Another giant leap for mankind: Rosetta/Philae

[Lynn LeFey]

We, and by 'we' I mean mankind, have again managed the impossible.

Thanks to the incredible work of the ESA, and the long trek of the Rosetta spacecraft, the Philae is now on the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Comet.

I personally can't even express how mind-bogglingly cool this is.

While the mission was not without technical difficulties, I don't feel that this diminishes the scale of the achievement in the least. Human history of space exploration has been fraught with peril and catastrophic failures. It seems easy to accomplish destruction and ruin, and profoundly difficult to push the horizon of human knowledge even a centimeter.

I, for one, am overwhelmed with awe and joy at the achievement. 

[Chako]

Exciting times for sure.

[Grant Lamontagne]

And it sings too:

http://news.discovery.com/space/comet-sings-mysterious-song-to-rosetta-141111.htm

Whodathunk it?  Reminds me that there is so much we don't know about the larger universe around us.  Simply amazing.

Def

[AimlessWanderer]

220 million Euros to find out what one teeny comet is made of and what temperature it is .... 

Awesome feat of engineering, simply incredible, but ..... why ...? Maybe I'm just being a little dense, but I'm struggling to see in what way this benefits us, other than just satisfying curiosity at (Warning: bad pun incoming) astronomical costs

[Aloha]

Yes it's an incredible feat and simply awesome in and of itself. 

I often find myself wonder as much 50ft but then stop to say to myself, there needn't always be "benefit". The act/achievement alone sometimes begets benefits.     

[captain spaulding]

 


http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,55688.0.html

[Lynn LeFey]

Smurfing smurf. I SWEAR I searched the forum for all the keywords before posting this.
 

Ah... well... I guess it's not the first time multiple posts about the same topic have happened.

[AimlessWanderer]

Yes it's an incredible feat and simply awesome in and of itself. 

I often find myself wonder as much 50ft but then stop to say to myself, there needn't always be "benefit". The act/achievement alone sometimes begets benefits.     

I take your point, but when I see something like this, I'm looking for 220 million Euro of benefit ..... and discovering that the comet smells of bad farts doesn't cut the mustard with me 

[tosh]

I admit I'm a little dense on this matter (yay another bad pun)
But doesn't all this incredible technology eventually find its way to us the general public. Landing this on rock a zillion miles from earth is surely the greatest technological accomplishment ever.

  hats off to all
 

As for €220m, it's a bargain! Didn't us Brits spend £700m on a tent to celebrate the millennium 

[Aloha]

Yes it's an incredible feat and simply awesome in and of itself. 

I often find myself wonder as much 50ft but then stop to say to myself, there needn't always be "benefit". The act/achievement alone sometimes begets benefits.     

I take your point, but when I see something like this, I'm looking for 220 million Euro of benefit ..... and discovering that the comet smells of bad farts doesn't cut the mustard with me 

I cannot aruge that one bit

[pfrsantos]

And... it stopped working!



NEXT!

 

[Lynn LeFey]

It could have blown up on launch, but didn't. It could have failed in flight, but didn't. It could have missed it's target, but didn't.

As far as space exploration goes, I call it a success. Could it have been more successful? Sure. But at this level of difficulty, any data returned is awesome.

It is impossible to say what ESA has learned from this mission, and how that will improve future missions.

In retrospect, though, I bet they wish they'd installed little extendable legs to right the lander if it tipped over.

[AdmSlc]

Awesome !!


-AdmSlc

[captain spaulding]

It could have blown up on launch, but didn't. It could have failed in flight, but didn't. It could have missed it's target, but didn't.

As far as space exploration goes, I call it a success. Could it have been more successful? Sure. But at this level of difficulty, any data returned is awesome.

It is impossible to say what ESA has learned from this mission, and how that will improve future missions.

In retrospect, though, I bet they wish they'd installed little extendable legs to right the lander if it tipped over.

I completely agree. The chances of it even making it to the comet was a huge accomplishment in its own right.