New Horizons Jupiter Encounter Options

[hendric]

This is perhaps the next best thing...

http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php

#include standard_gripe_about_living_in_austin_hours_from_houston_and_STILL_NO_NASA_TV_ON
CABLE.h

[dvandorn]

Whereas we in Minneapolis get NASA-TV on our cable system, even though our cable system has been through two ownership changes in the past 10 years (local company Paragon bought by Time-Warner, which then sold out to Comcast in a shady "we'll give you this market if you give us another market" deal).

I'm told we get NASA-TV because one of the local high schools insists on having it available and actually uses its own satellite dish to pull it in. They then share the feed with the cable company. I was concerned that we would lose NASA-TV forever here when it went digital (requiring a somewhat pricey new decoder box to pull in), but it's still on 24/7 in Minneapolis proper.

Now, if we could just get the programmers in Houston to give us a little more variety in programming -- we seem to get an *awful* lot of the kiddie programming (including one called "An Astronaut's Life" or somesuch, which features Sunni Williams prominently with no explanation as to how she's on a stage at MSC and at the same time is the FE on the ISS... ). We also get nothing all night (at least some of the time) but interviews with the crew of whichever Shuttle flight is next up, which is fine -- except it's *all* they run overnight, sometimes, for several months prior to a flight. It gets a little old after the 40th or 50th time you've seen it.

I'm an old guy, I admit (51 years young last birthday), but I would really like to see more of the films made of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights back in the 60's and 70's. Every once in a while we get one of them, but not often enough for me...

However, it *is* nice to get the press conferences, even if I have to wait for them to be re-run sometimes. I was very pleased to see and hear Alan Stern and John Spencer, both active posters to our little forum, being so delightfully enthusiastic about the Jupiter encounter. I wonder a bit, though, if Alan's statement about how we just can't get as much science out of NH as possible because we can't afford a Voyager-sized staff for it might have been aimed at members of the new Congress...

-the other Doug

[edstrick]

"#include standard_gripe_about_living_in_austin_hours_from_houston_and_STILL_NO_NASA_TV_ON
_CABLE.h"

Between that, and the totally <expletive deleted> analog cable service (we're not going to pay through the nose for digital cable AND renting several digital cable converter boxes)...

That's why we dumped Time Warner Cable and switched (by more or less a coin toss) to DirecTV. I'm not entirely happy with their image quality (It's entirely possible Dish Network is as bad) which I'm convinced is severely overcompressed on low viewership channels, but it's not full of bad-cable static that they could never fix, and it got is NASA TV just before the Mars Rovers arrived.

[edstrick]

"...Perhaps one of these days NASA will create a searchable archive of NASA TV briefings..."

and PERHAPS NASA will <expletive deleted> the PIO slackers who post video after video on the all night NASA Gallery, including a Mariner-4 at Mars video I've been DYING to record since whenever... and utterly no schedule information, EVER.

rant
...........rave
.........................foam
.......................................gnaws at the edge of his monitor...

[tasp]

Helpful NASA-TV tip:

I TIVO 5 hours of it every day and then scan it at high speed at my convenience. I don't bother trying to keep track of their schedule, and if anything good turns up (like the NH Jupiter press conference) I can watch it, and if I want, can burn a DVD of it too.

Directv doesn't make TIVO recievers anymore, but their DVR will do pretty much the same thing, and in any regard, TIVO stand alone units can be 'grafted' onto Directv, Dish, and most cable system boxes.

[john_s]

Hi folks-

The "raw" Jupiter encounter LORRI images are now being posted as JPEGs at a public web site here at APL. Actually, they are not quite raw- they have already been flat-fielded and desmeared (the originals have readout smear, as LORRI doesn't have a shutter). Most of the images should show up here eventually, though it's not an automatic pipeline like MER and Cassini, so please be patient.

Enjoy!
John.

[elakdawalla]

Hooray!

Anyone want to take a crack at assembling those Jupiter rotation movies? I'm at the Phoenix landing site meeting and must listen to Mars stuff right now!

--Emily

[punkboi]

Off-topic, but let us know how the Phoenix landing site meeting goes, Emily. As if that's something to forget writing about

[djellison]

Anim Gif of the Jan 15th sequence.

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[djellison]

50% size of the 8th-to-10th jan sequence.

Doug

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[djellison]

And the 14th jan sequence - at 100%

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[NMRguy]

The new PI Perspective is up.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspec...ive_current.php

Just 35 days until closest approach...

[Decepticon]

It's interesting to see small detail on the Galilean Satellites even from this distance. Pluto science Looks very promising!

[AndyG]

...really, we'd need a new unit of energy, too - something comparable to area (the Wales) or mass (the US Naval Destroyer).

I quite agree. But it needs to be scaled to best suit the application. And so I humbly propose the:

Hot Bath

It's intuitive, commonplace, and gives you a real sense of potent energy. Here's a few comparisons to whet your appetite (and don't forget to do behind your ears)

200 hours of TV = 1 HB
1kg from launch to LEO = 3.3 HB
1kg from launch to GEO = 9.7 HB
Kinetic Energy (relative to the Sun) of New Horizons = 6.3 kHB
1 Transatlantic jet flight = 18 kHB
Apollo 17 = 400 kHB

etc...

Andy

[Rakhir]

Just 3 HB to launch 1kg to LEO (or 10 to GTO) ?