7/4/2005: Fireworks in space
Crashing the comet was a rousing success - so much so that the roomful of engineers & scientists at JPL broke into applause, all of them jumping around the room and cheering. That didn't used to happen in the old space age days.. even a moon landing you might have had a couple faint golf claps but for the most part they stayed huddled back down around their monitors.. it's good to see they've lightened up some. I guess they've got computers that do a lot more of it for them now, and it isn't like there's a crew or a return flight to worry about on this mission - this was more a case of <BOOM>.. done.. time to revise their resumés.
Once it was over and the hoopla settled down, a bunch of politicos came in to congratulate everyone for a job well done.. I figure if they were really behind the project they would have been there all along whether it was a success or a failure, but these guys just showed up when it was a done deal and the taxes luckily spent as promised. Must be an election year for them.
Pics here are from the NASA TV webcast - the impact as seen on their wall monitor above, and a view that came in later with extra data for them (and prettier for us) to the left.
The Vanderbilt University/ Sonic Foundry live video link was out to lunch every time I tried it earlier, but they have the replay up now. It has a very slow start - half hour or so of wait time - but it's a very nice setup and amazingly crystal clear resolution, wow! check it out
I am letting both the link & cam o' the day ride thru the 4th as they are both timely - have a safe holiday.
