Congrats on the Pluto flyby!

[Gene]

Looks like the New Horizons spacecraft made its flyby this morning.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

Pictures will begin showing up in quantity tomorrow. Way to go. In my lifetime, we've gone from sending the first craft to take pictures of Mars, Venus, etc and now even out to Pluto.

A good picture taken a few hours before closest approach:

[TASP]

Quite an achievement. Hats off to APL for a fun ride !!

[Thomas Radtke]

No one at my office took note. Times have changed since Viking.

Nice image, thanks for placing it here :-).

[Katie Wasserman]

(07-14-2015 05:52 PM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  No one at my office took note. Times have changed since Viking.

Viking, wow they were great pictures. I felt particularly close to this project in college as the leader of the imaging team, Tim Mutch, taught there. I later sat in on his planetary geology course, he was a fascinating guy that died way too young.

[Thomas Radtke]

My brother bought an illustrated book as soon as one was available. Seeing those pictures was one of the moments I will never forget.

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

NASA TV will have live coverage of "New Horizons Phones Home" starting at 8:30 pm EDT. (0030 UTC). Should be exciting to watch. I have alerted my grand children that they should watch this historic event.

Bill
Smithville, NJ

[Steve Simpkin]

(07-14-2015 08:50 PM)Bill (Smithville NJ) Wrote:  I have alerted my grand children that they should watch this historic event.

Bill, don't be too surprised if they end up watching it on their phones or tablets while messaging a number of their friends at the same time.
Brave new world indeed...

[rprosperi]

(07-14-2015 08:50 PM)Bill (Smithville NJ) Wrote:  NASA TV will have live coverage of "New Horizons Phones Home" starting at 8:30 pm EDT. (0030 UTC). Should be exciting to watch. I have alerted my grand children that they should watch this historic event.

Bill
Smithville, NJ

Thanks Bill, I had not seen this, and to Gene for the thread. I looked at the Dish network directory listing earlier today and it only indicates generic Education Hour. I will tune-in to check it out.

There is also a show tomorrow (Weds) evening at 10:00pm EDT on the Science Channel, with new images, interviews with the players, etc.

I recall watching the launch and wondering where I would be when it finally arrived. Who would have guessed I was playing with calculators both times.

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(07-14-2015 09:58 PM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  

(07-14-2015 08:50 PM)Bill (Smithville NJ) Wrote:  I have alerted my grand children that they should watch this historic event.

Bill, don't be too surprised if they end up watching it on their phones or tablets while messaging a number of their friends at the same time.
Brave new world indeed...

Hi Steve,

They ended up watching it as a family. They called me right after they had watched it. They were disappointed that there weren't any photos. I told them to check tomorrow - NASA should be posting some photos as they get them.

I should have said that you don't need to find NASA TV on your cable channels - just go to NASA TV online. They stream three channels, all in excellent quality.

There's a very interesting article that goes into why it takes so long to get the data:

Talking to Pluto is Hard

Bill
Smithville, NJ

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(07-14-2015 11:15 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Thanks Bill, I had not seen this, and to Gene for the thread. I looked at the Dish network directory listing earlier today and it only indicates generic Education Hour. I will tune-in to check it out.

Bob,

I should have said that you could go to NASA TV on the internet and watch all their video streams.

NASA TV

They have a lot of great programs and the video quality is very good. I have my large TV hooked up to my computer so that I can watch it in the large TV.

I have found that I have problems with NASA TV streamed to my Roku or Amazon Fire. For some reason I get a lot of stuttering but I always get a solid stream on my computer.

Bill
Smithville, NJ

[Katie Wasserman]

(07-15-2015 02:33 AM)Bill (Smithville NJ) Wrote:  There's a very interesting article that goes into why it takes so long to get the data:

Talking to Pluto is Hard

It's hard becasue they did it on the cheap. Voyager I/II used a larger diameter antenna and a more powerful RTG and is able to send at 1400bps from further away with technology that's 30 years older. I still think it's amazing that they can do any of this but if NASA stopped wasting their money on ISS they could do a whole lot more exploration.

[W.B.Grant]

I'm reminded of my Dad watching the live video from Apollo 8 in 1968.
"It's a great feat, boys," he said. "A great feat."
I wish he could have seen this one.
What a tremendous feat.

[Don Shepherd]

(07-15-2015 10:18 AM)W.B.Grant Wrote:  I'm reminded of my Dad watching the live video from Apollo 8 in 1968.
"It's a great feat, boys," he said. "A great feat."
I wish he could have seen this one.
What a tremendous feat.

I agree. In July of 1969 I drove to Florida to film the liftoff of Apollo 11, the first moon landing. I was 18. I've still got that super-8 film, since converted to DVD of course.

In the 60's, everyone followed every launch. We watched them in school. America could do no wrong. Today, most people won't even pay much attention to the Pluto mission. The US doesn't have the reputation it did in the 60s. Perhaps what we need is the human element returned to the space program: a manned (or womanned) mission to Mars. NASA has talked about it for years, but we need to make it happen.

[Paul Dale]

The nutter denialist community now includes Pluto Truthers!


- Pauli

[Helix]

First close up on Pluto:



There is no crater in this image, this small and cold object is probably geologically active!

For those who are interested, Emily Lakdawalla's blog is always an excellent source of information:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lak...haron.html