Voyager documentary on BBC4 now
Discussion
I really must watch this on Iplayer. The first thing I did when I got a CD-ROM player for my PC was to order the Voyager dataset CDs! This was the era of 800x600 16-bit colour video and I had to write my own software to display the images. Such an incredible feeling to do "proper" science on real NASA data!
Although a fair chunk of it was joined together bits of older Horizons.
Almost as interesting as the subject was watching how the people involved in the programme had changed over time. I well remember Linda Morabito explaining back in 1979 how she identified the volcanic plume on Io.
Probably due to time constraints, they didn't mention the two Pioneer missions that actually were launched ahead of the Voyagers to literally "pioneer" the route to the outer planets. These two earlier missions are almost forgotten now.
They also referred to the mission as "The Grand Tour". In actual fact, it wasn't. The NASA "Grand Tour" programme was cancelled (to release funds for the Shuttle) and Voyager was a "cheapo" alternative using off the shelf bits designed for use on the Mariner series of probes to Mars and Venus. In the end, of course, the Voyager missions performed most of the objectives that had been set for the cancelled Grand Tour programme.
Almost as interesting as the subject was watching how the people involved in the programme had changed over time. I well remember Linda Morabito explaining back in 1979 how she identified the volcanic plume on Io.
Probably due to time constraints, they didn't mention the two Pioneer missions that actually were launched ahead of the Voyagers to literally "pioneer" the route to the outer planets. These two earlier missions are almost forgotten now.
They also referred to the mission as "The Grand Tour". In actual fact, it wasn't. The NASA "Grand Tour" programme was cancelled (to release funds for the Shuttle) and Voyager was a "cheapo" alternative using off the shelf bits designed for use on the Mariner series of probes to Mars and Venus. In the end, of course, the Voyager missions performed most of the objectives that had been set for the cancelled Grand Tour programme.
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