Ciao, Galileo! Thanks for all the pics!

[Dookus]

I posted this in GD, but as you might guess, it's already falling off the front page.... so:

Last week's New Yorker had a great article on this plucky little spacecraft. CNN's got a good story today on it, too: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/19/galileo.crash/index.html

What an incredible journey. Take a minute out from the flame wars this weekend to ponder the ingenuity and pure pluck behind this mission. The whole thing almost failed badly, but some really smart people made it work, and gave us some of the most revealing and beautiful views of another world. Now it's going to be destroyed to avoid any microbial contamination of Europa.

Farewell, Galileo!

[Birthmark]

1. Well done, little robot.

What a mission and what a machine!

[Dookus]

2. Unfortunately,

the New Yorker article isn't available on-line.

But it was a great overview of what this mission endured. Basically, it was delayed so long that the main antenna broke and the original trajectory was no longer feasible. They re-routed it, adding years to its travel time, then totally overwrote the built-in software to handle the antenna failure. They commandeered an old reel-to-reel tape recorder on board to store all the data until it could be sent back - slowly.

And it's processing power is equal to that of an old Apple II.


Amazing.