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Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:07 am
by Cody
Voyager's endurance still amazes me.

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:00 pm
by Disembodied
You've got to hand it to NASA for the Voyager missions ... it's hard to think of another piece of machinery of comparable complexity that could operate without any maintenance, in such extreme conditions, for that length of time.

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:18 pm
by Commander McLane
I always found Voyager to be the best program NASA ever did (and this despite being cut back from how it was originally envisioned). It's a shame that they couldn't launch more satellites back then. (Although it may be a good thing that Voyager VI isn't going to bite us in the non-iron ass.) :wink:

By the way: The Hubble telescope comes in second in my personal ranking of NASA programs. All the rest (including Apollo and the Space Shuttle) pales in comparison to these two.

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 2:14 pm
by Cody
The Hubble certainly gets it for the 'wow' factor, but for me it's the first lunar landing.
I remember watching/listening to it live... 'Tranquility base... The Eagle has landed!'... it was awesome.

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 2:41 pm
by Killer Wolf
slightly derailing but re NASA missiions (ish), have y'all see the trailer for "apollo 18"?

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 2:43 pm
by Cody
<shakes his head in bewilderment>
It's very sad, is that.

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 2:58 pm
by Disembodied
It's a bit "Blair Witch on the Moon", but the saddest thing is all the people on YouTube arguing about whether it's real or not. :roll:

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:00 pm
by Cody
Disembodied wrote:
but the saddest thing is all the people on YouTube arguing about whether it's real or not.
Of course it's not real... all the shadows are wrong. <hollow laughter>

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:22 pm
by Disembodied
Apparently the alternative movie title was "When Clangers Attack".

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:29 pm
by Smivs
Voyager and Hubble - both truly awesome achievements, and like EV that Apollo 11 'moment' will live with me forever...I was 12 and my parents let me stay up all night to watch it. Even today the memory sends (good) shivers down my spine, and even now I sometimes find myself wistfully looking up at the moon and thinking "Men once walked there".
More recently the wealth of stuff coming back from Jupiter and Saturn has been astonishing.
And of course we've got Teflon and Memory Foam as well. 8)

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 5:49 pm
by Disembodied
It's been jazzed up for Hollywood, I fear:

The Clangers: the movie

Re: Voyager... thirty-three years old, and still 'doing it'.

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 6:09 pm
by Cody
Brilliant, really brilliant... thanks D.