F

>>9172762
Poor little probe

Just watched the NOVA episode about this. Pretty cool. It's a shame we have to waste what little money,resources,time we have rather than doing more stuff like this.
Also interesting that they use Solaris.

I dont understand why didnt they leave it orbiting. Did it have no other chance because of its orbit?

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>>9172812

cassini just wanted to go, you know? I guess she was tired ...

>>9172812
>I dont understand why didnt they leave it orbiting. Did it have no other chance because of its orbit?

Enceladus is a water-rich world, and they could not assure that Cassini would not have crashed into Enceladus eventually. Since the standard of sterilization on Cassini didn't account for this and the RTGs kept the interior of Cassini at room temperature, there was significant risk of terrestrial biological contamination if Cassini ever crashed into Enceladus. To preserve the moon for future exploration, they needed to dispose of the probe. They decided the best scientific return would come from crashing it into Saturn.

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>>9172762
An homage.

>>9172762
F

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfTwtQ8NNbQ

>>9173227

absolutely disgusting slave morality. Shame on you for anthropomorphizing the machine in such a hideous fashion.

>>9173783
A machine is never truly free, Anon.

>>9173795

Way to completely miss the point.

>>9173796
The goal was to make it sound humble, if you wanna argue Nietzsche. It certainly was no "master." It was made to serve humanity much like any machine either way.
Also, the thread's evidently here for feels over Cassini's destruction. It's already conveying some sort of emotion into the machine.