I hope someone on the Dawn team is right now making the argument that they have the perfect mission for doing a controlled experiment on image release policy. Two target destinations, both asteroids, virtually all other variables the same. Why not do it this way at Vesta (since that decision has already been taken) and the other way at Ceres, with prompt release of all images? The relative merits of each could then be objectively assessed.

As someone who has followed the space program for the last 44 years, I know that for a long time, JPL has been very careful to put out quality images when they are ready and clear. During Mariner 10( 1973?), it was announced that Mercury had a moon, and subsequently that claim had to be withdrawn.

Now sure during Voyager 1 and 2 images were broadcast in real time over the PBS TV network. I still have the some of the black and white stills I took off the screen, some even show the volcanoes on the surface, which were not identified so until days later. We have been very fortunate to have had the ring side seat for Cassini, Galileo, Pathfinder, Phoenix, MER Spirit Opportunity, Deep Impact, Epoxi, Near Shoemaker etc.

But if the images is only 13 pixels across, I would rather wait til I can seen something of value, not over interpreted, and then change when we have better pictures.

During Spirits climb down the mountain in its first year, people were very excited about a dark patch at the base of the hill, there were weeks of blog entries generated about whether it was a cave or not. In the end it turned out to be a just dark patch of sand. Lets just take a few deep breathes, enjoy all the other great space picts we can find on the web or just go out and look up at the stars, and enjoy the fresh air.

Only from Ustrax.

So if the images were available, you would refuse to look at them?

And on that basis - should we stop the flow of imagery from Opportunity until we get to the rim of Endeavor crater?

I prefer to gaze out the window when I'm traveling. I don't wait for the tour bus driver or airplane pilot to tell me when to look.

And if an image that is only 13 pixels across is getting close to the resolution of the best images ever (the HST images) it *is* interesting despite the few pixels. This is especially true if it's part of a bigger sequence of images, e.g. a rotation sequence or a multispectral sequence. I'm not asking for a rotation movie though, just a single, recent image would be enough to satisfy my curiosity.

The main gist of my statement was about resolution. I looked at the first Dawn picture, and thought we might have a nice trail of images leading up to better-than hubble resolution. If its only 13 pixels across now, ( or whatever it is now), its not much to see.

Umm, the pictures from Opportunity are nice and clean, and show lots of interesting stuff, and its exciting to see the Endeavour crater get ever closer.

Also I like finding stuff out the plane window myself, but I don't tell the pilot to announce each city as we pass over it.

Remember when you had to drop off you photos at camera store and wait and hour? ( Or a week if you mail them out). Unfortunately that's the situation we have now.

And sure I remember how I could barely sleep the night of the Huygens probe and was just floored how quickly we could look at the entire set of decent images.

I don't exactly like it either, but we are talking a project that almost got stopped in the middle of development, represents the career work of someone, and I know that they will show the best when it looks good.

I heard Tom Prettyman speak at Spacefest today. He promised a Vesta approach movie would be released "in about a week."

I don't know how many of you work in software. I do, and I can imagine that for whatever reason, they're not set up to automatically pass pictures to the public. On approach, everyone is busy, so pretty pictures for the public get a lower priority than getting Dawn into orbit. It would eat up Dev time, so it doesn't get done unless someone has the motivation and some free cycles.

I'm told that public outreach is a thankless job on space missions. Maybe we should cut them a little slack.

--Greg

Just as it would be exciting to see Vesta getting ever closer.



It was cancelled. Twice. Public reaction to that cancellation will have had no small part in its reinstatement. Frankly - I think the PI owes the public. Without them, he would have no spacecraft and no images.



Clearly they're not, or they would be doing it already. It's non trivial to set up such a pipeline, but it's not a hard or expensive process. A young intern with some python skills would have it done in a week.
It's been done for NEAR, MER, Cassini, EPOXI, Stardust and others. That's not the reason we're not seing Vesta images more regularly.

There seems to be an assumption that they are not releasing the images in spite of the significant interest from communities like ours. Does anyone think it might be the case that the people here are in fact the reason the images aren't being released on a regular basis? That they are worried about being shown up by the breathtaking image processing skills of the amateurs here? How many magazine covers and APODs and the like originate from UMSFers?

Of course, being good scientists, they shouldn't really be worried about such trivial fluff in the slightest. These community images are no threat to the actual papers they intend to publish. But it might be a little galling to some if the press decide to use a pic processed by someone here rather than the official press release images.

^ I agree.

Imagine if they had an automated jpeg pipeline like Cassini. There would be people putting together approach animations, attempting super resolution stuff, making and updating simple maps... by the time the team put out a nice tidy press release this stuff would be all over the web.

Wouldn't that be cool!

It is sometimes a 'thankless job' but also a rewarding one.
I believe though that the key to 'public outreach' is being responsive to 'public' interest and requests.

In this instance though it is a decision from the mission manager(s) that is blocking the release of images and not from any decision by the Outreach team.