So there I was, on the web, waxing eloquent about how those boys and girls at JPL do such good work. I'm several paragraphs into a kinda musing-piece, and the browser crashes, sending all my composed text to file heaven. oh well.
Got up this morning to see the ring images start showing up at 5am live. Rings. Ring images, Ring Scientists and Ring Lore... are phrases that come out of this morning's broadcast of the first images sent back.
Last night's news conference about the retro burn: Q: what would have happened if the retro burn hadn't gone off? A: We'd've had a fly-by instead of an orbit insertion and Cassini would've eventually left the solar system.
Had a conversation with Doc M in which I exclaim that "You guys at JPL make it look so easy!!!" to which he shakes his head, and exclaims over the years of work and effort that went into it beforehand... he speaks with that burdened conviction of one mired in planning and engineering. As if to say, 'this is the stage where we work all the problems that later result in the triumphal high-fives... and I'm in the thick of it.' I wonder if the sheer accuracy to retro-burn cutoff within one minute of predict lays a bit heavy on him. After all before it got sent to Saturn, someone built it, and before someone built it, it was a description in an engineering document, debated in meetings and raked over in design reviews. Doc M's particular instrument, bound for an earth-orbiting satellite, is much smaller than what's 1.6 billion km away from us, beaming back data and images that fill me with awe. But the work to get engines and sensors built so so well that it cuts off within one minute of predicted burn time, putting the satellite in an orbit period that's within a day of predicted length, all occured years and years ago; it's the kind of work he's doing right now. And no, no, it's not easy at all.
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