Huygens: ESA wasted NASA time and money.

Originally posted by slink
E_T there's no need to make this into an anti-American thread.

I think this thread started as an Anti- European thread. I think ET just answered some ignorant points very well.

Sorry guys, the Huygens probe's primary mission wasn't to return pictures. Only one of it's six instrument packages was partially devoted to returning visible-light images. Huygens returned a wealth of scientific data and can be labeled nothing but a success.

As for returning images worse than your web cam... let's see how well your web cam works at -290 degrees F. It's amazing they have any kind of sensor that functions at that temperature.

Beagle 2 was named after H.M.S. Beagle...Which took Charles Darwin on his famous voyage in 1831

Originally posted by nataylor
As for returning images worse than your web cam... let's see how well your web cam works at -290 degrees F. It's amazing they have any kind of sensor that functions at that temperature.

You forgot half decade (or ~7 years more precisely) long freezing in near absolute zero temperature.

For example there's two classes of ICs, "normal" class which is used in our every day electronic, then there's own class for aviation/military which has much bigger operating temperature/voltage ranges, but even those wouldn't come close to what probes have to withstand.
(neither talking about ionizing radiation, like what Galileo received)

Hi John bull 1,

I agree that the title of this thread invokes a very anti-European tone. It may as well have been called, (Huygens: Europe wasted America's time and money). But personally, I think the mission has been a great overall success. I would hazard a guess and say that we probably have collected more data on the Saturnian system with this single mission than collected on all the pervious added together. That said, it's going to take the scientists a long time to sort through and analyze.

Originally posted by spike
I would hazard a guess and say that we probably have collected more data on the Saturnian system with this single mission than collected on all the pervious added together.

You can bet your moneys on that!
Previous missions where only fly-bys.
I'm sure that just Huygens produced much more data in its few hours of operation than both Voyagers combined.
(in science photos are very small part of data)

Huygens a failure? Um, how about a big ol' no for that one!

The probe's battery was supposed to last about anywhere from 1 h 30 m to 2 hours. How long did it last? Almost 5 hours! How is that a failure?

It stayed in the atmosphere for MUCH longer than predicted. This let it gain more informatin about Titan's atmosphere. How is that a failure?

It didn't land in an ocean, but on land. This allowed us to see what the surface looked like and what its make up is. How is that a failure?

The images can't all be released at once. It's not like your digial camera where you can take a picture then ust dump them all onto your desktop for ready viewing. The images have to be decoded and sharpened. This takes time. So buck up and be patient like the rest of us.

And nothing was wrong with the optics on the cameras. Titan's atmosphere was A LOT denser and A LOT smoggier (for lack of a better term) than anticipated. You should be glad we got the images we did. They're better than none at all, right? Besides, as others have said, the main purpose was to do more than to send back pretty pictures.

Where did I say the mission was a failure, please point that out.

This isn't meant to be anti europe, but well face it, they don't want nuclear reactor's in they're space craft. Dear god the terrosists hit Europa (sarcasm).

This thread isn't meant to be political, NASA has disappointed me in the past and continues to do so (Hubble).

SO E_T, our current optics cant handle the extremes of Titan. I'll accept that. So why not develope better ones? In the name of technology advancement and all.

Here is what i boils down to, I am an average guy with average knowledge of our solarsystem. This was over hyped.

Sure, you can show me all the IR images you want...what am I supposed to do with them?

Funny..mars has been mapped and examined for years. It took optics for them for them to figure out here may have been liquid water there at one point.

I await the flames.


[edit on 26-1-2005 by crisko]

Originally posted by crisko
SO E_T, our current optics cant handle the extremes of Titan. I'll accept that. So why not develope better ones? In the name of technology advancement and all.

Funny..mars has been mapped and examined for years. It took optics for them for them to figure out here may have been liquid water there at one point.
[edit on 26-1-2005 by crisko]

So you want them to "waste" more money developing optics so you can see pretty pictures, when that isn't even the primary goal of the mission?

As for Mars, it's a lot easier to have great optics when you're got a big rover that has solar power which can be used to heat the senors so as to bring them to optimum temperature. On Huygens, using any of the battery power to produce heat for the optics would have just been a waste of energy... energy that went into powering the other sensors to collect data that is much more usable that visible-light images.

[edit on 26-1-2005 by nataylor]

As far as I know the opposition vs. support ratio for nuclear powered sattelites is fairly even handed across the globe.

Cassinni was powered by Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators. Huygens was not. It was a small probe, and there was simply no room on the combined Cassinni/Huygens package to install a second set of generators. The Cassinni generators contained 72 pounds of plutonium alone. That doesn't even include the other parts of the generators.

Originally posted by nataylor

Originally posted by crisko
SO E_T, our current optics cant handle the extremes of Titan. I'll accept that. So why not develope better ones? In the name of technology advancement and all.

Funny..mars has been mapped and examined for years. It took optics for them for them to figure out here may have been liquid water there at one point.
[edit on 26-1-2005 by crisko]

So you want them to "waste" more money developing optics so you can see pretty pictures, when that isn't even the primary goal of the mission?

As for Mars, it's a lot easier to have great optics when you're got a big rover that has solar power which can be used to heat the senors so as to bring them to optimum temperature. On Huygens, using any of the battery power to produce heat for the optics would have just been a waste of energy... energy that went into powering the other sensors to collect data that is much more usable that visible-light images.

[edit on 26-1-2005 by nataylor]

Waste?

That statement is a little naive don't you think? Waste money to develope new tech? Thank god you weren't around when the space shuttle came to be . "Why do we need felcro?" That's what I see your statement as.

Space pushes tech to it's limits, and causes it to be improved upon. Such advancements are adapted for the commercial market.

Waste of money, I think not.

As to the rest of your post..again..nuclear power

[edit on 27-1-2005 by crisko]

Originally posted by crisko

Originally posted by nataylor

Originally posted by crisko
SO E_T, our current optics cant handle the extremes of Titan. I'll accept that. So why not develope better ones? In the name of technology advancement and all.

Funny..mars has been mapped and examined for years. It took optics for them for them to figure out here may have been liquid water there at one point.
[edit on 26-1-2005 by crisko]

So you want them to "waste" more money developing optics so you can see pretty pictures, when that isn't even the primary goal of the mission?

As for Mars, it's a lot easier to have great optics when you're got a big rover that has solar power which can be used to heat the senors so as to bring them to optimum temperature. On Huygens, using any of the battery power to produce heat for the optics would have just been a waste of energy... energy that went into powering the other sensors to collect data that is much more usable that visible-light images.

[edit on 26-1-2005 by nataylor]

Waste?

That statement is a little naive don't you think? Waste money to develope new tech? Thank god you weren't around when the space shuttle came to be . "Why do we need felcro?" That's what I see your statement as.

Space pushes tech to it's limits, and causes it to be improved upon. Such advancements are adapted for the commercial market.

Waste of money, I think not.

As to the rest of your post..again..nuclear power

[edit on 27-1-2005 by crisko]

You're the one claiming Huygens was a "waste" of money. Notice how I put "waste" in quotes. I'd figure any addiitional money spent on R&D for Huygens would be considered a "waste" by you.

As for nuclear power, read my other post directly above yours. Too much weight.

The premise of the original post is simply untrue. The author seems to want instant gratification of having a hi-res Webcam installed on a remote world and transmitting 24/7, with users around the world controlling the camera with their computer mouse, for a small fee

The technology (7 years old, and if you count dedicated R&D, 15) is not there yet.

But as amply commented in the previous post, the instruments took a lot of data, and I'm sure the mission provided a lot of input for the planetologists.

I for one think that studying planet evolution is interesting and important. Look at the climate change on Venus -- something like that could happen on Earth one day.

So kudos to ESA. I thought it was an amazing mission.

Jeez, just because a probe doesn't send back great pics doesn't mean it was a waste of money; great pics are nice, but I mean scientific data collected is what's most important.

Someone said what's the point of any space mission except a manned mission to Mars....well, plenty of probes can get lots of valuable information that could be very valuable for when men (and women) go to these areas in the future!!

As for Mars with Bush, I don't know if he was serious about that; I think maybe he was, but it is a dream for him too, one he probably won't be able to do. It costs too much to go to the Moon, and there are no benefits right now.

And Mars?? First off, there's the psychological factor, then there's the supplies factor, there's the fact that radio messages would take a lot longer to travel back and forth, the mission takes a lot longer, the astronauts may suffer bone depletion, and when you get to Mars, it can be hostile. It's a big 'ole desert with no breathable oxygen and an atmosphere so light your blood would boil. So they'd have to walk around in space suits, meaning they'd be stuck inside their space ship for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong time. It wouldn't even be like the old WWII submarines, where they could surface and the sailors could breath some real air.....you'd either be in a space suit or inside your space ship for the whole trip. It wouldn't be like you get to Mars, then step out and take a big breath of air.

Next is the weather; I believe Mars may have lightning (I might be totally wrong there; not sure), but they have lots of sandstorms, and they have dust-devils, only since the whole planet is a desert, Mar's "dust-devils" are like Earth's tornados....they're friggin' huge. And anyone who lives out in the dusty areas know that dust-devils are very common, which means tornado-sized dust-devils could be really common on Mars, too.

So Mars is a tough choice, and will require a LOT of research.

Even if they ever create a space propulsion system that lets you go REALLY fast, so you could reach Mars in like a week or so, there's the threat that you may smack a piece of rock going through space. Remember, a pea-sized object (i.e. the food peas) orbiting the Earth carries the impact of a tractor-trailer smashing into you at like 60 mph. So a big space ship going way faster than that smashing into an object like the size of a baseball or a basketball could spell dead astronauts, billions of dollars down the drain, and a lost spaceship.

I really think right now all space agencies should be pouring money into a Europa Mission and put everything eles on hold. I mean we got to Titan its like -180 with oceans of methane you cant really expect to find life on a place like that. Sure we can learn about Titan a interesting moon, but we can do that after a Europa Mission.

Europa likely has a liquid water ocean bigger then all on earth's oceans combined thats our best chance for finding alien life. I would think finding life is a top goal of NASA and ESA even if its only alien shrimp or jellyfish that would still be huge. And yet Europa gets thrown on the back burner to go to places like Titan and crash into Comets or drive probes on Mars.

Whats the deal lets get to Europa already

HAHAHAHA, YEAH, and then the Earth people say, HEY!!! we haven't even searched OUR OWN OCEANS for life enough. There is stuff at the bottom of the ocean that would make your mouth drop most likely, if only we could go see it. If you go to the very bottom of the ocean in certain places, there are areas that look like Mordor from Lord of the Rings, with huge stalactic towers of material sticking up. It's a very alien environment down there.

There could be sea monsters of some type too; I mean, yeah, people can say, "Whatever man, you've been reading too much sci-fi, but it is a FACT that we've barely explored the ocean bottoms at all. There are 40 foot octopuses, so there could be some big creatures down there as well. Who knows.

The oceans have worms that range from 10 inches to 200 feet long (they are huge). But they aren't big, people-eating worms like in Ninja Gaiden (for Xbox), but I mean, you never know what we could find down there.

So I think we should explore Earth's oceans a good deal, but ALSO check places like Europa for life, just to see if it is there. That way, then we will know finally, and then we can search our own oceans and Europas.

And also, I was thinking, though I don't know much about engineering so maybe it is impossible, but I mean, you look at how we build submarines. You need a super-strong submersible to go down to the depths of the ocean to look at little creatures with skins as thick as a soap bubble that can somehow withstand all that pressure that our mighty nucelar submarines would get crushed in. Science still doesn't know how they do it. So if we could somehow explore these creatures and discover exactly how they withstand such pressure, maybe we could build spacecraft later on that could withstand such pressure and thus be able to go explore the depths of like Jupiter and Saturn (i.e. withstand their pressure).

Originally posted by Broadsword20068


And also, I was thinking, though I don't know much about engineering so maybe it is impossible, but I mean, you look at how we build submarines. You need a super-strong submersible to go down to the depths of the ocean to look at little creatures with skins as thick as a soap bubble that can somehow withstand all that pressure that our mighty nucelar submarines would get crushed in. Science still doesn't know how they do it.

They survive down there because they are mostly made of water if they had some type of air pocket (lungs) they would get crush. They developed so that their bodies do not have any air pockets.

Only gas or air spaces inside an animal's body are compressible. Water and most oils do not compress under pressure.

So they're basically just bags of water??? Didn't know that, but the thing I read is, if you bring them to the surface, they still pop, which means their body's outward pressure equals that of their pressure at their depth, which means their bodies do somehow exert an outward pressure that is vey great.

I never heard of them popping but many die very soon if at the surface. Their bodies just cant deal with the change in enviroments. Down deep for example its very cold freezing a big temp change alone can kill alot of fish. Im not sure if we now everything about why they die at the surface alot of people have been trying to keep them alive as long as they can but with little success that I know of.

But yeah many of the very deep sea creatures are pretty much water bags. Something like a jellyfish is like 98% water I think . Even the fish down there dont have swim bladders like normal of fish because that would get crushed. Many creatures also have a a lower metabolism to help them conserve energy.



[edit on 28-1-2005 by ShadowXIX]