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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>… Behalf Of </span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Dan<br><b>Subject:</b> [ExI] Kepler's planet finding days might be over<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-telescopes-planet-hunting-days-may-over-202309584.html">http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-telescopes-planet-hunting-days-may-over-202309584.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Kind of related to the Fermi Paradox discussion. Well, at least, planet finders give us some baseline for the Drake equation -- some values to plug-in (those with the other unknowns, what does this matter?) -- and an idea of what's out there in terms of planets. And, of course, other missions like COROT and terrestrial efforts still continue.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Dan</span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Dan don’t count out Kepler. It has four completely independent reaction wheels and it only needs three. One reaction wheel failed and the spacecraft went into safe mode, which is what it automatically does when anything goes wrong with the hardware. It powers down everything besides the control system and sunbathes the solar panels until the ground controllers can study the telemetry, figure out what happened and what to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The forces on reaction wheels are very small, so there is no reason to think the remaining three cannot go on for years, and if we are very lucky, decades.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><br> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>