[FPSPACE] Re: Uranus; recycling

[Robert G Kennedy III]

Larry Klaes posted:

>astronomer William Herschel, to be exact.  I know
>others may have viewed Uranus telescopically before
>Herschel, be he was the first one to figure out
>that it was a planet and not a comet or star.

Yes, the Briton John Bevis in 1750, among others, observe Uranus well
enough to catalog it. It's pretty certain he knew what he was seeing, but
not why he failed to publish. See http://catalog.com/ultimax/urangraf.html

--

Re: recycling of space assets, Jeff Foust wrote:

>Actually, ESA picked up the bill for one more year of IUE operations
>after NASA terminated its involvement with the mission.  By the time
>ESA terminated the mission for good in August 1996 IUE was in pretty
>bad shape, with only one of its original six gyros working.  Not bad
>for a spacecraft that exceeded its three-year mission by a factor of
>six!

and Robert Dempsey wrote:

>Having been an active researcher with IUE I have to disagree with your
>assessment that it was perfectly functional.  Yes, you could do some
>science.  But the quality was getting pretty low.  HST far surpassed it.
>But because IUE was of lower quality you could get some basic projects that
>would not get time on the tight HST.  At its death, you were in a regime of
>diminishing returns.  I had to agree the money was better spent.  And I am a
>UV astronomer!

I stand corrected. However, I do recall someone telling me that IUE could
be operated with just one gyro - that previous graceful failures had given
them time to learn. Isn't SOHO being operated with fewer (perhaps none)
gyros?


--
Robert Kennedy, PE
http://www.ultimax.com