Feh...another flat wasteland with a bunch of rocks

[JonClarke]

I think your expectations are unrealistic. If the public expected. if you expected colour video from Titan or whatever, then the pubic, and you were wrong. It is not NASAs fault, it is not ESAs fault, it is yours. Aso, you a wrong in that the return from such missions is judged by Joe public, the return is judged by the researchers peers. As it is all the media on the descent and landing I have seen have been positive. So it might be that Joe public has a better understanding and appreciation of what has been achieved than you think.<br /><br />What is my authority for all this? Not much!<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[grooble]

so much for the most "exotic" pictures we've ever seen. It was hyped.

 

[davepeilow]

I have to agree with Jon here, I saw two of the UK news channels warning viewers not to expect much in the first few hours and days *before* the post-landing press conference, so someone must have briefed them.<br /><br />If everyone's network didn't do the same, that is not ESA's fault. I think it is the "24 hour news syndrome" that everything must have a superlative and everything is presented in yer face without the commentators getting time to think about what they are seeing that causes some of the issue here.<br /><br />Dave<br />

 

[trailrider]

Ladies & Gents:<br />Obviously, this whole thing was a failure! Where are the photos of all the cows? There must be billions and billions of cows on Titan to cause all that methane to be generated. But we don't see a one!<br /><br />Speaking of cows...I'm no veternarian, and if I did a colonoscopy up the south end of a northbound bovine, I'd probably know more of what I was looking at than we do about Titan on the first go around!<br /><br />We Earthers know more about Titan now than we did before Huygens went through the atmosphere and landed! And if the photos we've got (or if they can be further enhanced) don't quite match Chet Bonestell's wonderfully imagined paintings, well, reality sometimes stinks! (No pun intended!) As was said, Huygens had to fit in the mass, size and power limitations of Cassini, as well as the budget constraints. Yeah, we Americans MIGHT have been able to do it better...if we'd have gotten the whole thing past Congress...but WE didn't...the Europeans did. Next time, if there is a next time, we can improve the instrumentation...based partially on what we have learned from the results of Huygens.<br /><br />As far as selling the public based on the "sizzle", there are probably very few opportunities to do this nowadays. We have become too jaded and blase' to be impressed by much short of finding a secret Klingon base on Titan. What we are going to have to do is to start educating the kids...kindergarteners or earlier...on what we have done, and what is out there for them to discover. That means each and every one of us is going to have to do what we can to contribute to that education in our local schools, etc.<br /><br />So kwitcher&%$#@!in, and get to it!<br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Aries! Ad Astra!<br />Trailrider

 

[serak_the_preparer]

Astrophoto, you replied to my post, so I'll answer.<br /><br /><i>Seeing the way the general American press handled the landing I am worried about funding and how the 'average Joe' takes this. I watched CBS, NBC and Fox News and I was ready to commend them for making it a big deal -- dont know if it was a slow newsday but they mostly carried the ESA meeting live, showed the pictures ASAP, etc. The problem was they were all practically laughing. Fox News was particularly harsh -</i><br /><br />On the plus-side, I think the 'average Joe' is smarter than some people here tend to credit. For one thing, though none of us is entirely invulnerable to propaganda, the 'average Joe' is generally good at recognizing the media for exactly what it's become: infotainment. 53% of Americans now accept human descent from earlier animals; i.e., a majority accept evolution. 53% also believe global warming is a critical issue of our time, while 80% accept that global warming is occurring. I only mention these statistics in order to say, 'It's not all bad, American education hasn't done as poor a job as we've been led to fear.'<br /><br />Nobody I know - not even the conservatives - takes FoxNews all that seriously.<br /><br /><i>I am worried that the press opinion either echoes the general sentiment (NASA spent all that money for THAT?) or that the press opinion influenced the regular people into thinking it was insignificant and wasteful.</i><br /><br />By now, though, this same press and public is used to hearing about deficits running in the trillions, about a segment of society now known as 'billionaires.' Bush-supporters and anti-Bush people alike must have gotten sick of hearing of the '$87 billion supplemental' Kerry voted against for the conquest of Iraq. A billion - even $3.2 billion - doesn't impress them the way it once did.<br /><br /><i>As much as you hardliners want to completely dismiss the 'fools' on these boards, they probably more accurately represent the regular tax-payer</i>

 

[telfrow]

<font color="yellow">kaisern: Therefore, we have the right to voice our displeasure over how a mission was planned or executed.</font><br />You certainly do. No matter how wrong you are.<br /><font color="yellow">kaisern: Had the scientists come to the people and said, "We want to spend $3.4 billion of your tax dollars to study the atmosphere of Titan, the rings of Saturn, and the impact craters on a bunch of large rock moons," the public would say, "Get bent!" However, if the scientists came to the public and said, "We want to send a probe to Saturn that will dispatch a second probe to Titan, a moon the size of a planet with an atmosphere and rivers and seas...a place where LIFE might exist!" the public would be much more inclined to say, "OK! Go for it!" <br />Hmmm...wait...I think that WAS their sales pitch. Too bad they didn't make good.</font><br />No, it wasn’t….unless you consider the last four questions listed under “Mission Objectives” to be an assertion “LIFE might exist”. If you do, please explain why, on the same site, (“Life on Titan?” link) the following statement is made:<br /><font color="yellow">However, it is unlikely that Titan is a site for life today. But scientists are still currently puzzled by the amount of methane that persists in Titan's atmosphere. Could there be oceans of methane on or under the surface?</font><br />From the Cassini-Huygens site…<br /><br />Description <br />Cassini-Huygens is a joint NASA/ESA mission. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will orbit Saturn for four years, making an extensive survey of the ringed planet and its moons. The ESA Huygens probe will be the first to land on a world in the outer Solar System - on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Data from Cassini and Huygens may offer clues about how life began on Earth.<br /><br />Mission objectives <br />Cassini-Huygens is designed to shed light on many of the unsolved mysteries arising from previous observations, such as: <br />• what is <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[bobvanx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>perhaps you should get your news from somewhere other than tabloids and twenty four hour news networks.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />That is an eloquent comment. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[JonClarke]

Round of applause for trailrider!. Your colonoscopy metaphor sums it up very well. Bravo too on the need for education.<br /><br />You, know, this all reminds me of the people who found the Apollo boring.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

Ok, I am willing to admit that Slappy and Kaisern are not fools or nuts. I do think they are over reacting in a negative way to a truly amazing achievement. Its sad that they they don't feel the same thrill that the rest of us do. <br /><br />I'm not so sure about grooble, but I will say this, he gave me the best laugh I've had here in a while. In the "put up or shut up thread", on how his plans to better Huygens were coming: "I don't have a detailed plan right now, but i do have a coca-cola bottle and a few computer components."<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

<font color="yellow">"On the plus-side, I think the 'average Joe' is smarter than some people here tend to credit." -- Serak_the_Preparer</font><br /><br />How to "sell" the space progam to the average joe is a difficult question. As far as the quality of the Huygens images goes, I and many others here are totaly captivated by them. <br /><br />It's not necessarily quality that sells an image. Look at the poor quality of UFO, Bigfoot, Nessie, and ghost pictures taken over the years. These images have captivated millions of average joes. I certainly am not sold on any of these, but I, and many other average joes are sold on exploring Titan -- in spite of image quality. <br /><br />If someone is not sold on exploring Titan because of its uniqueness, its complexity, and its ability to vastly increase our understanding of our solar system, Earth, and the origin of life, a pretty picture will not convince them. As it is, the Titan images have more than enough detail to stimulate interest. Never before in the history of planetary exploration have images combined both an eerie sense of familiarity and a totaly alien feel as these do. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>As it is, the Titan images have more than enough detail to stimulate interest. Never before in the history of planetary exploration have images combined both an eerie sense of familiarity and a totaly alien feel as these do.</i><br /><br />Agreed, and there's certainly no need to sell me, specifically, on the success of Huygens or on the alien beauty of Titan. I hope to be around 20 years from now when the next landing there occurs, but if not, then what Huygens has brought us from Titan remains. I for one am both grateful and pleased. Go, ESA! : )

 

[bobvanx]

In the SF Chronicle today, columnist Peter Hartlaub echoes the "crappy images, boring science" sentiment. I fired off a letter to the editor in which I borrowed trailrider's observation that the solution lies in better education, so that we understand the magnitude of the discovery.<br /><br />We've really become a people accustomed to going to the store and buying a new [microwave/tv/clock radio/water heater] whenever we need one. We've lost the ability to "invent." Without the skills of critical thinking, of pursuit of a problem until we solve it, we really will amuse ourselves to death.<br /><br />I challenge anyone reading this, next time you think you "need" something, look around at what you already have, and see if you can invent a way to do the task without buying something. Be careful with electricity, certainly! But go ahead and make a door-stay out of an old paperback, or a shoe rack from toilet paper tubes.<br /><br />Your inventions needn't be pretty, they needn't even work great. Along the way, if you enroll a child or two, they are likely to look very interesting. The point is to rediscover the art of discovery.

 

[slappymcb]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>see if you can invent a way to do the task without buying something.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote>Well ESA sure couldn't... they had to buy $400M worth of stuff. <br /><br />But that columnist sums up this thread pretty nicely when he calls the images "indistinct pictures of orange rocks, followed by impassioned hyperbole from scientist types attempting to convince us how totally awesome the images are." Touché! ( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/19/DDG5HARL9969.DTL )<br />

 

[bobvanx]

I'm impressed you looked it up, Thanks for posting the link!<br /><br /> />>Well ESA sure couldn't... they had to buy $400M worth of stuff.<br /><br />Perhaps I wasn't clear, perhaps you're just enjoying being argumentative. Let me break it down for you:<br /><br />Obviously I'm not going to suggest people build a Huygens probe to get a feel for what invention and discovery feels like. My goal is to educate those who are willing to admit our special-effects demanding, instant gratification culture has lost touch with true human achievement. How to re-kindle the awareness that some things are hard?<br /><br />Every design problem has a set of engineering constraints. While money was available for Huygens, they had real space/weight/bandwidth constraints. But for my example, I made the constraint that the invention had to be made from stuff we already had laying about.<br /><br />Read carefully now: <i>what</i> is constrained isn't important. Being able to think through the problem and build a solution, is.<br /><br />It's being able to understand what the people went through, to achieve their goal, that gives us the thrill. We revel in their success! We honor their achievement with hours of being glued to our computer screens! We have blurry pictures from Titan! It's amazing! We also have 3 hours of <i>real</i> data from all the in-situ science instruments on board, which will tell us far more about Titan that even the best pictures ever would.

 

[slappymcb]

>><i>How to re-kindle the awareness that some things are hard? </i><br /><br />Taking a single surface photo with a high-resolution camera to appease the people who paid for the project isn't hard, and is within the constraints.<br /><br /> />><i>We revel in their success!</i><br /><br />No, we say "$400 million for <i>that?!</i>"

 

[bobvanx]

>>appease the people who paid for the project<br /><br />A minor fraction of my tax dollars went to building the camera. I'm appeased. I'm smart enough to understand what is the point of an ATMOSPHERIC probe. You've managed to fend off all our collected efforts to educate you.<br /><br /> />> isn't hard, and is within the constraints. <br /> <br />No, it is not within the constraints. I'm not sure why you insist on failing to understand that.

 

[telfrow]

Re: SlappyMcB<br /><br />Your attitude about this reminds me of a congressman from Indiana who sat on the Nixon impeachment committee. After all the testimony, when it was clear to everyone Nixon had violated the law and should be impeached, he declared, that in spite of the evidence, he would vote against impeachment. when asked why, he said: “Don’t confuse me the facts, my minds made up.”<br /><img src="/images/icons/crazy.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[kaisern]

>> No, it is not within the constraints. I'm not sure why you insist on failing to understand that.<br /><br />Failing to understand what? No one on this board has offered up any convincing argument or evidence as to why a handful of high resolution images was outside of the constraints. Why not? I'll tell you why not--because it wasn't. It was simply DECIDED that high resolution imagery was not a priority. You diehards can defend the decision making all you want, and that's fine, but you will never be able to make any convincing argument that high resolution imagery is "outside of the constraints," because any reasonable person living in this modern age can realize that it is NOT.<br /><br />Now, allow me to address the constant assertion (excuse) that Huygens was primarily an atmospheric probe. Why does that satisfy you? Why are you satisfied with that? Seriously--OK, fine it's an atmospheric probe primarily. How hard would it be to add a color high resolution imager to the atmospheric probe? Not hard at all. Mission planners just decided not to.<br /><br />Let me ask you this: What if there IS life on Titan? Suppose, for a second, that Titan has some strange avian lifeform. Outlandish as that might sound, suppose that it exists. Now, had we snapped some blurry, blob images of those lifeforms, would you be satisfied? Would you be satisfied with, "Well, there appears to be life on Titan, but we can't make them out in the images because they are so low resolution, but, hey, we have some great readings on Titan's atmospheric content!"<br /><br />

 

[no_way]

"How hard would it be to add a color high resolution imager to the atmospheric probe? Not hard at all. Mission planners just decided not to. "<br /><br />Because of the unknowns involved. Nobody knew the atmospheric conditions on titan seven years ago, and your high-resolution camera no matter in what configuration could have proved worthless baggage.<br />

 

[kaisern]

Certainly a gamble worth taking. EVERY decision in life is a gamble.

 

[no_way]

they took a gamble. they put a camera on it in the first place. You are quibbling over details, that the bet was too small. Yeah they could have sacrificed other payloads and available bandwitdh, but a gamble on one card this early in the game would be pretty stupid.

 

[bobw]

<font color="yellow">Suppose, for a second, that Titan has some strange avian lifeform. Outlandish as that might sound, suppose that it exists. Now, had we snapped some blurry, blob images of those lifeforms, would you be satisfied?</font><br /><br />1. My guess is that they would only come out during an eclipse anyway so we wouldn't have seen them no matter what camera we took.<br /><br />2. Remember what happened to the liquid metal guy in terminator 2 when he got in the liquid nitrogen? I think life on Titan would be like that. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Taking a single surface photo with a high-resolution camera to appease the people who paid for the project isn't hard, and is within the constraints. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Okay, so a single high-res photo is worth $400 million.....<br /><br />....but the vast wealth of scientific data (particularily spectroscopy) is not?<br /><br />That's like saying an MRI machine is a waste of money because its pictures aren't good enough to recognize the face of the person in the machine.<br /><br />If you Complain about the lack of pictures suiting your personal esthetics, that means you are missing the point of the mission. Pretty pictures are very nice. But they were not the primary goal. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<font color="yellow">If you Complain about the lack of pictures suiting your personal esthetics, that means you are missing the point of the mission. Pretty pictures are very nice. But they were not the primary goal.</font><br /><br />Bravo. Well said.<br />(Not that it will make any difference.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[bobvanx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>No one on this board has offered up any convincing argument or evidence as to why a handful of high resolution images was outside of the constraints. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote>Yes we have. You merely fail to understand the evidence. We tell you about bandwidth, battery life, what was known about the environment during the design phase, data transmission windows, balancing observations across 6 intstruments without any human intervention, and so on, and all of it is factual and sufficient.<br /><br />A reasonable person would find this convincing.<br /><br />Your admission that you are not convinced is not due to a lack of evidence or patience on our part. Nor is the fact that you are not convinced evidence that the probe was designed incorrectly.