[X] My Assistant

[jmjawors]

-Link-

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-092

[Del Palmer]

Here's a news snippet I wasn't aware of:

In a little-known footnote to space history, Voyager 1's Titan booster shut down prematurely after liftoff. The powerful Centaur upper stage was barely able to compensate, reaching escape velocity 3.4 seconds before running out of fuel. Luckily, Voyager 1 would still reach Jupiter and Saturn as planned.

However, had the underachieving Titan been used instead for Voyager 2, whose trajectory hinged on getting maximum performance from its booster, its eventual encounters with Uranus (in 1986) and Neptune (in 1989) would have been lost. By pure chance, Voyager 2 got the better rocket.

Seems like the Uranus and Neptune encounters hung by a thread in more ways than one...

[ugordan]

Is there a reference for the booster underperformance? Didn't Voyager 1 actually put a higher demand on the launch vehicle as it was launched on a faster trajectory?
This quote also seems inaccurate to me:

Voyager 1's launch took place 16 days later, on September 5th, when the planetary alignment was better for reaching Jupiter and Saturn — but by which time the Uranus-Neptune trajectory "window" had closed.

Is it not the case of Vgr 1 not being able to reach Uranus and Neptune solely because the Titan flyby would severely bend the trajectory out of the ecliptic, making any further planetary encounters impossible? In case of Voyager 1's failure, 2 would have been retargetted to Titan and would also have lost Uranus and Neptune.

[jmjawors]

Well, I don't know about any of these things, but since this is a birthday thread I'll give my thoughts along those lines.

Voyager occupies a really special place with me. I can remember back to what passed as NASA - TV back then, I think it was V2's flyby of Saturn. I had just become old enough to know what the Voyagers were and what they were doing and I sat for days in front of the TV... watching the images come in just as the mission scientists did back at JPL. It launched a deep interest in astronomy (and later spaceflight itself) that's lasted and defined me ever since.

Thank you Voyager.... here's to 30 MORE years!

*raises glass*

[Paolo]

Is there a reference for the booster underperformance? Didn't Voyager 1 actually put a higher demand on the launch vehicle as it was launched on a faster trajectory?

A reference for this is Bruce Murray's "Journey into Space", page 147-148

[tedstryk]

Is it not the case of Vgr 1 not being able to reach Uranus and Neptune solely because the Titan flyby would severely bend the trajectory out of the ecliptic, making any further planetary encounters impossible? In case of Voyager 1's failure, 2 would have been retargetted to Titan and would also have lost Uranus and Neptune.

Yes. Also, there were some funding battles (Voyager 2 nearly got turned off before Uranus).

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Is there a reference for the booster underperformance?

I believe it's also mentioned in Voyager Tales by David W. Swift. I mentioned this book and another interesting Voyager tidbit in this post.

[climber]

It can't be 30 years! My tee-shirt still shows 12 years.
I've got to ask TPS for replacement with an updated one.

[nprev]

Yes. Also, there were some funding battles (Voyager 2 nearly got turned off before Uranus).

One of the most egregiously stupid examples of 'penny-wise, pound foolish' in history...thank God reason prevailed.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Superb T-shirt... a real classic

[Guest_John Flushing_*]

Yes. Also, there were some funding battles (Voyager 2 nearly got turned off before Uranus).

As many people may remember, there was also another shutdown proposal which came in 2005, before Voyager 1 passed the 100 Astronomical Unit mark in 2006.

[Tom Tamlyn]

While I don't claim any expertise in the politics of NASA's relationship with Congress, it's hard to believe that the proposal to shut down the Voyager program in 2005 was anything but an attention-getting gesture. For one thing, assuming that NASA actually had made an irrevocable commitment to shut off all government money from the program, private funding could probably been raised in several hours.

TTT

[Guest_John Flushing_*]

In my opinion, Voyager is of the most successful missions mankind has ever launched, no question.

[Del Palmer]

While I don't claim any expertise in the politics of NASA's relationship with Congress, it's hard to believe that the proposal to shut down the Voyager program in 2005 was anything but an attention-getting gesture.

The person who made the decision at NASA HQ never owned-up to it, so the true motivation was never revealed. It was a pretty slimy act to quietly remove funding from the forthcoming year's budget and not have the decency to tell the project that they were about to be canned.

[stevesliva]

These sort of games are not unique to NASA. In fact, they remind me of school budgets. Well, you all voted down the budget... the first thing we cancel is high school sports and all elementary school field trips. Oh look at that, the re-vote passed.

[Planet X]

Here's a quote from that shutdown proposal article that I found a bit odd:

Today Voyager 1, about 9 billion miles from Earth and traveling at 46,000 mph, and Voyager 2, about 7 billion miles away doing 63,000 mph, are flirting with the edge of the solar system, where the sun's magnetic field and the solar wind give way to interstellar wind.

I'd say those velocities are off a bit! Voyager 1 is actually traveling at 38,000 mph, and Voyager 2 traveling at 34,000 mph. Later!

J P

[Del Palmer]

30th anniversary discussed on BBC TV news:

RealVideo stream

[SkyeLab]

Voyager 1 launched on September 5, 1977, the day before my 10th Birthday!

So , erm, yes, today is my 40th Birthday!!

There, said it.

Brian

[dvandorn]

I got a dozen years on ya, ya young whipper-snapper!

I turn 52 this coming October 17th... I was born just short of two years before Sputnik 1.

-the other Doug

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

I always enjoyed the design of the 1970s and 1980s pinback buttons made by JPL.
Here's an example of a nice on; Goodbye Saturn and upside down it says Hello Uranus

[nprev]

That's cool as hell, Phil! Never saw that before.

[edstrick]

Those were based in the calligraphic magic of a wunderkid calligraphic "geek"/"artist" who'd just made a distinct splash in the sci/techie world. I don't recall his name, but I think he was discovered or at least promoted by Martin Gardiner and his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.

[nprev]

It appears that Voyager 2 has indeed crossed over to the other side...

"Voyager 2 entered the termination shock almost 1 billion miles closer within the southern hemisphere of the heliosphere of the solar system than Voyager 1 previously had," said Voyager Project scientist Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews...044867120071211

[tfisher]

The artist most famous for the calligraphic text inversions is Scott Kim, but the Saturn/Uranus pin doesn't really look like his work. His tend to be a bit more polished and fancier calligraphy...

[nprev]

Transcendentally cool, nonetheless...

[edstrick]

"but the Saturn/Uranus pin doesn't really look like his work. " That's who I was thinking of... if those weren't Kim's work, they certainly were inspired by it. It was a microscopic "all the rage" at the time.

"It appears that Voyager 2 has indeed crossed over to the other side..." ONWARD! 0UTWOARD! TO THE HELIOPAUSE!

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

We could go on & on about the NASA-JPL pinback buttons as I have a nice collection

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Already looking forward to the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Voyager asteroid belt crossings and the Voyager 1 Jupiter encounter, I guess it's time to put on our best clothes

the other Philip

[dvandorn]

I think I saw an IguanaCon namebadge in there somewhere...

-the other Doug

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

That photo was taken in January 1986 during the Voyager 2 Uranus encounter...

[mchan]

I was there (at least at the Planetfest) and collected a few of those buttons. Not as many as the gentleman in the photo. (Is that you?)

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

No that's not me (although I have most of the buttons )
It's one of the flight-team engineers of Voyager 2 (photo taken 26-1-1986)
In fact those were hard times at JPL as the Uranus encounter Press conference was in preparation, the news of the Challenger 51-L disaster came in...