From the LA Times: In 1977, Jimmy Carter moved into the White House, "Star Wars" and "Saturday Night Fever" premiered in theaters and the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral to explore the outer solar system.
In the years since, there have been five more presidents and five more "Star Wars" movies; disco has given way to punk, grunge and rap; and the Voyagers have flown billions of miles past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Their explorations aren't over yet.
As scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in La Cañada Flintridge marked the mission's 35th anniversary this
week, they marveled that Voyager 1 was poised to leave the solar system —
crossing the so-called heliopause and entering the vastness of
interstellar space.
When that happens, Voyager 1 will become the
first spacecraft launched from Earth to "leave the bubble," said former
JPL Director Edward Stone, who still serves as a project scientist on
the mission as a member of Caltech's Space Radiation Lab. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-voyager-solar-system-20120908,0,6461750.story
This mission shows that the United States still has as technological edge and we have learned a lot from the Voyager 1.
But then, we have also witnessed the trashing of NASA by Obama and Bush but mostly Obama. All these chances to learn about outer space and other space expirements, shot down because of politics. Damn shame.
Too Much In Taxes
4 hours ago
I disagree WRT Obama and NASA. I think space policy is one of the very few areas Obama has gotten right, although I think it's mostly by accident. His benign neglect has allowed a huge proliferation of private space companies to really start thriving, and we won't have a significant presence in space until it's economically viable for private citizens and industry to go there. Spending billions for a few government employees to hang out in low Earth orbit is cool, but ultimately pointless. Mining asteroids for rare earth metals or the moon for H3 is the future, so long as burdensome government regulations doesn't strangle that budding industry in its cradle, that is.
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