Happy 4th of July to Voyager 1 & 2 from Audioholics

[admin]

Lately I’ve been editorializing science based stuff I happen upon online while taking a break from the A/V stuff. Despite I am an avid Audioholic, I am also a geeky science guy as well. I suppose they kinda go hand in hand, but nonetheless after reading about the successes of our Voyager spacecrafts it kinda fueled my American pride that when we put our minds to a challenge, we can prevail.

Discuss "Happy 4th of July to Voyager 1 & 2 from Audioholics" here. Read the article.

 

[Tomorrow]

"It amazes me how NASA is capable of making 30 year old technology transmit through billions of miles of space while I have difficulty getting my RF remote......."

I worked for the company that designed the codecs and modems for the Voyager craft. Some of our staff was at JPL during the launches. Simple explanation...the design is a pure Viterbi decoding algorithm. Viterbi and Irwin Jacobs founded Linkabit, later M/A-Com, later Qualcomm on this very simple idea. Super redundant digital error correcting is the key. By the way, those are 20 WATT (!!) transmitters sending those signals billions of miles. It is powered by an RTG (Radioisotope Thermal-Electric Generator). Heat from the isotopic decay of plutonium provides heat to the thermocouples that produce the electricity. Shortly after the design concluded with the spectacular V1 and V2 spacecrafts, I directed all the production of the codecs, modems and encryption equipment. (Sorry people...we also brought you, via HBO contracts, the world's first digitally encrypted television programming. )

If only our remotes were that cool!

EDIT: A very happy Independence Day to all of you from me, too.

 

[astrodon]

Those were exciting days when these 2 Voyagers went past the Jovian planets. I was out at the Kitt Peak National Observatory when Voyager 2 went past Neptune in 1989. In celebration, I slewed the telescope to Neptune and took a spectrum of the planet. (And before you ask, Voyager was far too small to be seen, even through very large telescopes.) These 2 spacecraft, and the 2 Pioneers (10 and 11) that preceded them, rewrote the books on planetary astronomy.

 

[Adam]

I was out at the Kitt Peak National Observatory...

Do you live by Kitt Peak? Just curious. Thanks.

 

[Tomorrow]

Those were exciting days when these 2 Voyagers went past the Jovian planets. I was out at the Kitt Peak National Observatory when Voyager 2 went past Neptune in 1989. In celebration, I slewed the telescope to Neptune and took a spectrum of the planet. (And before you ask, Voyager was far too small to be seen, even through very large telescopes.) These 2 spacecraft, and the 2 Pioneers (10 and 11) that preceded them, rewrote the books on planetary astronomy.

OH YEAH! The early days of space exploration were more exciting...than my first wife. (But that's another trip down Senility Lane, lol.) I yearn for the return to deep space exploration.

 

[Adam]

OH YEAH! The early days of space exploration were more exciting...than my first wife. (But that's another trip down Senility Lane, lol.) I yearn for the return to deep space exploration.

Tomorrow - an innuendo jumped into my head right away, but I'm guessing that you weren't intending one.

 

[Adam]

BTW, I agree with you all that those were some very exciting times for space exploration! Part of me wishes that I had been older, as I was too young to really appreciate it. I can remember going to a space museum with my dad when I was young. He was so excited about all of it, but I didn't quite get it. My generation grew up mostly with the shuttles, and the Mars exploration trips really impress me. Sometimes I lose track of the Mars mission objectives (we went to find ice, but didn't we already know it was there?), but it's still very impressive to me.

 

[Tomorrow]

Tomorrow - an innuendo jumped into my head right away, but I'm guessing that you weren't intending one.

LOL, I meant to say..."Which, for some reason reminds me...."

 

[astrodon]

Do you live by Kitt Peak? Just curious. Thanks.

No, during that time I worked at JILA (Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics) in Boulder, CO. I was there on an observing run using the solar McMath-Pierce Telescope during their night-time guest observer program. If you are familiar with Kitt Peak, that's the big triangular shaped building on the mountain -- see http://www.noao.edu/outreach/kptour/mcmath.html for details and pictures. I was carrying out coincident observations of Mira stars with the McMath's stellar spectrograph and the NASA space-based IUE (International Ultraviolet Explorer) telescope.

 

[gene]

Anyone catch the Mission to Mars series on Discovery HD hosted by William Shatner? This is pretty exciting though I am a bit disappointed most of the technology is recycled from the 60s. I wanted a 2010 type space ship

 

[MapleSyrup]

Space

Space exploration is an awe-inspiring feat. I'd love a goal to get to Mars AND learn to harvest the resources of astroids. But frankly I find modern-day NASA gutless in terms of setting an inspiring goal and reaching it. Like sending a man to the Moon.

What would anyone think of contracting funds to private companies for space exploration?

 

[gene]

Space exploration is an awe-inspiring feat. I'd love a goal to get to Mars AND learn to harvest the resources of astroids. But frankly I find modern-day NASA gutless in terms of setting an inspiring goal and reaching it. Like sending a man to the Moon.

What would anyone think of contracting funds to private companies for space exploration?

From what I understand, NASA lost a lot of their brain power from the moon days due to age/retirement. I'd love to see private contractors compete and race to Mars but could you imagine if joe six pack builds his own rocket in his backyard and it blows up? Obviously we need good competitive bids from legit companies much like they did for the JSF.

 

[MapleSyrup]

Yeah, that would suck if a rocket blew up next door to me. Perhaps some basc safety procedures would need to be met to receive contract awards. But the stroy told in October Sky as well as Mike Melvil's story inspire me.

 

[Adam]

Space exploration is an awe-inspiring feat. I'd love a goal to get to Mars AND learn to harvest the resources of astroids. But frankly I find modern-day NASA gutless in terms of setting an inspiring goal and reaching it. Like sending a man to the Moon.

When spending resources, there is always the consideration of the payoff. Is the benefit worth the cost? There was a lot of money spent in the middle of last century in aerodynamics and space, mostly due to military and political reasons. The end results are indeed awe-inspiring, but we wouldn't have rushed to the moon if it weren't for the threat that the Soviets would beat us to it. The Russians do not generate a big motivation (at least publicly that I've noticed) to push ourselves to further exploration like we did in the 60's. Right now, a lot or our resources are tied up in other things.

I do suspect that planning is going on (that we will someday see the results of) to do something else on the frontier of space exploration - and that's because of the Chinese. They are in the game now in a big way, and I think that they want to prove to their citizens that they are a superpower and that they can compete and win at this. We will surely respond. Friendly competition, hopefully, with a better goal of friendly cooperation. However, we tend to compete more than cooperate, especially in a world with limited resources.

What would anyone think of contracting funds to private companies for space exploration?

The government does have contracts out to private companies for space exploration. I know that NASA has put out contracts for Moon and Mars missions. With the technology that exists today, it makes sense to open up the field, IMO.

 

[astrodon]

From what I understand, NASA lost a lot of their brain power from the moon days due to age/retirement. I'd love to see private contractors compete and race to Mars but could you imagine if joe six pack builds his own rocket in his backyard and it blows up? Obviously we need good competitive bids from legit companies much like they did for the JSF.

This is true, but the main reason NASA is not at the level that they were in the 60s has to do with funding. To quote a line from "The Right Stuff," "no bucks, no Buck Rogers." NASA funding (adjusted for inflation) is nowhere near what it was in the 60s. Also, there was a major refocusing in NASA in the 90s (which I saw happening while I was working there). NASA became a "customer service" organization instead of a science and exploration organization. Much of this was driven by ex-NASA Administrator Dan Goldin's credo of "faster, cheaper, better." When you're doing this type of work, "faster+cheaper" never equals "better."

 

[gene]

I was just thinking about how far these Voyager probes have traveled. At roughly 40k mi/hr and traveling for about 30 years, they have gone about 10 billion miles since launched. The closest star is Alpha Centauri is roughly 4.3 light years away from us. At this rate, it would take the Voyager probes 70k years to get there! Its a bit discouraging to realize how primative our probes are and we have a long way to go to really speed things up

 

[Adam]

At this rate, it would take the Voyager probes 70k years to get there!

I was thinking about that same thing a couple of months ago. Pretty amazing. Over 3000 generations of humans would begin and end on the journey. If the trip was represented by my drive to work, starting when my car began to move, my life would be over before my car left the garage.