A moment of silence, please, for the poor Genesis probe, which had an unfortunately abrupt 193-MPH rendesvous with the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah.
It dug way down, all right. Into the dirt.
After a three-year trek outside of our pedestrian planet's atmosphere to collect atomic souvenirs from the solar winds, the Genesis probe met its demise in part because of the Wiley Coyote retrieval plan cooked up by NASA.
The whole "attach a tailhook to a helicopter and snag the probe as it floats downward on a parachute" idea was shaky enough. But the enthusiastic Hollywood stunt helicopter pilot hired to do the job didn't even have a chance to try it because the probe's parachute failed to deploy. One wonders if they even remembered to pack the chute.
So $260 million worth of satellite took the only sensible option left to it - it obeyed the law of gravity and plummeted to the Earth. One can only picture old Wiley holding up spindly umbrella with the words "help" printed on it.
Now the project team must pick apart the wreckage with tweezers and see if there is any way to discerne the fragile particles of solar dust from the less-lofty Utah desert variety.
With space missions like this, the only way we will venture beyond Earth will be in Stargate episodes.
It dug way down, all right. Into the dirt.
After a three-year trek outside of our pedestrian planet's atmosphere to collect atomic souvenirs from the solar winds, the Genesis probe met its demise in part because of the Wiley Coyote retrieval plan cooked up by NASA.
The whole "attach a tailhook to a helicopter and snag the probe as it floats downward on a parachute" idea was shaky enough. But the enthusiastic Hollywood stunt helicopter pilot hired to do the job didn't even have a chance to try it because the probe's parachute failed to deploy. One wonders if they even remembered to pack the chute.
So $260 million worth of satellite took the only sensible option left to it - it obeyed the law of gravity and plummeted to the Earth. One can only picture old Wiley holding up spindly umbrella with the words "help" printed on it.
Now the project team must pick apart the wreckage with tweezers and see if there is any way to discerne the fragile particles of solar dust from the less-lofty Utah desert variety.
With space missions like this, the only way we will venture beyond Earth will be in Stargate episodes.
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