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Space Capsule Crashes in Utah
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: September 8, 2004

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah -- The Genesis space capsule, which promised scientists potential clues to the origin of the solar system, crashed to Earth on Wednesday after its parachute failed to deploy.

It wasn't immediately known whether the cosmic samples had been destroyed. NASA officials believed the fragile disks that hold the atoms would shatter even if the capsule hit the ground with a parachute.

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"We're going to get the pieces out," said Roger Wiens, a payload leader for Los Alamos National Laboratory. "It's going to be a lot tougher to sort out the pieces of broken material."

Hollywood stunt pilots had taken off to hook the capsule's parachute, but the refrigerator-sized capsule -- holding a set of fragile disks containing billions of atoms collected from solar wind -- hit the desert floor without the parachute opening.

The capsule was returning after three years in space as part of six-year project that cost $260 million.

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What have I missed (and I'm sure I missed something).

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Columbia!!!

And I guess the two Mars missions that failed were 4 years ago so I guess it depends on how you define "lately".

[ September 08, 2004, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
 

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Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
 

 

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Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
 
When I saw that thing hit the ground my heart when out to all of those scientist and engineers who put their heart and soul in to that experiment. No one wants to see it fail but we must accept the risks!

So, what is there to question, Rabbit? This stuff happens and there is no way anyone can counter every possible thing that comes along. The forces of nature are extremely difficult if practically impossible to counter let alone predict. Because this spacecraft spent most of its time outside of the protective shielding of the earth’s magnetic field, there is no telling what damage the onboard hardware could have sustained that would cause failure. If by chance it were operator error would it really matter? I personally don’t think it makes a lick of difference. We are human.

As someone who as worked first hand on space hardware I know I’m justified is saying that there are way too many people out there who think we live in the world of science fiction.

But don’t worry Rabbit; it’s a standard practice to question every aspect of the outcome to determine what exactly went wrong. In time we will know what it was for sure and if there is any salvageable material that the scientists can use.

-steev

[ September 08, 2004, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: Steev ]
 

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 

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There have been so many of these lately I think it warrants some serious questioning.

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I agree, but I think that, sadly, most of those who question will ask the wrong questions. Like whether we should care about anything to do with space at all, instead of how we can make NASA--or some other entity--more efficient and more modern. How we can create a space agency with useful tools instead of fifty-year-old rockets and twenty-year-old orbiters incapable of going above Low Earth Orbit.

Thus, I think, the knee-jerk defenses of NASA. Better the inefficient body we have than giving up on space altogether.
 

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Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
 
Hah.

All those millions of dollars...and one 1000$ mistake, ruins everything. Kind of like life, no?

Eh.
 

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Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
 
Uhm, why couldn't we have arranged to have it park in orbit and then get picked up by a shuttle?
 

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Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
 
See, in the context of the space program, I think comparing genesis to Columbia to the 2 Martian probes in 2002 is apples to oranges to pears. They are largely independant of each other, at least at the operational level. What caused the Columbia accident was neither influenced by, nor itself influencing, any of the other mishaps.

Also, you ignore all the other probes launched are working in those past 2-3 years.

Hmmm. I think the tone of the message makes it sound as though there have been inordinate amounts of failures, when I think it's been pretty par for the course of the program, as horrible or costly as any one incident may be.

I think the only decade we didn't lose any lives in the program was the 70s (although Apollo 13 was close). We have certainly lost probes consistently throughout the entire history.

And Genesis (or the lost Martian probes) are a great example of a more "streamlined" NASA. they were "only" a couple hundred million dollars a piece; they were all developed during NASA's "cheaper, faster, better" days. Compare that to a project like Galileo, which was in the _billions_ of dollars, and if it had failed (it was developed before the more recent stuff, and under the philosophy of packing as much on one package, and hoping for the best).

The knowledge, even from failed unmanned probes, is worth the hundred million dollars price tag. The shuttle disasters are due to no one wanting to fire the 20k+ employees required to get them to orbit every launch, as opposed to developing a somewhat simpler, quicker to launch, less of a launch crew, type vehicles that have been proposed from before the shuttle even existed. Our manned space program is screwed up, because no one wants to research a dozen different "better" ways, when 11 of them are likely to never work in practice (and which might affect the livelihood of thousands of people).

-Bok
 

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Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
 
Amka, there are a few reasons... Like trying to do a spacewalk/robot arm pick up would cost hundreds of millions more dollars to attempt, and if the disks are as fragile as the scientists are saying, they could be destroyed by the arm hitting it too hard, or astronaut error... Also perhaps it's easier to direct the satellite to the earth, than to create a guidance/propulsion system that could get it into the proper orbit for the shuttle to reach it, or the additional equipment to do so would cause the scientific istruments to be cheaper or less precision.

Or maybe there's a whole other set of reasons... I'm not an aerospace engineer

-Bok
 

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Posted by Turgan (Member # 6697) on :
 
Other Nasa screw ups
Am I wrong or have these already been stated?

They did the calculations for that Mars lander in feet. But programmed it in Meters. It buried itself.

They forgot a lense in... I forget... was it Hubble?
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
Well, they did get a probe to the sun and back, which is pretty amazing. I for one really like NASA, or at least the idea of NASA. I like the fact that they are exploring space. Their success warms the cockles of my heart.
 

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Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
 
Amka, I thought the same thing.

It is quite possible that the cost of a space pickup or the cost/difficulty of providing propulsion/guidance to get it into an orbit were deciding factors against that type of move, but I'd bet danger from a robotic arm wasn't. I can't imagine a robotic arm accidentally ramming the module would jar it more than having it snached out of the air by a Hollywood stunt pilot. At any rate, I bet the cost of parking it in orbit looks a lot less now considering the whole project may be wasted.
 

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Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
 
The main (maybe secondary) mirror in the Hubble was ground to the wrong specifications, causing a form of nearsightedness, I belive.

The conversion disaster was one of the martian probes above (for the record only about 50% of vehicles sent to Mars have actually made it in an operational state). If you recall, the rover attached to Britain's/ESA attempt at the same time as our two rovers crashed into the surface, and Japan's probe died en route to the planet.

Yes, it was a particularly stupid mistake, but it has only happened once, as far as I know.

-Bok

[ September 08, 2004, 03:20 PM: Message edited by: Bokonon ]
 

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Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
 
Karl, sure, but hindsight is 20/20, especially in the space "business". It's a risk/cost assessment. Do you spend 200million dollars for a 90% chance of success or 400million dollars for a 96% chance?

-Bok
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
We were discussing why they'd chosen to go with the "catch" method here.
 

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Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
 
It’s all about the money.

The “cheaper, faster, better” mantra was only to appease the policy makers. You ask any NASA engineer about the “cheaper, faster, better” mantra and they will invariably say, “Pick any two.”
Let me clarify why they feel this way. NASA used to build massive satellites costing billions of dollars. Most of the cost was for the designing and testing to ensure a low failure rate. The odds of success would be around 90%. The “cheaper, faster, better” mantra was to have NASA build smaller spacecrafts on smaller budgets. As a result there is less money for design and less money for testing. So for the cost of one large super spacecraft they could build 10 smaller ones. However, the probability of success with the smaller satellite was about 60% each.

Cheaper, faster…but are they better?
I’ll leave it to the rest of you to imagine other such combinations of the three.

If there are any real questions that should be asked they should be asked of the policy makers who refuse to see the reality and continue to believe the Star Trek universe is only a few years away.

Having actually talked to some of those policy makers and much of the general public about matters associated with space and aerospace research, I pretty much get the attitude that people really don’t care very much about it. My feeling is that if they really cared and wanted to stay informed the entire issue of cost wouldn’t even be an issue.

But what is the deal with the extremely expensive, highly risky and rather unnecessary goal of sending humans to mars? It’s difficult enough just to keep a robot alive in space let alone a flesh and blood, human!

There is no reason why good money can’t be spent on the space program for honest and real science and engineering research. What is wrong with the educational and technological benefits that come from such endeavors?

Nonetheless, I see this particular mission, as a success in it’s own right. As this is the first time we have ever attempted to return samples from space out side of the Apollo program that brought back a few moon rocks.

We learn though failure. If we don’t then we are fools.

-steev
 

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Posted by WraithSword (Member # 6829) on :
 
You're fools. You won't learn through failure.

"You're stupid. But, I don't hate that."
 

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Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
 
What a disappointment. I was looking forward to hearing about the results of the experiment. I hope that NASA gets another probe up soon to study the sun.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
I am sure that it will have some uses anyway, and they will be able to find some usable data in the wreck.

Even if it is just how it failed, so that they will do it better in the future.

Kwea
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
I think it is telling that the destination was the Dugway proving ground- the site of the U.S. only chemical weapons disposal facility. It indicates to me they weren't confident at all in the safety of what they were bringing back. Well, too late to worry about it now.
 

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Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
 
Pooka, don't get carried away in all of the conspiracy stuff. The experiment was as passive collector. Dugway was logistically convenient and cheap.

Besides, objects falling to earth without any guidance systems need a large unpopulated area to fall into and Dugway is more than a just chemical disposal area.

more info:
http://www.genesismission.org/mission/AboutGenesis.html

-steev

[ September 08, 2004, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: Steev ]
 

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Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
I bet Bob Zajonc was one of the Hollywood stunt pilots.
 

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Posted by WraithSword (Member # 6829) on :
 
Yeah, it's all about Bob.
 

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Posted by ssywak (Member # 807) on :
 
Well, at least it has more in the way of samples than the Polish sun-probe. They sent that one at night, so that it wouldn't burn up, and it didn't get anything!

I'll be here all week, folks. Try the steak!
 

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Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
 
Khhaaaaaannnn!!!

fil

PS And now that a certain sitting president cut the NASA budget (don't believe the "new" money to fund the Mars mission...they simply re-directed current assigned money to somewhat newer projects but raped the rest of NASA to do it) I don't think we will be seeing this kind of deal any more. They should mostly focus on probes and landers and such. While getting a person on Mars would be so cool, to do so at the expense of the rest of the budget is short sighted.

fil again
 

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Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
 

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There have been so many of these lately I think it warrants some serious questioning.

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It's obvious. The gray aliens and/or the Syndicate don't want us to explore outer space.

The truth is out there!

 

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Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
 
I want to believe.

fil
 

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Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
 
One of our neighbors eight year old son when watching the news last night in our living room - "Were the astronauts okay, did they live through the crash?"

Man walks up to the capsule on TV.

I replied "Do you see how big that capsule is compared to that man?"

Neighbor boy then gasped "Oh my God, they sent a midget into space?"
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 

 

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Posted by eslaine (Member # 5433) on :
 
That might save a lot on fuel.
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
The Cold Equations could get a little less frosty on a ship manned by midgets.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Shigosei, I believe there is already another one up. Scheduled to land in two years, I think I heard? And this one just has parachutes (big 'uns), no stunt-pilot-catching.
 

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Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
 
Well, let's hope that one survives! Meanwhile, things aren't looking quite as grim anymore. This article at space.com seems to indicate that some of the equipment is in reasonably good shape.

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Amazingly, scientists say, much of the contents -- microscopic particles that once rode the solar wind and are now embedded on shattered collector plates -- should be salvageable.

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