New Horizons under way

[bjarvis]

I was hugely relieved to hear that New Horizons, the Pluto fast fly-by probe, was successfully launched yesterday.

I've been fascinated by photos returned by planetary probes since I was old enough to read about the early probes to Mars & Venus. I was too young to understand the importance of Pioneer 10 & 11, but was utterly absorbed by the Voyager 1 & 2 photos of Jupiter & Saturn, then the later images of Uranus & Neptune. With dwindling resources for planetary missions and huge gobs of money being sucked up by the shuttle program, I always wondered if we'd manage to get photos of Pluto in my lifetime. While we still may not get there soon enough to see an atmosphere, unless there's a disaster we should see something.

Not having the plutonium generator blow up on the launch pad or upper atmosphere was a nice thing too. That whole Cosmos 954 thing 20+ years ago was a little too close to home.

Comments

[allanh.livejournal.com]

It took me a couple of reads to figure out that you weren't making fun of the national franchised chain of technical training centers ("New Horizons Training"). You know .. training. Probes. Uranus.

I really need to get out more.

http://www.newhorizons.com/

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

But you're currently in Texas and already travel more than most flight attendants I know... you're already getting out more. :-)

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Then I guess I'll just have to get more. Out or in. Or a little of both.