You're forgetting layovers and flight transfers and getting groped by the TSA.
Yeah, been following this as well. Cool stuff! Read the article yesterday about the equally spaced "dots" that are along its equator and roughly 300km in length each. Aliens!!!!
Pretty exciting. Cant wait to see pics.
Why did NASA spend 9 years getting to Pluto only to fly right past it?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-getting-to-pluto-only-to-fly-right-past-it/
Driving by it at 31k mph.....
Transmitted via Tactical Telecommunications Device.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-getting-to-pluto-only-to-fly-right-past-it/
Driving by it at 31k mph.....
Transmitted via Tactical Telecommunications Device.
Interesting background article on the New Horizons Spacecraft in wired today.
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/pluto-new-horizons-2/
Some of the highlights:
Pluto was discovered 85 years ago and Pluto is so far away from the sun that in that entire 85 years it has still not completed an orbit around the sun.
After launch, the spacecraft took 9 hours to reach as far as the moon. The Apollo flights took 3 days.
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/pluto-new-horizons-2/
Some of the highlights:
Pluto was discovered 85 years ago and Pluto is so far away from the sun that in that entire 85 years it has still not completed an orbit around the sun.
After launch, the spacecraft took 9 hours to reach as far as the moon. The Apollo flights took 3 days.
From the wired article:
New Horizons job wont be done once it passes Pluto. In the fall, mission control will fire up its thrusters and point the spacecraft at one of two objects in the Kuiper Beltone closer and easier to reach, the other farther away but potentially larger and thus most interesting to visit. Both are smaller than the dwarf planet, and belong to another group of Kuiper Belt objects called the Cold Classicals.
These objects have been undisturbed since the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago; an expedition there has been likened to an archeological dig in space. This is maybe the most primitive material out there in the solar system, says Weaver. The missions scientists are working out the last details before they make the call on which object to visit.
From there, New Horizons will keep flying and observing until it reaches interstellar spacelike the Voyager missions that preceded it.
Its Antarctic winter on Pluto. The sun has not been visible for twenty years in this frigid south polar region; it will not shine again for another 80 years. The only source of natural light is starlight and moonlight from Plutos largest moon, Charon.
