DATE=09/25/03
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
NAME=GALILEO SPACECRAFT "DIES"
NUMBER=6-130105
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=Washington
EDITOR=Assignments
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: Almost lost sight of in the flood of news about Iraq, the president at the U-N, and the East Coast hurricane, was a milestone in space exploration. The Galileo spacecraft, after completing many missions around Jupiter, has "died" a noble death. Controllers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Sunday directed the little probe to fly into Jupiter's atmosphere where it was consumed by friction. Several U-S papers are taking note of the spacecraft's indefatigable achievement, and V-O-A's _____________ joins us now with a sampling in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: There was a kind of funeral this past weekend, as hundreds of scientists, engineers and their families -- some in tears -- gathered at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. They were bidding farewell to one of NASA's most successful space probes. Launched in 1989, the little surveyor of Jupiter flew more than four billion-506-million-kilometers during its 14-year mission.
Galileo, named for the pioneering Italian astronomer, had many accomplishments during its years in space. It discovered the first moon of an asteroid, photographed a comet blasting into Jupiter's surface, and provided firm evidence of salty oceans on three of Jupiter's moons. It also filmed huge volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io [discovered by Galileo in 1610]. Wisconsin's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel bids the extra-terrestrial traveler goodbye this way.
VOICE: At first, the finale might have seemed wasteful, even insulting. After sending the unmanned Galileo spacecraft on a 14-year mission all the way to Jupiter, NASA deliberately destroyed it over the weekend by plunging it into the giant planet's turbulent atmosphere, where it was torn apart by friction. Another [example of] Administrative ingratitude toward a faithful, productive employee with a lustrous name? Not this time. NASA was afraid Galileo eventually might have crashed on Jupiter's watery moon, contaminating it with any microbes that might have crawled on board before launch.
So the space agency settled on a rather Wagnerian ending to this spacecraft with the heroic and famous name. Thus ended the long life of this particular Galileo -- an inanimate object that, despite its one-point-five-billion-dollar price tag, provided good value in service of science. Arrivederci, Signore.
TEXT: The New York Times remembers the craft's troubled beginning and near premature death.
VOICE: The spacecraft overcame daunting obstacles to produce some of the most important planetary observations ever made. Its odyssey was a tribute to human ingenuity in the face of potentially disabling failures, its discoveries testimony to unmanned spaceflights. Galileo was launched in 1989 with a booster rocket too weak to get it to Jupiter. The mission was saved by an engineer who realized that Galileo could reach Jupiter by heading toward the inner-planet Venus, then looping twice around Earth, using gravity for momentum.
TEXT: In the Midwest, the Chicago Tribune also credits the scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for creatively dealing with the spacecraft's many early problems.
VOICE: Galileo's launch was delayed so many times that by the time it began its work in space its electronics were antique. It was underpowered because after the explosion of the Challenger [space shuttle] in 1986, NASA was afraid to equip the Galileo with a liquid-fuel booster. Glitches, such as the failure of an umbrella-like antenna, complicated Galileo's mission Scientists on the ground patiently nursed it through each ailment and kept the mission on course. The success of Galileo should give NASA the impetus to re-examine its reliance on manned missions, including the construction of the monumentally expensive space station. Manned flights are the stuff of film odysseys, but not necessarily the most effective way to explore space.
TEXT: The last word goes to Melbourne's Florida Today, the daily closest to the Kennedy Space Center where the spacecraft's life began.
VOICE: Let's forget about NASA's problems for a moment and talk about a breathtakingly successful mission the journey of NASA's Galileo spacecraft [It] has been orbiting Jupiter since 1995 and, after a long and brilliant life, [was sent crashing] into the planet. [But] shed no tears for the ship, which has run with the purr of a Ferrari yet possessed the toughness of a Sherman tank. Its flight is one for the history books, producing so much information that scientists will be poring over it for decades. So thanks Galileo for the amazing ride
TEXT: With that farewell from Florida Today, we conclude this editorial sampling on the demise of the Galileo space probe.
NEB/ANG/KL