I lay in my bed and dreamed I walked
On the Sea of Tranquility
I knew that someday soon we'd all sail to the moon… https://t.co/RJmTRSIWYR— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 15, 2017
Late-night nostalgia, from the Washington Post:
PASADENA, Calif. — Linda Spilker checks the clock: 12:04 p.m. As the NASA scientist sits in this crowded conference room on the Caltech campus, the aging Saturn orbiter Cassini is flying past the moon Titan for a final time. The maneuver on Monday will give Cassini the gravitational tug needed to sling it straight into Saturn’s atmosphere, where it will vaporize above roiling clouds of dust and gas.
There’s no turning back now. Spilker’s life’s work is officially doomed.
That is the nature of being a planetary scientist. No mission lasts forever. Every spacecraft eventually runs out of fuel. Spilker knew this when she joined the Cassini team half a lifetime ago. Later, as head scientist, she was part of the group that devised the mission’s “grand finale,” which has sent Cassini on dizzying dives between Saturn and its rings and ends Friday with the fatal plunge.…
The assembled researchers lift their glasses of juice and chorus their appreciation. A few are close to tears. After Cassini disintegrates, this team will be disbanded, and NASA’s view of Saturn will go dark. For the moment, the space agency has no plans to return to the ringed planet.
But Spilker and a young protegee have submitted a proposal for a new mission to the Saturnian system, which would investigate one of Cassini’s most significant finds: jets of water on the moon Enceladus that could contain traces of alien life…
Only peripherally related, but somehow appropriate:
Late Night Music Open Thread: Farewell to CassiniPost + Comments (39)