The Kitchen Junk Drawer, Exchanges that need to be put somewhere Options

[dvandorn]

ADMIN NOTE: Please note that a number of comments below contained information that was 'off topic' in the Philae thread. The reasons are stated herehere.

Has anyone heard anything yet from the CONSERT experimenters about their assurance that they would be able to pinpoint the landing site within just a few days after the landing? AFAIK, we haven't gotten that information out here in the non-ESA world yet.

Also -- and this is not a criticism, just a statement of how much the American and European cultures apparently differ -- I find it odd that most ESA comments about the landing still seem to take great pride that they landed Philae not once, but three times! When actually they bounced Philae off of the comet and there was a large element of luck in the fact that it eventually fetched up against a spot where it could perform most of its experiments. If JPL had such a result in a similar landing attempt, the element of luck would, I think, have been readily admitted and the self-appreciation would have been for the incredible job done by the experiment teams to get their data down under rather extremely off-nominal circumstances.

Don't get me wrong, I have an awful lot of respect for the PIs and engineers who were able to work against a penurious and critical time limit to get their data collected and down to Earth. It was an admirable and incredible performance all around. It still just rings odd to my American ear to hear the off-nominal aspects of the landing itself referred to as extra added accomplishments, when in fact they were serious anomalies that could just as easily have resulted in no data being recovered from Philae.

I guess I just need to chalk it up to the different ways the "European culture" treats such a situation. It surely doesn't reduce my admiration and respect for the teams who were able to turn a potential disaster into a brilliant success.

-the other Doug (With my shield, not yet upon it)

[stone]

It still just rings odd to my American ear to hear the off-nominal aspects of the landing itself referred to as extra added accomplishments, when in fact they were serious anomalies that could just as easily have resulted in no data being recovered from Philae.

I guess I just need to chalk it up to the different ways the "European culture" treats such a situation.

-the other Doug (With my shield, not yet upon it)

I look at it and see that nobody would gain anything by openly making Philae the biggest mishap ever happened, even worse than Beagle2.
There is a public which wants heroes and nice stories with happy end. The people who know enough know that the landing was closer to a crash than to a controlled landing and that without the luck and certain features of the Lander the story would have ended as a big tragedy. But these people like space and want more money for missions. The politicians and ESA bureaucrats gain nothing by standing up pointing at some people and say he is guilty of this misery. The US way to deal with a controversy has changed over the last several decades and to make a big fight with only losers looks like the new US standard.

stone

[jmknapp]

knowledge of the lander position in the post-first-bounce OSIRIS frame, coupled with a good 3D model of the comet and its gravitational field, should allow them to determine the trajectory to the second bounce

But the (hypothesized) contact with the ground partway through, not rising to the level of an official bounce, throws a wrinkle in that calculation, if it remains unknown where that contact occurred.

About the bounces cited as an accomplishment, I read it as a little dark humor. It is remarkable how the idea of multiple landings caught the public imagination though. For a couple of days after the landing, it seemed to me that everyone I came across was talking about the bouncing comet lander. I was in a McDonald's to get coffee the next morning and there was the usual morning group of white-haired guys, some with neck beards, this time talking about Philae and spacecraft in general, chuckling about the bounce. Whether partially by luck or not, the ESA outreach on this couldn't have been better.

[stone]

I was in a McDonald's to get coffee the next morning and there was the usual morning group of white-haired guys, some with neck beards, this time talking about Philae and spacecraft in general, chuckling about the bounce. Whether partially by luck or not, the ESA outreach on this couldn't have been better.

The person how made a lot of contributions to the Lander in the beginning, Dr. Helmut Rosenbauer, Director at Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy, would have had a good time hearing this. Rosenbauer wanted to have a bouncing or hopping machinery built into the Lander. This was de-scoped a long time ago. Rosenbauer was in the beginning the PI of COSAC, but he also coordinated a lot of work on the landing gear and the separation mechanism.

stone

[Gerald]

Also -- and this is not a criticism, just a statement of how much the American and European cultures apparently differ -- I find it odd that most ESA comments about the landing still seem to take great pride that they landed Philae not once, but three times! ...

I'm with stone, that the excitement about the bouncing should be seen in the background of a long-lasting discussion about asteroid hoppers.

[4th rock from th...]

I guess I just need to chalk it up to the different ways the "European culture" treats such a situation.

Precision, quality, organization are no longer valued.
Make-do, funny, improvisation and luck seem to be valued in today's society.

But from a PR point of view... it worked brilliantly!

[marsbug]

Working for an engineering firm where most of managment were promoted from sales... I tend to agree. But having worked both development and operations in my time I shoiuld say that both organised control and improvisation have their places, it's a question of context. No-one ever landed on a comet before. Meaningful science has been done. The PR folks are spinning the mistakes to be positives.. that's what they're paid to do, and they're paid to do it by managment and ESA culture, not the engineers and scientists.

If ESA managers are like my lot they probably wish they didn't need the inconvinently real-world based engineers and scientists at all...

[centsworth_II]

They say you make your own luck. Sure, some systems failed and that has to be looked at for the next mission, but over all some fantastic engineering gave Philae the edge it needed to pull off that landing.

The serendipity of Philae's landing reminds me of Opportunity's "hole in one" (an expression synonomous with great success). But a slightly different bounce could just as well have landed Opportunity in an inescapable sand trap.

It's a great human acheivement to get a mission to the point where such bounces of fortune even come into play. Boy, Curiosity's landing sure was boring, wasn't it.

[SFJCody]

Funny that the exploration of dwarf planet 'Ceres' should happen 'in parallel' with dwarf planet Pluto.

(Your pronunciation may vary)

[Mongo]

Funny that the exploration of dwarf planet 'Ceres' should happen 'in parallel' with dwarf planet Pluto.

(Your pronunciation may vary)

As far as I can tell, the Classical Latin pronunciation of 'Ceres' would be like English KAY-race.

And as an aside, the Classical Latin pronunciation of 'Uranus' would be like English oo-RAW-noose

[djellison]

pronunciation

I think the somewhat tongue in cheek pronunciation comment was regarding the inclusion or exclusion of the prefix 'dwarf'

[Xerxes]

As far as I can tell, the Classical Latin pronunciation of 'Ceres' would be like English KAY-race.

And as an aside, the Classical Latin pronunciation of 'Uranus' would be like English oo-RAW-noose

I think it's more like KEH-race and OO-rah-noos (former OO like cool, latter oo like book). As Latin evolved, the final /s/ sound of Ceres softened into KEH-rays with a soft buzzy /z/ ending.

[Phil Stooke]

Is it wrong of me to feel the same way about pronunciation that I do about 'true color' ???

Phil

[stevesliva]

Is it wrong of me to feel the same way about pronunciation that I do about 'true color' ???

So Phil, is it peridemeter and apodermatitis or what, with regards to whatever the heck the greeks called this Ceres thigamajigger...?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Gladstoner]

So that means we eat KAY-ray-al for breakfast in the morning....