ADMIN NOTE: Please note that a number of comments below contained information that was 'off topic' in the Philae thread. The reasons are stated herehere.Has anyone heard anything yet from the CONSERT experimenters about their assurance that they would be able to pinpoint the landing site within just a few days after the landing? AFAIK, we haven't gotten that information out here in the non-ESA world yet.
Also -- and this is not a criticism, just a statement of how much the American and European cultures apparently differ -- I find it odd that most ESA comments about the landing still seem to take great pride that they landed Philae not once, but three times! When actually they bounced Philae off of the comet and there was a large element of luck in the fact that it eventually fetched up against a spot where it could perform most of its experiments. If JPL had such a result in a similar landing attempt, the element of luck would, I think, have been readily admitted and the self-appreciation would have been for the incredible job done by the experiment teams to get their data down under rather extremely off-nominal circumstances.
Don't get me wrong, I have an
awful lot of respect for the PIs and engineers who were able to work against a penurious and critical time limit to get their data collected and down to Earth. It was an admirable and incredible performance all around. It still just rings odd to my American ear to hear the off-nominal aspects of the landing itself referred to as extra added accomplishments, when in fact they were serious anomalies that could just as easily have resulted in no data being recovered from Philae.
I guess I just need to chalk it up to the different ways the "European culture" treats such a situation. It surely doesn't reduce my admiration and respect for the teams who were able to turn a potential disaster into a brilliant success.
-the other Doug
(With my shield, not yet upon it)