Media coverage of Stardust & Stardust@home

[albutterworth]

and back to Stardust

Did anyone catch the Daily Show (January 18th) segment on Stardust?
Priceless!


Anna

[Sundevil]

Another thing that comes to mind in respect to the landing, why was the helicopter idea used instead of someother landing technique? The first thing that comes to mind for me is the airbag system used on the MERs and Pathfinder. Combined with parachutes that remained deployed until touch down, there should have been sufficient protection for the return vehicle. However, since the probe's chute did not deploy, this really is all speculative, but it seems like a less risky recovery. I have to also say that the probe failing to deploy it's chute, falling over a hundred kilometers through an atmosphere known for reducing metors to the size of peables, crash landing, and still have viable scientific material says a lot about the durability of the spacecraft and it's design.

On Mars there is less gravity, which should mean that there is less impact forces because the equipment doesn't weigh as much. It also bounces around a few times after it touches down.

Helicopters can provide the softest landing probably.

I did watch them search through the Utah desert for a while at 4 or 5am when the Stardust probe returned to Earth. I was wondering how the stunt helicopter pilots would have been able to be at the right place had everything gone to plan, when the helicopters that looked for the Stardust capsule took so long and they had the trajectory and homing beacon to go on.

[Siegfried]

Another thing that comes to mind in respect to the landing, why was the helicopter idea used instead of someother landing technique? The first thing that comes to mind for me is the airbag system used on the MERs and Pathfinder. Combined with parachutes that remained deployed until touch down, there should have been sufficient protection for the return vehicle.

Well, the reason that wouldn't work is because we're not on Mars. We have almost two and a half times the gravity, we have to worry about changes in pressure from even a small change in altitude, etc.

Oh, sorry, Sundevil. Just noticed your post. I didn't read the second page before posting.

[jamesjt]

and back to Stardust

Did anyone catch the Daily Show (January 18th) segment on Stardust?
Priceless!


Anna

I LOVE the Daily Show, and I watch EVERY episode, but that was I while ago, and I can't remember it.

[tareq]

i first heared about stardust from science and people magazine(arabic version) its actually the only source of science and space in the arab world, because the arabs only concern about the fun, and superstitions, specially the gulf area people, but science, oh no, only few people cares about it.

[mattp]

Here's a link to a Wikinews Interview of the Month (IOTM) on May 18, 2006 with Andrew Westphal

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Keep_your_e ... rdust@home

[Nikita]

Matt,
Thanks for the link! It answers a few questions and it was nice to get an "offical" word on things.
I got the info about Stardust from the Planetary Society web site. I was checking on the results of the Deep Impact crater contest. I'm sure most of you know of it who are reading at the date of the post. For those who do not, the public was invited to guess the size of the crater that would be left when Deep Impact crashed into comet Tempel 1. Unfortuantely, the impact was perfect, but the dust made it impossible to tell what the size of the crater was! It was a contest whoops of stellar proportions! I thought it was funny and guessed the final result - names were randomly drawn and posted as the winners. It was fun to participate and although we'll never know how close our guesses came, it did what it was intended to do - heighten our interest in the space research and it brought at least one more volunteer to Stardust@home!

[Sharqua]

Here's a link to a Wikinews Interview of the Month (IOTM) on May 18, 2006 with Andrew Westphal

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Keep_your_e ... rdust@home

Thanks for sharing, Matt! Very interesting interview.

-Donna

[Nikita]

This is in the latest edition of Popular Mechanics in South Africa. It is from the article listing the "breakthrough awards" of 2006:


Thanks to Michelle for the article, it isn't at the Popular Mechanics web site yet!

[DanZ]

Nice story on Orion here: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100303/ ... 0.106.html

And another here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8550924.stm

Dan

[jsmaje]

Thanks for the those links, Dan. I've now posted about "Orion" in the Discussion section, and would be interested in your response.
John