Every wish that Juno gets where it is intended to go and is a smashing success. An interesting factoid about Juno is that it is the 1st probe to go past Mars that is solar powered. All previous deep space missions have been powered by RTGs, primarily using Pu-238.
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4671 posts, RR: 17 Reply 1, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 2906 times:
Thank you for the link to this historic event. I suspect the science, and the images that comes out of this will be amazing! Hopefully it won't bump into any monoliths along the way.
GDB From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 12707 posts, RR: 80 Reply 2, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 2852 times:
Quoting comorin (Reply 1): Hopefully it won't bump into any monoliths along the way.
Very good! Though in the book the monolith is on Saturn's Moon Iapetus (one half much brighter than the other, which Cassini now has a less extra-terrestrial explanation for).
In fact, Saturn sequences were shot for 2001 but Kubrick was under time, film length and cost pressures so the use of Jupiter's gravity to slingshot Discovery towards Saturn (yet another very prescient forecast by Arthur C Clarke well before the idea was proposed for unmanned probes), was modified and the Saturn sequences were later used by the same cinematographer for the film Silent Running .
connies4ever From Canada, joined Feb 2006, 3856 posts, RR: 13 Reply 3, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 2793 times:
Quoting GDB (Reply 2): In fact, Saturn sequences were shot for 2001 but Kubrick was under time, film length and cost pressures so the use of Jupiter's gravity to slingshot Discovery towards Saturn (yet another very prescient forecast by Arthur C Clarke well before the idea was proposed for unmanned probes), was modified and the Saturn sequences were later used by the same cinematographer for the film Silent Running .
I did not know that, and I had always wondered why it was Saturn in the book and Jupiter in the movie.
Silent Running was a pretty worthy film in its' own right.
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4671 posts, RR: 17 Reply 4, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 4 days 22 hours ago) and read 2786 times:
2001 - simply brilliant, blew me away when I first saw it. Suggest "The Making of 2001" for fascinating details. All hail Kubrick, Clarke and Trumbull!
I wonder what will happen to the space program as funds get scarce. The thing about voyages of discovery are that you never know what you will find, and we need to keep pushing frontiers.
connies4ever From Canada, joined Feb 2006, 3856 posts, RR: 13 Reply 5, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 2765 times:
Quoting comorin (Reply 4): I wonder what will happen to the space program as funds get scarce. The thing about voyages of discovery are that you never know what you will find, and we need to keep pushing frontiers.
I think you'll see more collaborative space probes like ExoMars. And much less human space flight. Except for China and likely India.
btw when will Juno start beaming back pictures?
Not for quite a while except perhaps for a few calibration photos as it whizzes by Earth on a slingshot. Actually, there'll be nothing to photograph, most likely, until it gets relatively close to Jupiter.
Stitch From United States of America, joined Jul 2005, 26697 posts, RR: 83 Reply 6, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 4 days 10 hours ago) and read 2708 times:
Quoting connies4ever (Thread starter): An interesting factoid about Juno is that it is the 1st probe to go past Mars that is solar powered. All previous deep space missions have been powered by RTGs, primarily using Pu-238.
While this is not the reason for Juno using solar power instead of RTGs, evidently treaty issues have impacted the ability of the US to manufacture the Pu-238 needed for RTGs, even though Pu-238 is ineffective for use in nuclear weapons.
Quoting GDB (Reply 2): In fact, Saturn sequences were shot for 2001 but Kubrick was under time, film length and cost pressures so the use of Jupiter's gravity to slingshot Discovery towards Saturn (yet another very prescient forecast by Arthur C Clarke well before the idea was proposed for unmanned probes)...
Michael Minovitch developed the theory in 1961, though it was not used in practice until Mariner 10 in 1973. That being said, Clarke's use of it in 1968 for 2001 would be the first fictional use of such a procedure.
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4671 posts, RR: 17 Reply 7, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 4 days 10 hours ago) and read 2700 times:
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4671 posts, RR: 17 Reply 9, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 22 hours ago) and read 2636 times:
GDB From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 12707 posts, RR: 80 Reply 10, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 18 hours ago) and read 2606 times:
Quoting Stitch (Reply 6): Michael Minovitch developed the theory in 1961, though it was not used in practice until Mariner 10 in 1973. That being said, Clarke's use of it in 1968 for 2001 would be the first fictional use of such a procedure.
True, though the main draft of the novel 2001 was done by 1964 I think.
Of course the short story it came from went back much further, though that was confined to the Moon.
Clarke later said when writing the book, he never thought that the first exploration of Jupiter would be in the next decade rather than the next century, albeit unmanned.
(A little aside in the book, during Commander Bowman's video cast back to Earth for the public, in the wake of the AE35 main antenna controller 'failure' reported by HAL, was that this was a common trouble with the deep space probes of the last century. They often reached other planets but could not send back information because their antennas couldn't locate Earth. )
(The nearest we've come to that so far was with another Jupiter probe, Galileo , with it's troublesome antenna deployment).
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4671 posts, RR: 17 Reply 12, posted (1 year 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 2595 times:
Quoting GDB (Reply 10): True, though the main draft of the novel 2001 was done by 1964 I think.
Of course the short story it came from went back much further, though that was confined to the Moon.
Which us true believers know to be The Sentinel from Expedition to Earth and Childhood's End.
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