

NASA scientists scramble to find an object in the Kuiper belt in time for visit - nealabq
http://www.nature.com/news/pluto-bound-probe-faces-crisis-1.15261

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T-hawk
The headline is rather link-baity. There's nothing wrong with the spacecraft
or its planned Pluto visit. The "crisis" is that we haven't found any Kuiper
belt object feasible for the spacecraft to visit after Pluto, which was the
plan for the mission, but a distant secondary objective after Pluto itself.

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DavidSJ
Also, one of the article's key quotes makes the sunk cost fallacy:

 _“They’re running out of time,” says Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary
Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, who is not involved in the mission.
“We’re not just talking about science being lost — we’re talking about getting
return on our investment.”_

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suprgeek
Technically Pluto is also in the Kuiper Belt. So scientists are scrambling to
find "another" KBO for New Horizons probe to visit.

Pluto has a fascinating history - from being unknown to being deemed a planet
to being demoted to a "dwarf planet". What else is waiting for us out there...

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jessriedel
My favorite factoid about this mission is that Pluto was declassified as a
planet _while the mission was enroute_. (It seems very unlikely to me that the
mission would have secured funding if declassification happened earlier.) Not
surprisingly, the PI strongly opposed the decision of the astronomical union.

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nsxwolf
PI?

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unepipe
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_investigator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_investigator)

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jccooper
Since Pluto _is_ a Kuiper Belt Object (rather than a "planet" or the even
sillier appellation "dwarf planet"), I take issue with the wording. However,
it is an unusually large one, and it would be a shame not to be able to pick
up another smaller (and presumably more representative) object while it's in
the area; it's a rather rare opportunity after all.

NH would like to and has planned to encounter multiple additional KBOs in the
"25 to 55 miles (40 to 90 kilometers) in diameter" range. This has always been
in its extended mission. But Pluto is the main goal.

I suspect they'll find something; the Kuiper belt is quite large and NH will
be in it for some years. Still, the sooner the better; hopefully the time-
sensitive nature will get them some time on the Hubble.

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mturmon
Alternate headline: "New Horizons project management launches campaign to get
observing time on Hubble"

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pluto-bound-
spacec...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pluto-bound-spacecraft-
faces-crisis/), which points to this.

