Art professionals?? Yuk yuk.

Good results?? I haven’t seen any in accepted planetary science journals. Links appreciated. Yes, good as in keen and nifty. But good as in advancing the field? Nah.

“You have to ask yourself why NASA let this happen to that data in the first place.”

Sure. And the answer is … ta, ta … that there wasn’t a lot of science worth to it.

“As far as ISEE goes, it might have been used at an academic level for exercises in spacecraft control.”

Very true. And did they do that? Nope.

Let me say again that these efforts show a huge amount of initiative and creativity. I think it’s wonderful they are challenging themselves to do this. But it ain’t science. Period. You can slather these guys with praise, but just make sure you’re praising the right things.

“Where their hearts are truly at…”

Over at unmannedspaceflight.com, you’ll find a group of amateurs and art professionals working with old planetary data sets, and coming up with very very good results on their own dime.

(Of course, the Venus surface images show what imaging professionals can now do with old data sets.)

The recovery of the LOIRP data shows what is being done as well. You have to ask yourself why NASA let this happen to that data in the first place.

(Well, you yourself don’t have to, but other people do.)

As far as ISEE goes, it might have been used at an academic level for exercises in spacecraft control.
And if you look at it, it probably is.

On their own dime.

“As to the rest of your post, it’s really not that coherent.”

We are working from different frames of reference.

You come from the school of cosmologists, and your remarks generally reflect your biases.

I do not come from that background. Once again, NASA does other science which must be done (and was done) with space based assets.

In regards to Spitzer, you have to ask why the comosmologists recieve prefered treatment in comparision with other scientists.

My observatons on NASA science management techniques were formed in the early 1990’s and in regard to planetary data sets and Earth data sets.

I am quite pleased with the data warehousing that was set up then.

There are significant challenges ahead for NASA in both data storage and data analysis.

As well as in the selection of science goals.

Amazingly, you can focus science spending on problems and arrive with useful results.

I think you’re exactly right about this. What they’re doing is fun, creative, and innovative. It’s exciting. I very much applaud their efforts. But, it’s NOT rescuing a science mission. It’s rescuing a spacecraft. It’s making use of that spacecraft for exercising capability in hobbyist command-and-control of space assets. NOT doing the science it was intended to do. (It’s not clear they can’t do’ the science ISEE-3 was intended to do, but that’s just not what they’re doing. I suspect they don’t have a lot of expertise in exploring the interaction of the Earth’s magnetic field and the solar wind.)

No, the “main figures” of ISEE-3 or Viking didn’t “get tired” of those missions. That’s just a naive, and slightly insulting fabrication. They probably would have very much liked to be funded to continue their work, but NASA is looking at the best science potential for that money, and made a decision not to continue the mission on taxpayer dollars in order to get better science.

Again, let’s applaud, but just be very careful here what we’re both applauding, and where hearts are truly at. The use that they are making of ISEE-3 is quite different than what ISEE-3 was intended to be used for. In fact, their use of ISEE-3 is not something that the federal government could justifiably spend money on. It may be worth it to Wingo, but it’s not worth it to the taxpayer.

ISEE rescue is to me a good move. It does a few things; first it demonstrates that this can be done outside of the science illuinate, two it will take a spacecraft that has some use left in it and use it commensurate with the dollars it is worh (Inshallah) and finally I think it generates some good press and a modest but solid “excitement”

We will see what can be done with it. NASA quits on a lot of spacecraft when the folks who are the main figures grow tired of it and move on to other government funded efforts…they quit on Viking 1 and there are others.

Making use out of something that seems to be tossed, reclaiming, is a good conservative move…and Wingo and his team have done that with the lunar pics and are doing it here.

I for one applaud them. RGO

I wish when people look at that work on ISEE-3 they would get this through their heads. Considering “mission capability” a matter of just propulsion, navigation, and communication is, at least for a science mission, just stupid. HSF sometimes seems to work the same way. It’s about driving places and not about doing things.

Imagine, when JWST launches with its $10B price tag and something minor gets hit.