[Newsbot]

Title: Full Recovery Unlikely for NASA's Kepler Planet-Hunting Spacecraft | Space.com
Category: Tech
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2013-07-25 07:42:01

[Jabberwalker]

What a shame. Space is a difficult, dangerous place for man and machine.

[saturn_656]

They just don't make 'em like they used to.

The Voyager and certain Pioneer probes are still kicking after what, 40-45 years?

[sandorski]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

They just don't make 'em like they used to.

The Voyager and certain Pioneer probes are still kicking after what, 40-45 years?

They probably don't have as many moving parts or moving parts requiring as great a precision.

[saturn_656]

sandorski sandorski:

saturn_656 saturn_656:

They just don't make 'em like they used to.

The Voyager and certain Pioneer probes are still kicking after what, 40-45 years?

They probably don't have as many moving parts or moving parts requiring as great a precision.

Ok, I'll compare it to MOST, a Canadian space telescope which uses four reaction wheels in the same manner that Kepler does.

Launched in 2003, still going strong a decade later. A case of beer says it will outlive Kepler.

[Jabberwalker]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

sandorski sandorski:

saturn_656 saturn_656:

They just don't make 'em like they used to.

The Voyager and certain Pioneer probes are still kicking after what, 40-45 years?

They probably don't have as many moving parts or moving parts requiring as great a precision.

Ok, I'll compare it to MOST, a Canadian space telescope which uses four reaction wheels in the same manner that Kepler does.

Launched in 2003, still going strong a decade later. A case of beer says it will outlive Kepler.

Yup ... The "Humble" telescope. We know how to build them. The only reason that Alouette 1 & 2 aren't still beeping away is that they were shut down after years of service ... after they had nothing new to say.

I'm amazed at the endurance on the Voyagers ... and at their power plants. They keep going and going and going ...

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Yup ... The "Humble" telescope. We know how to build them. The only reason that Alouette 1 & 2 aren't still beeping away is that they were shut down after years of service ... after they had nothing new to say.

I'm amazed at the endurance on the Voyagers ... and at their power plants. They keep going and going and going ...

That's because these devices and machines are one shot deals where quality truly matters. If there was ANY sort of consumer component to this kind of equipment, you can bet your ass they'd be built to break down in a couple to a few years.

[BartSimpson]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

That's because these devices and machines are one shot deals where quality truly matters. If there was ANY sort of consumer component to this kind of equipment, you can bet your ass they'd be built to break down in a couple to a few years.

It used to be that consumer products were made to last indefinitely. For instance, my wife and I were given two identical irons for wedding presents 25 years ago. In all that time we've only used one of them. The other sits, new in the box, waiting for the first one to die.

Cars also come to mind. My wife's dad bought a 1965 Galaxie 500 brand new and gave it to us when we got married. We still have it.

Meanwhile we've been through several other vehicles as our 'primary' cars.

Also on the topic of cars it's not uncommom to see cars from the 1950's to the 1970's still in service and still on the road.

But try finding something from the 1980's and early 1990's on the road.

Ditto with the space equipment. The old stuff was built for the long haul. The new stuff...not so much.

[DrCaleb]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Yup ... The "Humble" telescope. We know how to build them. The only reason that Alouette 1 & 2 aren't still beeping away is that they were shut down after years of service ... after they had nothing new to say.

I'm amazed at the endurance on the Voyagers ... and at their power plants. They keep going and going and going ...

That's because these devices and machines are one shot deals where quality truly matters. If there was ANY sort of consumer component to this kind of equipment, you can bet your ass they'd be built to break down in a couple to a few years.

Not far from the truth. Voyager and Pioneer series used a nuclear fuel battery - it generates heat, and electricity is produced (napkin explanation). The battery will die around 2025, but they have been turning systems off every few years as the power source dies little by little, so other systems keep working as long as possible.

Nowadays, NASA has difficulty launching spacecraft with 'nuclear' anything onboard, as people fear that word and what it would mean should a space craft be 'aborted' over a populated area. Like the Russian Kosmos 954 that landed in the NWT in the 70's.

[Lemmy]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

But try finding something from the 1980's and early 1990's on the road.

There's lots of them, it's just that they're all Toyotas and Hondas. The Japs made the Big Three re-think their business models.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

That's because these devices and machines are one shot deals where quality truly matters. If there was ANY sort of consumer component to this kind of equipment, you can bet your ass they'd be built to break down in a couple to a few years.

It used to be that consumer products were made to last indefinitely. For instance, my wife and I were given two identical irons for wedding presents 25 years ago. In all that time we've only used one of them. The other sits, new in the box, waiting for the first one to die.

Cars also come to mind. My wife's dad bought a 1965 Galaxie 500 brand new and gave it to us when we got married. We still have it.

Meanwhile we've been through several other vehicles as our 'primary' cars.

Also on the topic of cars it's not uncommom to see cars from the 1950's to the 1970's still in service and still on the road.

But try finding something from the 1980's and early 1990's on the road.

Ditto with the space equipment. The old stuff was built for the long haul. The new stuff...not so much.

I hear ya. Westinghouse is a prime example of a company that went under because their products were made too well. Years ago in Windsor, the city suffered some major flooding. We had a Westinghouse de-humidifier in the basement. Well, that little machine kept on cranking as the water continued to rise. It finally gave up the ghost(or so we thought) once the water was about 6-8 inches from the top.

After the water receded, we took a look at the de-humidifier. We took the back off and cleaned it up and dried out the inside of it. When we plugged it back in, it worked like it was brand new.

[Jabberwalker]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

That's because these devices and machines are one shot deals where quality truly matters. If there was ANY sort of consumer component to this kind of equipment, you can bet your ass they'd be built to break down in a couple to a few years.

It used to be that consumer products were made to last indefinitely. For instance, my wife and I were given two identical irons for wedding presents 25 years ago. In all that time we've only used one of them. The other sits, new in the box, waiting for the first one to die.

Cars also come to mind. My wife's dad bought a 1965 Galaxie 500 brand new and gave it to us when we got married. We still have it.

Meanwhile we've been through several other vehicles as our 'primary' cars.

Also on the topic of cars it's not uncommom to see cars from the 1950's to the 1970's still in service and still on the road.

But try finding something from the 1980's and early 1990's on the road.

Ditto with the space equipment. The old stuff was built for the long haul. The new stuff...not so much.

I recently helped to pick up an old washing machine from an old person's house to be scrapped. We do this to generate funds for a charity on a regular basis ... (hopefully things with a lot of copper!). When I looked at the label ...General Electric Frigid Air brand and it's styling, I said "1960s"? and the little old lady said "1965". She had it for that long at it worked all of this time and she was giving it up because it was time to move into a "home". (It weighed a fecking ton, btw! lots of pig iron in her.) It sounds like poor marketing to build things that never quit but I'm really fed up with our very expensive Kitchen Aid S.S. kitchen set that started to fail/break/misfire after about two years. The designs are lousy (You'd think that after a half century plus, they would figure out how to design a dish washer that actually washes dishes.) The Korean stuff has a five year lifespan if you're lucky and get "Wednesday" appliances.