Space Dream Revived in an Abandoned McDonald's

Subject: Space Dream Revived in an Abandoned McDonald's Mon Jul 21, 2014 9:30 pm

Can a group of citizen scientists working out of an abandoned California McDonald’s re-energize U.S. space exploration? Thirty years ago, that question would have been the basis for a science-fiction novel, at best. Today, however, not only are the scientists and the McDonald’s real, but the group has also commandeered a 36-year-old NASA space probe bound for an August fly-by of the Earth and moon.

International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 was revolutionary long before the geeks in the McDonald’s -- located on the NASA Ames Research Center's grounds -- got hold of it. Launched in 1978, ISEE-3 (later renamed the International Cometary Explorer) was the first spacecraft to monitor an Earth-bound solar wind, as well as the first spacecraft to visit a comet. In 1997, NASA terminated ISEE-3 operations (even though most of its scientific equipment was still operating) and off the craft flew with a carrier signal that could be detected from Earth. Fortunately, in 1986 far-sighted NASA engineers had fired the probe’s rockets to place it on a trajectory that would pass by our moon on Aug. 10 of this year.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-15/space-dream-revived-in-an-abandoned-mcdonald-s

Space Dream Revived in an Abandoned McDonald's

Space Dream Revived in an Abandoned McDonald's

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