Talk:Genesis (spacecraft)

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Untitled[edit]

If anyone can find a clearer crash picture, that would probably look better. this was the only one yet posted on the NASA website. --ScottyBoy900Q 17:32, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nevermind, found a better one! --ScottyBoy900Q 17:37, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Need Another Solar wind Analyzer -Joseph 16:15, 2004 Sep 8 (UTC)

With a different design for landing!! Awolf002 16:19, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Same design, better implementation. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 20:47, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

According to this Genesis page, "The capsule was designed to be able to survive such a landing." But I watched the post-impact press conference on NASA TV, and they clearly stated it was not designed for that. Oh, that page really needs to be a wiki.  :) Ponder 20:59, 2004 Sep 8 (UTC)

Ohh dear, they must have used the same parachutes as the guys behind Beagle 2. It might have stood a better chance of surviving such a crash if it had landed over water, but then maybe it would have sunk, which would probably have been worse. Mintguy (T)

I don't think it would have made any difference at 86m/s. =( Jevin 03:13, 2004 Sep 9 (UTC)

Maybe Stardust will show us how things should be done? Or will it make a crater as well? Awolf002 02:43, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

NASA's mistakes[edit]

I understand mistakes can happen...but aren't the NASA people supposed to be the smartest guys in the world? Why do this things happen over and over again? Any comments? --AAAAA 04:01, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"Why do this things happen over and over again?"
"These things" don't happen over and over again. This is the first time a mission like this was attempted. I'm surprised, as are many people at NASA apparently, that the probe functioned as well as it did while in space. --ScottyBoy900Q 14:06, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm surprised (and a little disturbed) that people who spend $264 million on a probe are surprised when it works... --Dante Alighieri | Talk 22:10, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
For what it's worth, this spacecraft had heavy participation from Colin Pillinger, the same guy who designed the Beagle 2 Mars lander, and deployed it with insufficient testing, all the while berating NASA. -Joseph 14:29, 2004 Sep 9 (UTC)
"Aren't the NASA people supposed to be the smartest guys in the world?"
Hehe, sorry, that just really made me laugh. Just because we describe other things as not "rocket science" or "brain surgery" does not make rocket scientists or brain surgeons (or, more to the point, these specific rocket scientists) the smartest people in the world. They probably couldn't even lay claim to the smartest people in the US. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 22:00, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)

I actually was watching some guy talk today on the news and he was talking about the mision price. When compared to how much money people spend on other things, this really was not an expensive mission. Still...$264 million is a lot of money, but according to this man I was listening to, Americans spent more money on bubble gum during the mission time period than they did on the actual mission. --ScottyBoy900Q 19:50, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me how this entire section is not one continuous violation of the talk page guidelines? Is there any way that any of this contributes to the editorial process, as the talk page guidelines clearly require? Poihths (talk) 21:29, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article data questions.[edit]

The "Sample Extraction" section refers to an "aluminum" wafer (as does the article it cites), but the description of the spacecraft mentions plates made from graphite, gold, sapphire, and diamond. Can we assume the reporter misheard alumina, which would refer to the sapphire plates? --Christopher Thomas 14:52, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, the picture on the Genesis web site clearly shows "polished aluminum," so we are missing something, here. Let me check, if this really is a wafer from the collection device as pictured or maybe some other part of the spacecraft. Awolf002 16:01, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Okay, the Press PDF file says "and other materials" when it lists the composition of the wafers on page 3! I will change the article, accordingly. Awolf002 16:11, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'm not trying to dispute your conclusions, but the picture linked from the article doesn't unambiguously show much beyond gold. I see gold, white/clear, grey, and pink tiles. Grey can be subdivided into grey and black if I squint. Likewise white/clear. Polished aluminum should look white/clear, as it's a mirror surface, and so be hard to tell from the sapphire and diamond plates. The grey would likely be silicon, which the linked article mentions but the Wikipedia page doesn't, and the darker grey could be graphite, but these are still ambiguous.
If we're looking for a definitive list of materials, we'll need to find technical documents buried on NASA's site, or better yet, research publications related to the project. I've found a page listing two varieties of silicon, diamond-on-silicon, germanium, sapphire, aluminum-on-sapphire, gold-on-sapphire, and silicon-on-sapphire, but I doubt that's a complete list either. The document you link lists silicon, germanium, sapphire, diamond, and bulk metallic glass on page 34.
--Christopher Thomas 21:30, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I forgot to link to the picture I'm talking about: Looks like aluminum to me... Awolf002 22:30, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough. I'd still like a complete and accurate list of the collection plate materials/configurations :). I don't know anybody who'd have that information, alas. --Christopher Thomas 06:11, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No crater?[edit]

It seems to me that there clearly is a crater visible in the picture. Do my eyes deceive me? We should bring back that sentence in the text! Awolf002 12:57, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the root problem is differing definitions of "crater". While I respect that there is no universally accepted definition, dictionary.com says a crater is "a bowl-shaped depression in a surface made by an explosion or the impact of a body". I don't see a bowl-shaped depression in the picture; just the craft itself half-embedded in the ground. So, I think it's probably best to leave it out. --Christopher Thomas 19:26, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay, you mean just because the remnants of the probe fill up the depression, that there is no crater? What then after the probe was removed? Don't you think that there really is a crater there? Awolf002 00:02, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would argue that most people would answer "no" to that question. I suggest that a reasonable ad-hoc decision criterion would be that in order to be called a "crater", a hole must be considerably larger than the object that created it. However, please note that I haven't altered the article myself. --Christopher Thomas 00:19, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Edit help[edit]

I edited the paragraph below. It was a little hard to read. In fact, I couldn't gork what it was intended to mean and the edits may have introduced error or stripped off important information. google could fix that, but gosh, I am lazy. If someone has the information on his mind already, help please.

A first possible lead to the root cause of the failed deployment of the parachutes were announced in a October 14 press release. Lockheed Martin had designed the system with an acceleration sensor upside down and design reviews had not caught the mistake. Instead of making an electrical contact at 3 g (29 m/s²), maintaining it through 30 g (290 m/s²). Above 30 g, the sensor would realise the electrical contact, triggering release of the parachute. The flawed design would only have worked if gravity was lowered and no contact was therefore ever made.

Your edits have changed the description of how the "parachute release" was designed to happen. Let me check, which version is correct. Awolf002 15:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Done! Awolf002 16:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you gathima 00:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Defamation of Character?[edit]

Just wanted to ask what the point of including anything about Colin Pillinger was, considering the role he played was small, and as with his own Beagle 2 project, he did not design the landing system? Just wondered, was all...

Thanks, Ralphybaby 14:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your point on whether there is enough notability for mentioning him is well taken. However, 'defamation' does not seem to apply to the wording in that paragraph. I see no blame assigned in that text. Awolf002 14:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I understand - to be honest, I can't remember why I titled it that to start with... Ralphybaby 16:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Picture of accelerometer[edit]

Anyone else find this picture (currently in this article) strange? You can clearly see a gloved hand in the picture, much smaller than you'd expect if the pencil was a true indicator of scale. And it's not just the hand, the whole instrument just looks bigger than the pencil would indicate, but the hand is the evidence. --80.202.99.208 (talk) 06:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Err, sorry if I'm missing your point but it seems that you perhaps don't realize it is actually a composite image? The lower third or so with a white background is a closeup of a pencil and an accelerometer sensor, the remaining upper section is a wider shot where you can see what I think is the spacecraft's capsule and bus, presumably before launch and a technician's gloved right hand and sleeved left forearm. So the pencil isn't useful for scaling the hand, or anything else in the upper section for that matter. Granted though, the two sections of the composite image aren't really well connected as we're supposed to presume, I guess, that there's one or more of those accelerometers in the upper section somewhere, so the caption could be improved to reflect that and I'll see what can be done. RdeVjun (talk) 21:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. RdeVjun (talk) 22:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relevance of Colin Pillinger[edit]

I have tagged the mention of Colin Pillinger with "clarify" and "relevance". Did Colin suggest Beagle's loss may have been related? Was he involved with Genesis's re-entry design? Otherwise why mention him?" -84user (talk) 01:54, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've been on the Genesis mission in different capacities for a decade and never hear mention of Colin Pillinger working on the project in any capacity. This is a red herring. Genesismissionfriend (talk) 21:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tense fix[edit]

I've recast the sentence, "Because the solar wind particles are expected to be embedded in the wafers, whereas the contaminating dirt is likely just to lie on the surface, it may be possible to separate the dirt from the samples," in the past tense because the events described are now eight years in the past.

Poihths (talk) 21:26, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Trivia[edit]

I worked on the silicon wafers as an acid etcher and inspector during my time at a silicon wafer factory. (I still would love to know why only the edges got acid etched.) We referred to them as "hexagonal wafers" (technically, they were nonagons), while the job description was "solar dust collectors". The only acid burn I ever suffered at the factory was during this job, and it was during a rinsing, of all things. (Pro tip: Don't brush your hair out of your face with your gloves on.)

Not important enough to go in the article itself, but I thought someone might like to read this. 24.119.56.194 (talk) 17:43, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]