Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2005-01-16 10:25:37

You ask your questions then people like LtlPhysics, GCNRevenger, Euler & Mad Grad Student give you a calm and straight answer

Now you respond like this, with such words !! :down:

What Is Your Problem !? :realllymad:

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 11:57:50

"You make it sound as if you are not aware that the photos WILL be made public. They will be. Distributed for free most likly to researchers or even the general public in one form or another... just not yet."

We deserve imediate release.We paid for it and your wages!JPL is good about this. ESA is bad about this.

"If every scientist was forced to publicly publish all their data that they have worked so hard for before having a chance to analyze it, the entire mechanism of the modern scientific community would falter. Why? Because other people would take the data that you worked so hard for and analyze it themselves and make the discoveries themselves and not the researcher who did all the work."

They should be forced to release it because the data is not theirs it is the peoples tax money. It belongs to the people. If it is a private inudusty that is a different matter. We would not falter in the scientific community in fact other observations could be made and the discovery may lead to something greater.

Stu · 2005-01-16 12:05:53

For pity's sake...

Don't you get it? Don't you GET it? This isn't science fiction here, tho it feels like it at times. This is real life exploration and discovery. Not everything works perfectly, as designed. Things go wrong. Things, and people, disappoint and under-achieve. Expectations - often unrealistic in the first place - are dashed and more modest, more humble realities take their place.

So the pictures aren't pin sharp. Big deal. It's not the first time. Lewis and Clark probably lost some of their sketches of flora and fauna on their epic trek across the US. Charles Darwin probably missed out on the opportunity to study universe knows how many exotic species as he explored the Galapagos. The colour camera on Apollo 12 didn't work, depriving us of spectacular images from the Moon. Mars Observer, Polar Lander and more recently Beagle 2 failed for a hatful of reasons, and we all know what we might have lost there. IT HAPPENS. It's just the way of things. The universe charges us for the wonders she shows us, and keeps some things back for herself, or at least makes us wait for them until we deserve them. It's disappointing, and frustrating, but it's life.

Some of the people being criticised here spent decades on the project. They don't owe you, or me, or anyone else, a thing. They were working on our behalf, because we're not smart or dedicated enough to do the things they do. We sit here at our screens, sipping coffee, warm and cosy, while they've spent years of their lives holed up in labs or machine shops working away all hours to get these "p*** poor pictures" for us to enjoy. They've done all this for us, so that we might understand and appreciate the universe a little bit better. They designed, built and then sent a spacecraft literally half-way across the solar system, succesfully landed it on the most inhospitable, most alien world yet seen, and it sent back pictures which are as historic as the first imags beamed back from Viking or Voyager or any of its other ancestors. Think about that.

Thanks to those "p*** poor pictures" Titan has been transformed, literally overnight. On Thursday night before going to bed I set up my telescope in my yard and aimed it at Saturn. The planet was beautiful, sublime, its rings split by the Cassini Division there before my eyes. And off to the right in the eyepiece was a pinpoint of light - Titan itself, shining there, hugging close to Saturn just as it had appeared to Huygens himself three and a half centuries earlier. When I went to bed the next night Titan wasn't a mere pinprick of light to me any more. It was a real world, a world with, we think, rivers and streams which reflect an orange, cloudy sky, shorelines lapped by slow-moving waves, tall mountains and rolling hills. A world where one day astronauts will wade out a short distance from the land and stare in awe at the sight of the alien waves of an alien sea, a billion miles from Earth, rolling gently over their boots. Think about that.

I'm British, and - okay, I'm biased, being a space nut - but personally if Huygens had only returned one single picture of the surface, and one panorama, I'd have considered my contribution (probably around £1) money well spent. What happened with the delay in releasing pictures is annoying, yeah, but when politics intrudes that's what happens. Yes, ESA could learn a lot from NASa and JPL re picture release, and they will, but c'mon, this kind of stuff is still new to us, give us a break. The guys at JPL have huge press offices, people who are good on camera, astronomical budgets... ESA just isn't geared-up for this kind of global attention. Yet. Give us time. We'll get better, you'll see.

It's not a competition, you know. It's not some media wrestling match between ESA and NASA to see who gets their pictures out fastest. This is for the good of all of us. We've waited generations to see these pictures, so a few more days wait won't kill us now, will it? Better and better images will be released, not just by ESA but by many of the unofficial imaging sources - we have one of them here on newmars, hi Doug! - and then we'll all be smiling like we were when the panoramas started rolling in from SPirit and Opportunity.

Just be patient and stop griping. This time last year Titan was just a ball of orange on a Voyager picture. This time last week it was a world with vague light and dark markings - how we saw Mars in Lowell's time. Now, Titan is a living, breathing, gurgling world we can imagine walking on and flying over. I look at those coastal scenes and can easily imagine bays, inlets and coves.

We should all feel humble and grateful. Not disappointed or angry.

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-16 12:30:52

So you think you guys own the dang thing. That is plain idiotic. You own part of it because some of your taxes fund it.We the taxpayers pay you to build it. If not you would be unemployed and would be living under a bridge somewhere.
Yes you deserve credit for a job well done as all employees do. But, in this case it is a job poorly done. IE: missing half the pictures,information being held back from taxpayers,poor quality pictures (a Wall Mart camera could do a better job) & pictures not being released to the public in a timely manner as JPL does. JPL knows the tax payer deserves better. I say we should do it alone. We don't need politics to be involved with this.

Ah but you are rushing headlong into a problem Errorist:

If the people that do the work do indeed deserve the credit, then how can you possibly demand that the data they collect be distributed freely and immediatly? If you were to do that, then somebody else who has not done all the work, and hasn't spent the last decade working for this moment, connects the dots and takes the credit for the discoveries first?

Once the discovery is made, then everyone else's work to answer that question or find that discovery is meaningless, even if you did much of the work your name won't be first on the paper, if its on the first page at all. The images from the Hubble telescope are delayed from general release for some period of weeks or months for just this purpose.

It isn't fair to the researchers who have spent ten years of their lives on the Hygens probe to summerly give away all their data, it is not a "job poorly done" at all. JPL is careful to give away only the images that aren't worth as much, and I doubt they are so willing to give out spectrographic data either.

Now, I have already mentioned several technical reasons why the images from Titan are marginal, but the biggest one is that the probe wasn't sent to take pretty pictures. The probe was sent for one overarching reason: learn more about Titan. In order to fulfill this mission, the probe was instead packed with spectrographic and other chemical analysis equipment to learn what Titan's curious atmosphere is made of. Being that the alotted mass, uplink bandwidth, battery power, and thermal protection involved, putting a nicer camera wasn't practical. Even if it were, the images would be very dark... Tell me, can your Wal Mart camera take pictures in the dark at -100C through fog and transmit several hundred of them across a mobile phone uplink in only a handfull of minutes?

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 12:42:07

"Some of the people being criticised here spent decades on the project. They don't owe you, or me, or anyone else, a thing."

I don't care if they spent a lifetime. We deserve the pictures in real time and they don't own them anyways. We THE TAXPAYERS do. "The great and powerful taxpayer". When I go to the strore to buy a product I expect to walk out with it now. NOT IN TWO OR THREE DAYS!

"So the pictures aren't pin sharp. Big deal. It's not the first time. Lewis and Clark probably lost some of their sketches of flora and fauna on their epic trek across the US. Charles Darwin probably missed out on the opportunity to study universe knows how many exotic species as he explored the Galapagos."

Lewis and clark could make better sketches than those pictures.

"Some of the people being criticised here spent decades on the project. They don't owe you, or me, or anyone else, a thing. They were working on our behalf, because we're not smart or dedicated enough to do the things they do."

I agree but the people in charge of releasing the pictures do.
I didn't wait 17 years for the pictures to come only to have them delayed for stupid reasons.No excuse here we should go it alone in the future. JPL far exceeds Brittons caveman technology and attitude about it.UGA! UGA!UGA!.

"What happened with the delay in releasing pictures is annoying, yeah, but when politics intrudes that's what happens. Yes, ESA could learn a lot from NASa and JPL re picture release, and they will, but c'mon, this kind of stuff is still new to us, give us a break. The guys at JPL have huge press offices, people who are good on camera, astronomical budgets... ESA just isn't geared-up for this kind of global attention. Yet. Give us time. We'll get better, you'll see."

Very annoying indeed. And you design a camera not suited to sell in Wal Mart. No back up circuits in case one fails for the price of ten cents I can buy one at Radio Shack. I'll be glad to donate a dime to your next project to install such a back up circuit.
Once you all come out of the stoneage at Stonehenge you may be able to compete with us.

We've waited generations to see these pictures, so a few more days wait won't kill us now, will it? Better and better images will be released, not just by ESA but by many of the unofficial imaging sources - we have one of them here on newmars, hi Doug! - and then we'll all be smiling like we were when the panoramas started rolling in from SPirit and Opportunity."

Why wait we can die tomorrow and never see them. No guarantees in life from what I have learned about it. Your thinking is flawed about this stuff.

"We should all feel humble and grateful. Not disappointed or angry."
I am very happy our cousins from Britton have had success and it reminds me of the days when we kicked your butts out of our country for such stupidity.What were all you thinking taxing our tea and such?

Stu · 2005-01-16 12:56:14

<< JPL far exceeds Brittons caveman technology and attitude about it.UGA! UGA!UGA!. >>
<< Once you all come out of the stoneage at Stonehenge you may be able to compete with us. >>
<< it reminds me of the days when we kicked your butts out of our country for such stupidity.What were all you thinking taxing our tea and such? >>

sigh.

If there are any newcomers to New Mars reading this thread, please let me assure you that the standard of the debate is usually rather higher than this. :;):

Seriously Errorist, chill out ok? If you think back our "stoneage technology" did pretty well taking pictures of Halley's Comet (Giotto) when the US decided against sending a probe to the comet, and Mars Express is sending back breathtaking images of Mars too.

And as for kicking us out of your country, well, that's just silly. Ancient history. And a Mel Gibson version of history at that. In today's world we're one of your closest - and few remaining, let's face it - allies, so let's try and remain civilised eh? We're on the same side here.

Jeez, how can we hope to get People Out There to support going to Mars when we're blowing juvenile raspberries at each other? ???

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 13:07:02

Ok the war is long over and I hearby issue a truce on all our behalf. But, holding back the images is not acceptable.

"Mars Express is sending back breathtaking images of Mars too."

This is true! They are spectacular. Huygens should be almost as good but they are not. Why is the difference in them so great?

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-16 13:15:45

Getting images of almost pitch-black, deep-frozen, fog-shrouded world the better part of a billion miles away in the space of minutes with only a few watts of power, following a multi-g firey plunge isn't exactly easy Errorist... your continued complaints about the quality of the photographs is just plain stupid.

The pictures from MARS are much better because there is almost nothing between the camera and the planet, just the thin air and a little dust, and there is several times as much sunlight for the camera to pick up. Not to mention, MarsExpress has much more power, payload, and uplink time to send them.

The ESA has on several occasions proven themselves capable of building fine space probes, every bit as good as ours when funding permits. You have no basis to slander their capabilities this way Errorist.

And as I have pointed out in more then one post, there are very good reasons not to simply dump all the photographs or spectrographic data on the internet as it comes in. We have waited a long time for this, waiting a little bit longer is the price to be paid to the scientists' dedication, hard work, and their unique abilities.

Stu · 2005-01-16 13:16:44

Ok the war is long over and I hearby issue a truce on all our behalf. But, holding back the images is not acceptable.
"Mars Express is sending back breathtaking images of Mars too."
This is true! They are spectacular. Huygens should be almost as good but they are not. Why is the difference in them so great?

Truce accepted :up:

On the question of the difference in picture quality, I think the different atmospheres of the two bodies has a LOT to do with it. After all, Mars Express is looking down through almost non-existent atmosphere, enjoying a virtually transparent view of the surface, while Huygens was peering and squinting through a dense, smoggy, foul atmosphere which blurred everything.

Ya think?

RobS · 2005-01-16 15:06:04

Errorist, you sound like a spoiled brat; and an American brat at that. There's nothing in the US Constitution or any other Constitution that says tax payers deserve to get all the information immediately. It's also not a law, and as GCN pointed out, it isn't even a logical ethical principle. I don't think everything from Mars is released real time either; I bet there is a delay of at least some hours. It's easy to release processed or unprocessed pictures; without the thermal and other data, they lack interpretive context. I worked on the Viking mission at JPL and I remember that a lot of data wasn't released right away. Viking 1 landed in July; the first collection of papers were published in Science in September; and after that, the bulk of the data came out.

The fuzziness of the pictures reminds me of the unstretched Mariner 9 pictures, both during the dust storm and after it. You should see what the originals looked like!

-- RobS

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 15:39:11

Bla,Bla,Bla. I don't care what you guys think. We deserve it in real time not hours or days later. Put it out for a vote to the public and see how it turns out.

"There's nothing in the US Constitution or any other Constitution that says tax payers deserve to get all the information immediately."

There should be. Put that out for vote, also.

"After all, Mars Express is looking down through almost non-existent atmosphere, enjoying a virtually transparent view of the surface, while Huygens was peering and squinting through a dense, smoggy, foul atmosphere which blurred everything."

Still there should have been better planning for this. A WWII strobe light would have worked wonders when looking down while snapping pictures.

Ian Flint · 2005-01-16 16:10:38

"Even I get that ERRORIST is wrong on this." -- my anti-Mars nonscientific wife.
:laugh:

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 16:17:47

And still we don't have the Pictures yet???BOOOOOOO!

DonPanic · 2005-01-16 16:20:25

Bla,Bla,Bla. I don't care what you guys think. We deserve it in real time not hours or days later. Put it out for a vote to the public and see how it turns out.
"There's nothing in the US Constitution or any other Constitution that says tax payers deserve to get all the information immediately."
There should be. Put that out for vote, also.
"After all, Mars Express is looking down through almost non-existent atmosphere, enjoying a virtually transparent view of the surface, while Huygens was peering and squinting through a dense, smoggy, foul atmosphere which blurred everything."
Still there should have been better planning for this. A WWII strobe light would have worked wonders when looking down while snapping pictures.

LO
Europeans paid for Huygens part of Cassini-Huygens mission, then we have photos with a shorter delay than US sites, unfair ?
http://www.futura-sciences.com/communiq … /525]Color panorama Huygens landing site photo

There was a high probability that Huygens entry thermal shield woudn't resist the 12000° C inflicted to the probe. Twice the solar surface temperature.
So the very fact that the probe did survive is some kind of miracle.
Better enjoy what you can get instead of your miserable arguing

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 17:15:38

The whole thing is unfair to taxpayers.BOOOOOO!

DonPanic · 2005-01-16 18:13:54

The whole thing is unfair to taxpayers.BOOOOOO!

Lo
Disclaim at Bush to get your money back

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 18:16:40

He should do something to prevent this in the future. Like go it alone.

Mad Grad Student · 2005-01-16 18:18:37

I'm not even touching this. These are the first shots ever of a new moon that no one has ever landed on before. They might not be as high-quality as the MER pictures, but what were you really expecting? We landed on the moon, can't you be happy?

DonPanic · 2005-01-16 19:08:59

He should do something to prevent this in the future. Like go it alone.

LO
I told you about the thermal shield.
Nowadays, EADS could make a one piece thermal shield for a space shuttle instead of tiles.
Mars Express has relayed rovers signals, the ISS would be endangered without Russians.
Therefore good cooperation is much less money wasting than a go it alone project.
Good cooperation works when you treat partners as equals, not as jacks.

By the way, I can take the train in center of Paris for a London center station for a 200 miles per hour travel.
What's the train speed at your's ? Apeman technology ?

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 19:31:14

I'm not even touching this. These are the first shots ever of a new moon that no one has ever landed on before. They might not be as high-quality as the MER pictures, but what were you really expecting? We landed on the moon, can't you be happy?

I'll be happy when the last picture is posted in timely manner on the next mission. To late for this one.

DonPanic · 2005-01-16 19:46:10

I'll be happy when the last picture is posted in timely manner on the next mission. To late for this one.

So, buy a lot of kleenex, you can cry for about 15 more years, if not more

dweav256 · 2005-01-16 19:46:14

I see the same photos are posted on the Cassini-Huygens web page... I am still waiting.

I think Errorist is right.

taxpayer

DonPanic · 2005-01-16 19:54:18

LO
Toldya the most advanced huygens photo site up to now is http://www.futura-sciences.com/communiq … o=511]HERE !

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 19:56:04

"So, buy a lot of kleenex, you can cry for about 15 more years, if not more"

Perhaps, they will be posted by then. 15 years is a long wait. JPL is the best ESA stinks.

DonPanic · 2005-01-16 20:00:39

. JPL is the best ESA stinks.:

Because ESA scientists te pètent au nez !

PROUT !

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#26 2005-01-16 10:25:37

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#27 2005-01-16 11:57:50

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#28 2005-01-16 12:05:53

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#29 2005-01-16 12:30:52

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#30 2005-01-16 12:42:07

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#31 2005-01-16 12:56:14

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#32 2005-01-16 13:07:02

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#33 2005-01-16 13:15:45

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#34 2005-01-16 13:16:44

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#35 2005-01-16 15:06:04

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#36 2005-01-16 15:39:11

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#37 2005-01-16 16:10:38

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#38 2005-01-16 16:17:47

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#39 2005-01-16 16:20:25

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#40 2005-01-16 17:15:38

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#41 2005-01-16 18:13:54

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#42 2005-01-16 18:16:40

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#43 2005-01-16 18:18:37

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#44 2005-01-16 19:08:59

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#45 2005-01-16 19:31:14

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#46 2005-01-16 19:46:10

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#47 2005-01-16 19:46:14

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#48 2005-01-16 19:54:18

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#49 2005-01-16 19:56:04

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

#50 2005-01-16 20:00:39

Re: Piss Poor Hygens Camrea Shots - I am tired of the BS!

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