What's Up With Ulysses?, alive? dead? cancelled soon? |
What's Up With Ulysses?, alive? dead? cancelled soon? |
Sep 27 2005, 04:05 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 356 Joined: 12-March 05 Member No.: 190 |
What is up with the tiny Ulysses spacecraft that was launched in 1990 to study the solar whatever at high lattitudes? Last I heard it was in danger of dying because the RTG power was running low and at aphelion there was a risk of the hydrazine freezing/exploding in its propulsion system. Well that was like a year ago and I haven't heard anything since. It looks like it should've passed aphelion by now and should be out of danger.....
Its been going up there for over a full solar cycle, is it one of the missions on the chopping block because of the new humans on moon/mars thing? |
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Feb 21 2007, 03:43 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
This is the old argument they went through when they were designing the Apollo system. They asked themselves, how much would it cost to develop a system that would have a 100% reliability rating, that could never fail and never, ever endanger the lives of any of the crews.
They decided it would cost more than the entire American gross national product from then to their deadline (the "end of the decade") to accomplish that, and it would likely result in a first manned lunar landing sometime around 1980. They also figured they could develop Apollo for about five billion dollars if they were willing to lose about half of the crews they launched. They settled on having a 90% chance of completing any given mission, and a 99% chance of getting any given crew back alive. That determination *alone* set the cost of the program at about $25 billion in 1960s dollars. So, yes, you can pursue perfection. Just understand that, first, you'll never achieve it, and second, that you'll spend an *awful* lot of time and money trying to get there. The better is the mortal enemy of the good enough... -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Feb 22 2008, 04:23 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 23-October 04 From: Greensboro, NC USA Member No.: 103 |
...and a 99% chance of getting any given crew back alive. I can't remember who said it, but someone once commented that all the safety features of modern cars - multiple airbags, seatbelts, etc. - actually cause more crashes, with people driving less safely because they assume they'll survive an impact. The person said, "Imagine how much more safely we would drive if our cars had foot-long spikes extending from the steering column and ending just in front of our chests. You wouldn't DARE make a stupid move or tailgate someone!" Think how much cheaper that would make our cars - a spike is a lot cheaper than an airbag! -------------------- Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com |
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