[extropy-chat] Pluto New Horizons launch -getting ready

[Robert Bradbury]

On 2/9/06, Technotranscendence <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:

>
> But a major problem is slowing down once you get there.  :)


Naw, just hit the damn thing.  So long as you have enough of those bouncy
balloons between the spacecraft and the surface to cushion the decelleration
it shouldn't be a problem.  If we can build hard drives that allow 250Gs
operating and 850Gs non-operating shock (Seagate Momentus) then designing a
spacecraft that can land *hard* shouldn't be *that* difficult.

Aside to Spike -- why don't you figure out how many G's New Horizons would
receive if NASA changed its direction so as to impact Pluto?  Does
acceleration by Pluto contribute significantly to the impact force or is it
mostly the speed leaving Earth (or boosted by Jupter)?

I have a dream.  A dream where all survey spacecraft will *land* on their
destinations.  Once they unwrap themselves from the bubblewrap they will
start navigating around taking pictures, analyzing composition, etc.  Where
appropriate they will drop off little itsy bitsy nanofactory "turds" which
will turn the surface into a big solar array providing enough power to begin
launching material into space which will subsequently be turned into even
larger solar arrays producing power to be beamed back down to the object to
accelerate the disassembly process.

Pluto-huggers -- get your hugs in now -- its probably going to be gone
before the end of the century.  You can console yourself with the idea that
Pluto will probably be one of the last to go because the ROI is so low
compared with asteroids and larger planets with greater amounts solar energy
available.

Robert
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