The Farthest - PBS documentary about Voyagers

[Winston]

https://www.pbs.org/show/farthest/

Much humor:

Voyager: 40 Years in Space (NASA JPL public talk)

[video=youtube;nPSQcXs3DJI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPSQcXs3DJI[/video]

 

[XolveJohn]

Did they run out of hydrazine yet? 79 LB isn't much.

68K of memory! Shows what you can do with machine code. It's a lost art, they are trying to find old/retired people who can write it for updates.

Pioneer really showed that reliable stuff can be made, TRW did a good job. With all the radiation out there, is a miracle still working.

This demonstrates also the farthest radio comm ever achieved. Just a few watts go all that way and are detected on Earth. Remember the MASER came before the laser:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser

But the gold record could be our undoing. Danger lurks out there. Borg, Romulans, and worse: :dark:

 

[Charles_McG]

I think they are still doing roll maneuvers for magnetometer calibration - so still have hydrazine.

I read through the long term shutdown sequence long ago. At the time, I think it was the 40 year plan. IIRC, they run out of heater power on the thruster fuel lines before they run out of hydrazine.

 

[Rockiteer]

Did they run out of hydrazine yet? 79 LB isn't much.

68K of memory! Shows what you can do with machine code. It's a lost art, they are trying to find old/retired people who can write it for updates.

Pioneer really showed that reliable stuff can be made, TRW did a good job. With all the radiation out there, is a miracle still working.

This demonstrates also the farthest radio comm ever achieved. Just a few watts go all that way and are detected on Earth. Remember the MASER came before the laser:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser

But the gold record could be our undoing. Danger lurks out there. Borg, Romulans, and worse: :dark:

View attachment 326824

Yes... it's worse. You forgot this!

 

[Marc_G]

But the gold record could be our undoing. Danger lurks out there. Borg, Romulans, and worse: :dark:

View attachment 326824

From the movie, Absolutely Anything: (Albeit, this is from Pioneer, with the plaque instead of a record):

 

[XolveJohn]

That is from the Star Trek movie? I don't remember any weird aliens like that. Just the spooky girl in white.

Glad they still have hydrazine. The RTG's should last way longer than that juice. Good thing they put them on booms.

Now if we can just get consumer electronic firms to build stuff that reliable, instead of breaking after 2 years. I know why it happens, that stupid ROHS lead free solder! Reduction Of Hazardous Substances. Wimps. The Tree Huggers caused the foam to fall off the shuttle by making them stop using Freon in it. Lead free solder grows whiskers, it has shorted out many things, even a power plant. Look it up.

I had a Plymouth Voyager van, and all the people at worked called it V'Ger. Drove me absolutely nuts. Should have mounted a Phasor Cannon on it.

 

[Winston]

Encore Broadcast November 15, 2017 at 10/9c on PBS

https://www.pbs.org/the-farthest/home/