Genesis: Thud
Posted on September 8, 2004
Filed Under /dev/null/ | 47 views |
By now you’ve probably heard that the Genesis capsule slammed into the Utah desert, a disappointing ending to it’s journey.
Aside: the CBC article misleadingly states that the helicopter pilots “failed to snag it mid-air”. This was the plan and it was incumbent upon the capsule’s parachutes opening thus slowing the capsule to a catchable speed and giving the helicopter pilots something to grab onto. No parachutes, no catching so the fault lies not with the pilots but with the capsule itself.
Maybe they’ll be able to recover the payload, maybe not. I think that’s beside the point. In the next few days NASA is probably going to get slammed for “failing yet again” (remember the Mars lander?) but personally: I love the fact that we try this shit at all and when it fails it’s not for want of trying but because it’s got to be pretty damned hard to wing a satellite around the sun and back to earth again and then catch it underneath a helicopter!
Somewhere out there a team conceived of that, figured out it could all work in theory, ironed out all the details, developed the technology and actually implemented it. That’s fucking cool. Bummer about the landing but 9.9 for the balls to even try.