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New Horizons Ultima Thule Flyby

Started by PopeyesPappy, January 01, 2019, 11:30:13 AM

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Unbeliever

Quote from: Minimalist on January 07, 2019, 07:32:55 PM
What if it nudges a space rock which hits another and another and then another and which finally dislodges a small asteroid which then crashes into Earth and ends all life?

Wouldn't that suck?
I don't know, why would it suck? It might be fun.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Minimalist on January 07, 2019, 07:36:10 PM
The Law of Unintended Consequences is a cast-iron bitch.

Your kind of woman?  Name of a German dominatrix?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Minimalist

I'm sure someone has thought of it.

Although I wouldn't mind seeing the associated costume!
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.

-- H. L. Mencken

Baruch

Quote from: Minimalist on January 07, 2019, 09:51:10 PM
I'm sure someone has thought of it.

Although I wouldn't mind seeing the associated costume!

But would you take to the whip?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Minimalist on January 07, 2019, 09:51:10 PM
I'm sure someone has thought of it.

Although I wouldn't mind seeing the associated costume!
[spoiler][/spoiler]
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Baruch

Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: PopeyesPappy on January 06, 2019, 10:11:06 AM
The software New Horizons launched with bears little resemblance to the software it has now. It has been updated several times. The slow transmit data rate is a hardware issue. Primary communication is via a pair of 12 watt transmitter connected to an 83" parabolic dish. It's a miracle of modern science that we can receive the signals at all at that distance. As the probe gets further away they have to slow the data rate in order to receive it. When it passed Jupiter is was transmitting at 38 kbps. At Pluto is was down to 2 kbps. Half a billion miles later at Ultima Thule they have slowed it to 1 kbps.

By comparison the Voyager I probe uses a 22 watt transmitter connected to a 12' dish. It has a more powerful transmitter connected to a much larger antenna, it currently transmits at 160 bits per second, but at nearly 12 billion miles from Earth it is nearly 3 times further from us than the New Horizons probe.

Thank you.  I did not know the software could  be updated so well.  The news suggested that was a problem and that old hardware limited software updates.  The understanding I got was that it was like adding new programs to an old Win 95 platform.  Good for them!
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

PopeyesPappy

Quote from: Cavebear on January 12, 2019, 05:29:42 AM
Thank you.  I did not know the software could  be updated so well.  The news suggested that was a problem and that old hardware limited software updates.  The understanding I got was that it was like adding new programs to an old Win 95 platform.  Good for them!

Well sure the hardware limits the software. New Horizons has a limited amount of memory and uses a 32 bit 12 Mhz RISC processors based on the MIPS R3000. You can't run software that wasn't designed for that processor, but you can design new software for the processor. How many times did Windows 95 get updated? How many updates did you run for the software running on your Windows 95 machine? Same concept. The NASA/SwRI team are just a lot more careful with the updates they load than Microsoft or Norton.
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

Cavebear

Quote from: PopeyesPappy on January 12, 2019, 09:15:36 AM
Well sure the hardware limits the software. New Horizons has a limited amount of memory and uses a 32 bit 12 Mhz RISC processors based on the MIPS R3000. You can't run software that wasn't designed for that processor, but you can design new software for the processor. How many times did Windows 95 get updated? How many updates did you run for the software running on your Windows 95 machine? Same concept. The NASA/SwRI team are just a lot more careful with the updates they load than Microsoft or Norton.

OK. I get that.  I didn't KNOW that, but I get it.  Thank you.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

#39
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on January 12, 2019, 09:15:36 AM
Well sure the hardware limits the software. New Horizons has a limited amount of memory and uses a 32 bit 12 Mhz RISC processors based on the MIPS R3000. You can't run software that wasn't designed for that processor, but you can design new software for the processor. How many times did Windows 95 get updated? How many updates did you run for the software running on your Windows 95 machine? Same concept. The NASA/SwRI team are just a lot more careful with the updates they load than Microsoft or Norton.

Hardware for a long time now, is a "universal" computing machine.  Basically as long as the programming language supports the Turing Machine definition, it can do what any other computer can do, baring purely pragmatic considerations (memory and speed).

I would have loved to work on spaceship firmware, but never got the chance ;-(  But very unforgiving.  A single extra/missing "blank" or "punctuation" could kill the mission (and has on prior spacecraft).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on January 12, 2019, 11:59:27 AM
Hardware for a long time now, is a "universal" computing machine.  Basically as long as the programming language supports the Turing Machine definition, it can do what any other computer can do, baring purely pragmatic considerations (memory and speed).

I would have loved to work on spaceship firmware, but never got the chance ;-(  But very unforgiving.  A single extra/missing "blank" or "punctuation" could kill the mission (and has on prior spacecraft).

None of the spaceships meet the Turing test.  And I know about punctuation.  I typed my own punchcards in the late 60s.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Unbeliever

I think I remember a Mars mission that failed due to a mix-up between metric and standard measurements.


Ah, yes, here it is:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

Quote(CNN) -- NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation, according to a review finding released Thursday.

God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

This is why you check and double check.  I don't think my old friend, who has done several Mars missions, was connected to that one ;-(
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Unbeliever on January 12, 2019, 01:28:22 PM
I think I remember a Mars mission that failed due to a mix-up between metric and standard measurements.


Ah, yes, here it is:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

Yep.  Worst science since Hubble lens.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Unbeliever

God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman