This collection of entries is from September 08, 2004.
Glued to NASA TV watching the the failure of the return of Genesis.
read more of this entry »
NASA's Genesis Mission is the first sample return mission since the last Apollo mission - Apollo 17 - back in 1972. Instead of returning lunar samples, Genesis spent time capturing solar wind particles.
What made this mission so interesting is that the samples are embedded in silicon wafers so fragile, that a helicopter has to snag the capsule's parafoil and then gently land (the samples probably wouldn't survive and shatter if the capsule was allowed hit the ground).
So, instead, it's being snagged by this helicopter. This was being done over the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Grounds of the Air Force's Utah Test & Training Range. (Dugway serves as the nation's chemical and biological defense proving ground). And the helicopter team are veteran's of the Hollywood film industry!
When I saw videotape of the tests and what was actually going to occur, it was shocking to me how much it reminded me of The Andromeda Strain!
Well, unfortunately, the mortar for the drogue chute never fired, so none of the chutes deployed and the craft just buried itself into the Utah desert at 193mph. It's, um, "relatively" intact for hitting at that high rate of speed, but I just can't imagine that any of the science survived. A PI (Principle Investigator) for the project was quoted as saying that they have an "unquantified science degradation". Gotta love the definition.
« hide the extended part of this entry