that made this happen. Here we are on a spinning planet orbiting the Sun, and we have to figure out how to launch a spacecraft at a certain velocity and trajectory to (a) leave the earth and (b) intersect the path of the comet (also orbiting the Sun at some rate of speed - which we calculated from obsevations) at a pre-planned location in 3-dimensional space! Absolutely incredible, the number of variables and other dynamics to be taken into account!
Click to expand...
(Okay, I just read this thread, so I'm sorry for replying to such an old post.) I agree with you to a point. This encounter was quite a magnificent operation. Any time a mission comes off as planned it is magnificent.

However, it's not as if the mission planners had to sit down with paper, pencil and slide rule -- like in "Apollo 13" -- and perform hard crunching. A supercomputer in a chilly, dark room ran through the cascade of variables.

Of course, a team of gifted scientists did have to assemble the machines to execute the mission, and the duty is also upon them to interpret whatever data was gathered from the impact.
 
Ken King

Ken King

A little rusty but not crusty
PREMO Member
hvp05 said:
(Okay, I just read this thread, so I'm sorry for replying to such an old post.) I agree with you to a point. This encounter was quite a magnificent operation. Any time a mission comes off as planned it is magnificent.

However, it's not as if the mission planners had to sit down with paper, pencil and slide rule -- like in "Apollo 13" -- and perform hard crunching. A supercomputer in a chilly, dark room ran through the cascade of variables.

Of course, a team of gifted scientists did have to assemble the machines to execute the mission, and the duty is also upon them to interpret whatever data was gathered from the impact.
Click to expand...
It probably helped that the craft was able to adjust heading and had onboard sensors that kept adjusting the trajectory to obtain the intercept/impact. That will take a lot of the math work out of the scenario.
 
Railroad

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
I guess what I meant by "the math" was really "understanding of the physics" and "understanding how to manipulate the variables." Yes, the computers can crunch the numbers ad nauseum, but one has to properly define the task for the computer to arrive at the desired result. And then one has develop a reliable way to prove the result.

Think of the variables! Questions like:
When do you want the impact to occur?
Where will the earth be in its orbit and rotation?
Will other objects be out of the way for the duration of the flight? By how much?

And other questions that need to be answered to define the following:

What is the curve in 4-dimensional space that will take me from a point on this spinning and orbiting ball, to that rock-and-ice lump in a different orbit, traveling at 23,000 mph? How fast do I need to go to get there so that we intercept at point x,y,z, and time n?

I'm still very impressed.
 
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