The re-entry technology is similar to what was used in the Genesis solar-material mission whose capsule crashed a little over a year ago, but engineers are confident that this one will work properly. A big difference is that the Genesis capsule was supposed to be caught mid-air, while this one will parachute all the way to the ground.
Interesting tidbit: While there should be lots of cometary dust, the interstellar dust samples are expected to represent such a small proportion of the aerogel capturing material that the project team is basically farming out the search. Rather than spending years themselves examining every cubic millimeter of the aerogel for the precious particles, they’re divvying it up and soliciting volunteers to assist in the hunt. Taking a cue from SETI@home, they’re calling it Stardust@home. Details here. (There’s a reward, even: “Discoverers will get to name their dust particles.” I think I’ll name mine Steve.)
A couple of years ago, I started a thread, Which upcoming space mission is the coolest? At the time, Stardust rated very high for me; the idea that samples from an actual comet — I mean a frickin’ comet, man! — would be returned for firsthand study was intensely fantastic. But it was so far in the future! It felt like forever!
In the late 1990s, I worked at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
We had a sample of silica aerogel there, which is the substance used by stardust to capture the samples.
It is made by the JPL.
It involves a process called supercritical drying, which removes the liquid from a gel, leaving only the solid lattice (it was in fact, one long-ago researcher’s desire to find out if gel in general was a solid lattice imbued with liquid tha led to the development of the process, and to the invention of aerogel). This process has never been automated, and is incredibly expensive. Our 3"x3"x0.5’ sample was worth thousands.
Aerogel is as fragile as you can imagine.
Needless to say, our sample was under glass, sitting on a balance showing that it was lighter than a penny.
Aerogel looks like a hologram, so it attracted lots of attention. But of course, we couldn’t do anything with it, or let people touch, so we had to just sort of talk about it. It has superb heat-insulating capabilities (that have no current practical application due to its delicate nature), that sort of thing.
The only thing remotely interesting to say about it was that it was being used in Stardust, knowledge they would have to wait until 2006 to do anything with, whcih was a long way off at that point. It was one of the most intriguing as well as frustrating displays we had.
So they better not screw this thing up and have it plummet chuteless into the desert like the last interplanetary sample-return mission did.
(Interesting note about Stardust: it was created at a time when NASA was cuting way back on funding, so it was designed to use spare parts from older missions that were lying around JPL.)
Here’s an interesting article about the principal investigator on the mission, who’s a Seattle local. I’m sure he’s on pins and needles right about now.
Yeah, y’all will think it’s cool when them pointy-headed NASA rocket scientists accidentally unleash a Comet Plague that turns people into flesh-eating zombies.
I gotta go to Wal-Mart and get me some ammo and a chainsaw.
Have no idea why you’d want to be here – but you didn’t miss anything!
Set the alarm, went outside to find: Heavy overcast & snow flurries … unable to see the sky let alone anything falling through it … 22 degrees with wind gusting to 30 mph and a wind chill that was, to put it mildly, a little on the “cool” side.
(Unlike actually living in Elko, which is (at times) Not Cool! )
Next time you’re headed this way, drop me a line. I know where all the best speed traps are between Wells and Battle Mountain.
Lucy
Just passing through. Elko’s a a nice stop without all the glitz and glitter of Reno.
Sorry it snowed for you, but it does cheer me to know I missed nothing.
)