Giotto’s brief encounter, Twenty years ago |
Giotto’s brief encounter, Twenty years ago |
Mar 10 2006, 09:20 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 370 Joined: 12-September 05 From: France Member No.: 495 |
Giotto’s brief encounter
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMSZ0NVGJE_index_0.html Twenty years ago, in the night between 13 and 14 March 1986, ESA’s Giotto spacecraft encountered Comet Halley. |
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Nov 15 2009, 04:20 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 106 Joined: 25-November 04 From: Dublin, Ireland Member No.: 113 |
A wonderful reconstruction, but in the interests of absolute historical accuracy I must remind people that these were not the images we saw on the night. I anchored a two-hour TV programme during the encounter and no-one warned us that Giotto was not Voyager. The first and only picture on the night - during hours of live TV coverage across Europe - was this one.
The implications for European space policy were profound. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister in the UK and was watching the BBC coverage in the private apartment at Downing Street with, I think, Sir John Fairclough, her science advisor. She asked: "What are we paying for this?". And I'm afraid the rest is history. |
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