cue Sunshine the movie

TechnoSmurf

Why dont they just go at night?

Simpsons-Movie-ruled

I hope they remember to bring the bottle opener...
I'd hate for them to get all the way there and realize it's not a twist-off.

Oh... wrong Corona? Well then. Disaster averted.

obbie

This is probably the most awesome NASA mission I can think of. I can't think of any other object in the heavens we depend on, but know so little about. I'll be following this guy's voyage eagerly. And at least we don't have to worry about his solar arrays running out of juice.

wild homes 5: no disassemble!

Will it be taking a wedge of lime with it?
Corona...where the action is.

92BuickLeSabre

After reading this post, now I actually feel bad for that little probe....

:'-(

Twenty5

Wow, cool gadget !

Stacky Botrus

@SpeedyGonzalas: Nah, he stole that line, no originality.

bbfreak

@wild homes 5: no disassemble!: Dude, you just doomed the mission. You hope your happy, don't you know calling inanimate objects a "he" is bad luck?

bbfreak

@Simpsons-Movie-ruled: You win.

SpeedyGonzalas

Would you like to swing on a star?
Carry moonbeams home in a jar...

strider_mt2k

What if they break the Sun? OH NO, MR BILL!

SpeedyGonzalas

cue The Knack....My Corona

Trevorblanco

Awww, our little sun is finally growing up and getting a little probing action!

behavin

@bbfreak: Yeah, it'd be a damn shame if we went to Mars. Maybe Barrack Hussein Obama will suggest it, then it'll be a good idea!

gadgetplay

@TechnoSmurf: What a horrible movie that was. I mean seriously, why the hell do you need to send humans 50 years from now into the sun? Then there is a the matter of tempting fate by naming your ship after a failed greek mythical character not once but twice! Then of course there was the completely boring movie it self. Eww.

bbfreak

Anyway, 2015 is a bit away, and with the mission to return to the moon and to traverse to Mars (Thanks Mr. President! *sarcasm*) who knows if the funding for this mission will stay intact. Costly adventure first, actual science comes second.

bbfreak

That poor little probe is gunna shit its pants as it gets within 7million km to the sun and the mission turns into a slasher flick.

thechansen

oh shoot I forgot to say my joke.

if the radiation and mysteries of the sun cause this thing to pull a "transformers" then we totally have to send a couple of game consoles up there in order to find out the answers to which of the current gaming consoles would win in a space aged futuristic laser shooting ninja fight.

jrghoull

stuff like this makes me really interested in what the theories sourrounding the puzzle are

hey giz, if i find some legit theories on the net from sites that you can trust, will you do an update to this post which includes the stuff i send you?

jrghoull

@bbfreak: I criticize you. The government isn't going to give me back my money. It's NOT going to downsize, much as we all wish it would. The bureaucracy must grow to sustain the bureaucracy. Having been involved with DARPA at one point in my life, I've seen the government move massive amounts of money into ridiculous things simply so the department doesn't get its budget cut the next year. That said, out of all the things to waste money on... I want it wasted on Mars and the Sun. If you truly think that money would be moved to feeding the homeless, or health care, you are definitely living in a pipe dream.

ltethe

It's just like that movie Sunshine:

[www.imdb.com]

:)

iatacs19

@gadgetplay: So yeah, just consider me a fiscal conservative. Which is certainly something Bush isn't. Of course you if you don't mind spending so much of your tax dollars on something that will hardly benefit human kind then go ahead by all means and criticize me.

bbfreak

@gadgetplay: Hey, I have no problem with going to Mars or back to the Moon within reason. Nor am I just mindlessly Bush bashing here. The reality is that the Bush administration put forth the idea. Even if Obama continued with the idea it'd still be a bad idea but unless you can prove to me that it wasn't the Bush administration who set the policy.

Hey, I just don't want to spend potentially billions of dollars or even trillions on a grand adventure that will set science back a few years.

bbfreak

@jrghoull: When are you going to say your joke?

bobdobbs' MBA misses LindsayJoy's MBP

@bbfreak: "...a fiscal conservative. Which is certainly something Bush isn't."

No he's not. That's one of my few complaint's about him. Somehow, I just can't get that worked up over "nucular."

That being said, I think going to Mars would have huge benefits to human kind in the long run. There is no way that it would "set science back a few years."

@jrghoull: "oh shoot I forgot to say my joke."

Well...go ahead, we've been waiting.

@ltethe: "That said, out of all the things to waste money on... I want it wasted on Mars and the Sun."

I agree. Vast amounts of money are going to go down the rat-hole, the best we can do is to get as much of it as possible to things other than counter-productive social programs.

gadgetplay

@bbfreak: Alas! I might indeed have doomed this plan. My deepest apologies to all involved.

@ltethe: I agree. If we're going to blow money on projects, I want them to be the most awesome projects possible. So I approve this plan-- the only plan I like better would involve NASA collecting every single copy of the new Scarlett-Johansen-covers-Tom-Waits-record, and all that album's master recordings, and maybe Scarlett Johansen herself, and putting all of them into a large rocket, and flying the rocket directly into the sun, so we can pretend this sad moment in music history never happened.

wild homes 5: no disassemble!

@strider_mt2k:

Or would you like to be a pig

iCanhasLs2plz

Where's the compartment that holds the kittens?

I think it's a good idea to know as much as possible about the celestial body voted "most likely to kill us".

DustyButt

im not sure i'd say that the probe is the unluckiest probe... if i were a probe i'd rather burn in the sun rather than in some unfortunate fat ass bubba who happends to get abducted by aliens. i think one smells less like shit than the other.

hexgonzo

@iatacs19: Actually has anybody else here read David Brin's "Sundiver"?

(science fiction by actual scientists: WIN)

Xenobiologista

This sounds pretty cool, or hot depending. There's a lot we can learn here from the sounds of it, but the extreme heat is a problem. If we can actually learn something useful that's good, but as long as it doesn't burn up beforehand.

Hello_Newman

If they send a probe to film the 1st one going into the sun, is this an interstellar snuff-film?

professor

@Xenobiologista: check out 'primer' if you havent already. awesome. [www.imdb.com] its on netflix watch instantly! [www.netflix.com]
its good to know that they are still doing science for the sake of science and understanding. [insert something philosophical about understanding, existence, and the nature of things around us here]

danger_the_pirate

Does it look anything like a companion cube? Because, I don't think humanity want's to make that mistake twice.

d3p0

How the hell is it going to transmit information back to the earth with all of the white noise radiation coming out of the sun?

Jesse in Japan

Just make sure that HotBlack Desiato has been informed that they're using his stunt ship and that there's no stowaways on board.

"The black stunt ship is now in position, it's looking good. Gonna be a great sundive. Stage computer on line?"

A computer voice answered.

"On line," it said.

"Take control of the black ship."

"Black ship locked into trajectory programme, on standby."

"Testing channel twenty."

Zaphod leaped across the cabin and switched frequencies on the sub-ether receiver before the next mind-pulverizing noise hit them. He stood there quivering.

"What," said Trillian in a small quiet voice, "does sundive mean?"

"It means," said Marvin, "that the ship is going to dive into the sun. Sun ... Dive. It's very simple to understand. What do you expect if you steal Hotblack Desiato's stunt-ship?"

"How do you know ..." said Zaphod in a voice that would make a Vegan snow lizard feel chilly, "that this is Hotblack Desiato's stunt-ship?"

"Simple," said Marvin, "I parked it for him."

"The why ... didn't ... you ... tell us!"

"You said you wanted excitement and adventure and really wild things."

"This is awful," said Arthur unnecessarily in the pause which followed.

"That's what I said," confirmed Marvin.

Montgomery Gabrys

@Jesse in Japan: They'll look for the teensy signal that isn't white noise.

strider_mt2k

@Jesse in Japan:

Not only that but how do they keep all the gold circuits from melting? Heat shields are nice but are not indefinite. Eventually the heat gets through. The elliptical orbit must take it out to Mars to cool off.

JChristopher

Hmmm... maybe the data from this mission will finally shut Al Gores money grubbing pie hole up about 'global warming'! Talk about a golden fleece!

dirk1965

i dont see how 'the carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400 C' can equal ' the sun's outer atmosphere ... registers more than a million degrees Celsius'

One of these things is not like the other...

lilaliendog

Don't know why the title says we are firing the probe into the sun, as that is NOT what is going on here. We are just setting it up on a crazy eliptical orbit around the sun. I suspect the plans for it not burning up are going to be partly due to the high speeds it will be traveling at when at its closest points to the sun. I haven't read the article, but I would guess it is not going to be in the corona for very long at all on a slingshot orbit like this. It will spend most of its time further from the sun being slowed down and turn around for the next pass.

Still, it is certainly possible it will just burn up. We don't have any way of testing those environments properly here on earth.

Lots of potentially exciting stuff going on in science these days. Large Hadron collider coming online, this thing being built, water being found on Mars, gearing up for the next moonshot...

Alluvian

WAAAAALLLLL-E!

V cool post.

sharmanova

I'll save you the trip...

hydrogen > helium > (trace elements of nickel, iron, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, carbon, magnesium, calcium, neon, and chromium) > millions of degrees hot

axiomatic

im not trying to sound like i actually do know what im talking about cause i could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that diagram is wrong.. having a flat surface no matter what it's made of is going to get insanely hot. the front "shield" i guess you could call it is some sort of ceramic carbon composite CONE. The instruments actually jump out real quickly to take their measurements and then go behind the shield for cover to calculate everything and then send the information back to us. It's not or atleast I'm pretty sure it's not a flat panel, I could be thinking of something else but I would say this has to do with any type of probe heading to the sun.. Dude, Astronomy magazine is amazingly kick ass- trust me.

kllngtme

@gadgetplay: or wars...

and for future reference, the space program has provided some benefit. any time you have to pull off something that intense, you have to come up with all kinds of new technology to do it

VENAT0R