10 Jun
2005
10 Jun
'05
10:40 a.m.
I have met these people and visit with them every year at the JPL open
house, and this is most certainly not the case. The data division is very
serious about conserving the data, and they would do anything they can
to convert it.
And there is no one else with the responsibility than them. that is it. They
realize if they tried an excuse like this, they would have failed their
mission,
and they dont want that to happen.
In another part of the tour, of JPL Mission control, the highlight for me this
year was a display which showed data returns from individual tracked
deep space network objects. Each one showed periodic updates. The obvious
ones to have up there where MER Opportunity and Spirit, and mars mapper,
but the ones I was interested in were Voyager 1 and 2. The display showed
updates as we watched, which I was impressed with.
In the past, the Pioneer's were tracked, but not worked live, so this was
quite interesting to see, live data from those two.
Jim
I'm becoming convinced that the "unavailability of old computer" is code
for: "the guy who understands this stuff doesn't work here anymore,
and we don't WANT to have responsibility for the old data."