Note: Cassini Reaches Saturn Tonight; Pictures, Info In Earth & Health Sciences Forum

[ThomasIsUnderrated]

Just a reminder that Cassini will reach Saturn tonight. Everything will have to function perfectly for the craft to survive the dust particles and enter orbit. Live updates will be provided throughout the evening. First pictures should be available around 8:00 AM, tomorrow.

Goals of Cassini include:

An up-close examination of the rings (starting tonight)
Landing a probe on Saturn's largest moon, Titan (December 2004 - January 2005)
Flybys of many of the other moons (2005)
Additional studies of the gas giant itself (Entire four years of the project)


Pictures will be posted in the Earth & Health Sciences Forum as soon as they become available

[agnostic]

Landing on Titan will be the most exciting by far I think. There is the greatest potential for life there than any other body in the solar system.

[ThomasIsUnderrated]

Yes, Titan will be exciting. The "landing" part of the mission is going to be difficult, and no one is counting on it surviving. Most scientists will be pleased if the probe just brings back good data during the descent through Titan's atmosphere. Of course, if it does survive, it will only have a few moments (due to power) to transmit data back from the surface, but that still would be VERY exciting.

Now, as for the rest of the Cassini mission, the main spacecraft itself will only be 12,000 miles above saturn's "cloud tops", so we can count on some great images and data!

[Belisarius]

Sounds exciting.

We should spend a little less on beauracracy and a little more on NASA, of course, the entire nature of space travel may change if we get private entreprenuers in space. We should make this easier, for example we could give people land on the moon or other planets within a certain vicinity of significant structures owned by them(for example, if a company makes a moon hotel they would controll the land within a kilometer of the hotel).

By our very nature humans are exploratory creatures, we want to see the moon colonized, we like development and expansion. All we need to do is set up the rules so that space exploration isn't based only on the exploratory nature of humans, but also on the greedy nature of humans.

International beauracracy, I think, should be kept as far away from space travel as possible. Large projects, such as terraformation of planets or moons, would be difficult to coordinate between companies, but extremely beneficial, giving them plentiful land and undeveloped resources that are much more accessible than they were before.

Imagine humans as an interplanetary species, imagine humans as an intersolar species! I think it is inevitable that humans will end up living on multiple planets in our solar system, that can occurr faster if we give people a monetary incentive to do so. We should loosen restrictions and turn space from an international park to a massive economic development zone.

[Karzak]

Nasa's budget is fine, it has problems in administration that makes it FAR more expensive than it should be.

[ThomasIsUnderrated]

Cassini is now in orbit around the planet!!!

Way to go, NASA!!!

[ThomasIsUnderrated]

The first images are now available. They are raw, but they are still beautiful. Go to Earth and Health sciences for all the details

[dajoga]

[ QUOTE ]
Karzak said:
Nasa's budget is fine, it has problems in administration that makes it FAR more expensive than it should be.

[/ QUOTE ]

...as happens in ALL govt programs. Cassini is a big waste of my tax money.

[DoctorDoom]

Gotta disagree with ya there, brother. The budget for the probe was $3.27 billion, but it was launched in 1997, ergo the money was spent al least seven years ago, and not all in one year. And BTW, we didn't pack the $3.27 billion into the probe and send it to Saturn. The money stayed right here on terra firma.

IAC, it won't be repeated. America has lost its balls re space exploration. Now we're content to look back and remember when space was still the final frontier. We're like an ant looking up to the top of a tree, content to know that he once climbed up there and surveyed the world around him.

Man has travelled to the moon. We call that space exploration. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 105,763,577 times as far away. We are like a toddler who hesitantly walked two steps away from mommy's hands and fancied himself a world explorer.

When a traveller looks out the rear viewport of a spaceship and asks his companion, "Which one of those stars is the sun?" THEN we will have the right to call ourselves space explorers.

Space travel and exploration may yet still be in the cards, but I suspect that our nation won't be involved.