Pluto Probe Heads for Launchpad.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051216/ts_nm/space_pluto_dc_1

I hope I live long enough to see the results of this mission.

before this probe arrives there...

They do say that good things come to those who wait. Looks like were gonna be waitin' a while.

Either NASA managed to sneak this probe under the noses of those who attacked the Cassini mission to Saturn, or (one can hope) they finally took some physics lessons on how little sunlight exists in the outer parts of the Solar System (from what I remember hearing, the Saturn probe would have needed solar panels the size of football fields just to power its instruments...)

The Cassini trip was one of the more embarrassingly silly tempests in a teapot of which I've ever heard.

link :banghead:

I am familiar with one of the posters in this thread, a radiation paranoid of the type with zero comprehension of risk analysis. From everything I read, he's a confirmed NIMBY practioner who lives in total ignorance of and/or indifference to real problems, like global climate change.

From what I hear, there is much less of this silliness than there was with Cassini. The mission will proceed I'm sure, with little more on this subject. I note that there was very little success from these quarters in cancelling the Cassini mission, which achieves what I personally regard to be the highest goal of humanity: To extend our vision.

It amuses me that one used to hear from radiation paranoids that so called "nuclear waste" should be launched into outer space. The production of this 24 kg of Pu-238 probably accounted for the destruction of considerably more Np-237. Neptunium is one of the rare actinides that can exhibit solubility under some circumstances, although Neptunium did not migrate more than a few meters over nearly two billion years at Oklo, the naturally occurring reactors that operated in Gabon. This mission will remove 24 kg of Neptunium/Plutonium (and all of the decay products) from exposure to humanity forever.

The author also repeats the canard that plutonium is the "most deadly known...substance" choosing to insert the word "radioactive" to exclude the many materials of ordinary commerce that are more dangerous than plutonium. This gem of misinformation comes from none other than the great scientist and defender of Terrell Owens, Ralph Nader, he of the Bush is Gore fame.

Its such a huge distance, I can't really judge in my head.

More details are here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/missionFAQs.html

and here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php

You and me both....it should be fascinating...

OFF TO THE KUIPER BELT! :toast:

http://pluto.juhapl.edu/

Evidently this mission is being run by Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Lab. "New Horizons" is also referred to (on the NASA web site) as "PKB" (Pluto/Kuiper Belt). Flyby of KBO's is not expected until '18-'22.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/profile.cfm

Apparently, the White House Office of Science And Technology Policy has given a more-or-less irrevocable OK to the launch.