FactFinder
VIP Member
- Mar 1, 2009
- 2,689
- 208
- 83
Science has many flaws
25 February 2009
Its wrong to wish on space hardware
Filed under: Greenhouse gases Climate Science gavin @ 11:19 AM
A number of satellite related issues have come up this weekend: The NSIDC reminded us that satellite sensors are (like all kinds of data) not perfectly reliable and do not last forever. Two satellites collided by accident last week, littering the orbit with dangerous amounts of debris. In San Diego this weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a meeting with some of the Apollo astronauts and some of the scientists involved in Cassini and the Mars Phoenix missions. And yesterday morning we heard that the Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission launch failed to insert the satellite into orbit, and it is presumably measuring carbon dioxide somewhere at the bottom of the Southern Ocean. Coincidentally, when it came up on the news, I was in a meeting with one of the scientists who had been working on setting up a climate model to assimilate the OCO data in order to pin down the carbon sinks.
All of these events have served to remind me at least, that although the space age is 50 years old, we are a long way from the point where we can take our ability to launch and control off-planet machines for granted. Getting into space was, and remains, a tremendous challenge. This makes the successes we've had all the more incredible, and a testament to the hard work the engineers and scientists do over many years before a launch to give the missions the best chance of success.
25 February 2009
Its wrong to wish on space hardware
Filed under: Greenhouse gases Climate Science gavin @ 11:19 AM
A number of satellite related issues have come up this weekend: The NSIDC reminded us that satellite sensors are (like all kinds of data) not perfectly reliable and do not last forever. Two satellites collided by accident last week, littering the orbit with dangerous amounts of debris. In San Diego this weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a meeting with some of the Apollo astronauts and some of the scientists involved in Cassini and the Mars Phoenix missions. And yesterday morning we heard that the Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission launch failed to insert the satellite into orbit, and it is presumably measuring carbon dioxide somewhere at the bottom of the Southern Ocean. Coincidentally, when it came up on the news, I was in a meeting with one of the scientists who had been working on setting up a climate model to assimilate the OCO data in order to pin down the carbon sinks.
All of these events have served to remind me at least, that although the space age is 50 years old, we are a long way from the point where we can take our ability to launch and control off-planet machines for granted. Getting into space was, and remains, a tremendous challenge. This makes the successes we've had all the more incredible, and a testament to the hard work the engineers and scientists do over many years before a launch to give the missions the best chance of success.