Re: The Final Day on Galileo - Sunday, September 21, 2003
Posted by Uncle Al on Sep 20, 2003 at 10:22
(68.5.243.16)Re: The Final Day on Galileo - Sunday, September 21, 2003 (Garry Denke, Geophysicist)
1995-2003 is ~8 years, local orbit to death.
(30 GB/8 years)(year/365.25 days)(day/24 hrs)(hr/60 minutes)(minute/60 seconds)= 950 bytes/second. Giving it the Sabbath off doesn't improve the numbers.
Remember that NASA handling caused irreversible damage to Galileo's high gain antenna leaving only an afterthought pipsqueak for data transmission. Galileo was multiple layers of disaster and incompetence plus huge volumes of NASA backpedaling lubricated with unaudited cash. What it returned was only a very small but outrageously expensive fraction of its intended dataflow.
Compare the cumulative cost of the Hubble telescope - including repairs and all associated transportation fees - with the cost of an essentially identical Keyhole spy satellite. How much could it possibly cost to turn an off-the-shelf satellite in orbit 180 degrees around? About $25 billion if NASA is in charge.
"The wonder of a dog playing chess is not that it wins a game, but that it plays at all."
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
(Do something naughty to physics)