Genesis crashes!

hi everyone,

just a quick note . . . I've been watching the Genesis reentry on NASA TV on the 'Net and the spacecraft impacted at about 100mph without the parachutes opening. Someone from JPL is on at the moment talking about the probe and what they might salvage (could flog the pieces of metal on eBAY as "been in space!"???)

John

www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Damn - Well, at least Colin Pillenger can smile wryly to himself.

See? - I knew NASA should have gone with my proposal of setting up a few acres of trampolines to catch it.... That helicopter idea just wasn't going to work. :lol:

. . . it's fairly buried in the ground and they are ". . . assembling a complement of tools to dig it out . . . "

apparently the drogue chute has separated from the capsule but they cannot be sure whether it was on impact or happened earlier. Because of that, they think there might be a live "mortar round" there.

it landed half-buried on it's side fairly close to a road . . . did ya hear the one about the unlucky hedgehog . . .

John

more info at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3638926.stm

... I like that trampoline idea John . . . no reason why they couldn't send some to Mars for Beagle 3 as well.

John


addendum: I'm still at work and the daily note from one of the IT mailing lists I'm subscribed to just landed in my in-box. Is it more than a coincidence that today's issue of the IT news e-mail is sponsored by a company called "Soft Landing Systems"??? :!:

Damn - Well, at least Colin Pillenger can smile wryly to himself.

He was on chanel 4 news not long ago. Asked how he felt, he said that he had to wonder if the same thing happend to Beagle2.

I would have thought it would make a much bigger crater...

A pity, sky news showed it bumbling down, gradually getting bigger, then showed its smashing into the ground,
Lets hope the parachutes on the Hyugens probe going to Titan weren't made by the same company...