Comments on: Rockets and Pluto

By: John W

John W — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:59:48 +0000

I’ve always heard researchers call the Scattered Disc part of the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, so Eris should be considered a KBO in that regard. (There are three populations of KBOs, as currently classified: classical KBOs, scattered disc objects, and resonant objects.)

By: Karl

Karl — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:52:27 +0000

I guess you could say that Pluto is the longest tenured member ever to get kicked out of the (full) planet club.

Why can’t it go faster?
1. It would cost more $ to make it go faster
2. Since it is a flyby mission, the other cost would be time: the faster it goes, the faster the flyby and therefore less time on site. When it finally arrives, all of us who have been wishing it would get there faster will be wishing it was going slower so it would have more time to observe Pluto.

By: Paul Turnbull

Paul Turnbull — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:45:27 +0000

Ahhh, I understand now. Thanks Buzz.

By: Ed Davies

Ed Davies — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:13:43 +0000

What’s with the faint vertical grey lines in the picture? CCD malfunction?

Not so much a malfunction as a characteristic, says this message:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mpml/message/20397

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:45:23 +0000

Sea Launch uses rockets based on (or converted from) a Russian ICBM.
Space-X’s Falcon rockets are AFIK, an original design.
Ariane is (or originally was) government funded. as were the Protons, Saturns, shuttles, etc., i.e. those launchers not directly derived from military missiles.

I think Space-X is the first to get close to orbit with a privately developed rocket. (Their last launch the 2nd stage shut down a few minutes early or it would have made it. I think they are trying again soon.)

By: Lugosi

Lugosi — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:04:19 +0000

I'm still bitter about the whole Pluto thing. In fact, I even bought this bumper sticker for my car. I like to think that's the reason people are always blowing their horns at me when I drive....

By: Thanny

Thanny — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:40:18 +0000

I don’t mind private space exploration, or even the commercialization of space, but the minute someone puts an advertisement in orbit is the minute I start building a megawatt laser with a tracking mount.

By: JoakimR

JoakimR — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:07:44 +0000

What’s with the faint vertical grey lines in the picture? CCD malfunction?

By: Paul Turnbull

Paul Turnbull — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:36:29 +0000

So is SeaLaunch not a private space company?

http://www.boeing.com/special/sea-launch/

As per their Wikipedia article they have launched 25 rockets with two failures and one partial failure.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:47:21 +0000

Darnit, I want to see Pluto NOW!

I don’t care if they “demoted” it (Pluto remains pluto you know?). I been told all my youth that thing was the 9th planet and we never got to visit the thing. I wanted to see it since FOREVER! Why can’t this spacecraft go faster? <_<

By: Ken B

Ken B — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:41:32 +0000

I was shopping at a local "educational store" a few weeks ago, when I spotted a bunch of Solar System models. They had the Sun and eight(!) planets, looking very similar to a Sun-plus-nine-planets box I had seen last year. However, the plastic molding they were boxed in had this curiously-empty ninth spherical "bump". See here (I hope that link posted correctly.)

By: Rosa W.

Rosa W. — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:16:21 +0000

Ceres was sort of re-planetized, though… it’s back up to “dwarf planet” now, at any rate, with Pluto and Eris. Only three so far, but just wait for Pallas and Charon and Sedna and Quaoar and … a bunch more, anyhow, as long as they are judged sufficiently spherical. But darn it, “dwarf planet” is as far as I’m willing to go for that bunch of ice-ridden wimps.

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:06:31 +0000

I’m sorry, but I’m a purist. Pluto will always be a planet in my books. No, seriously. They are older Astronomy books.

By: Mytho

Mytho — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:01:24 +0000

Off topic:

Wasn’t Falcon 7 Birdman’s boss?

Ok, I’m stupid, I read last night some creationist garbage. It’s contagious people!

By: yud

yud — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:59:34 +0000

Don’t forget Juno, it was demoted from planet-hood too! (Along with Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta, which ozprof already mentioned.)

By: ioresult

ioresult — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:58:26 +0000

Thanks a lot, moggers87, for shattering my ego! For a while there, I thought I was right and BA was wrong.

“scattered disc object”… I suppose it was some compromise to let Pluto lovers think it was still special in some way.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:53:52 +0000

Glad to see SpaceX is in the running to take up the launch slack. Maybe we won’t even have to worry about NASA and their lack of an appropriate launch vehicle,,,

Gary 7

By: newbie

newbie — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:43:56 +0000

So are all “planet x” hypotheses dead?

By: DavidG

DavidG — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:41:10 +0000

Okay, so who’s going out there to rip off it’s epaulettes!
Or, I went to the IAU and all I got was this lousy T-shirt http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/science/8964/?cpg=clrss

By: !AstralProjectile

!AstralProjectile — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:40:07 +0000

Ill be danged- Eris-while bigger- was “kicked out” of the Kupier belt. So at least the objects have something in common.

By: ozprof

ozprof — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:33:25 +0000

Actually Pluto is not the “only planet” kicked out of the club. Ceres, Pallas and Vesta were all called “planets” when first discovered.

By: moggers87

moggers87 — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:20:44 +0000

Eris is a scattered disc object.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_%28dwarf_planet%29

By: ioresult

ioresult — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:14:54 +0000

BA says: “Pluto, the biggest of the Kuiper Belt objects”

What about Eris? Was it demoted too?