The parent is referring to this article [1], which features JUICE and two other satellites as characters observing humans on earth after the advent of immortality.
It's a great read. It's thoroughly and wonderfully human.
After SpaceX, I always expect to see live cams. Of course, that would just add weight and complexity without relevant benefits except the entertainement... but being entertained is fun :-)
Getting more publicity and public support and get the science much further in the mid to long term. Its a legitimate consideration to make imo. Were not bound by rocket capacity as much as we are by public support & funding.
I think that proper science communication and marketing is crucial, at the same time, it is very difficult to explain with numbers and graphs, while it is so much easier with multispectral imaging (see the success of Hubble and the Mars images).
It makes absolute sense. Our perception system is a giant Filter. Providing more information to it by emtion-provoking images rather than abstract, low info graphs seems logical to achieve higher retainaince and presence in people
Certainly a peculiar relationship. Your post made me wonder when the first dogecoin private key will reach escape velocity. Any bets? I think we can agree that the "if" and "who" is already settled...
I’m not remotely an expert, but cameras have a much larger coverage area than any sensor could.
And I assume a sensor can tell you “this piece stopped talking” but a camera in right place could tell you “because it fell off when a screw fell out”, so presumably they’re complementary.
Also, the video of the foam chunk hitting the Columbia's wing.
An early Falcon 1 launch failed because the first stage recontacted the second after staging. You'll note one of the F9 cameras is looking up at the second stage from inside the first stage's interstage section.
The Columbia case is a better example than the Challenger case, because they actually caught that right after launch and analyzed it, though incorrectly.
Well, the analysis at the engineering level was correct. Problem is, the engineers weren't allowed to confirm it. That was a management decision, made on the grounds that, "There's nothing we can do".
A camera is a tool for rendering light on a medium. That medium could be a sensor. Rendered light can tell you a lot about what the medium is facing, but you can pack a lot more sensors than cameras on to a spacecraft. Especially on the parts that aren't illuminated. Besides, you need a big sensor on a camera to capture anything in low light without a lot of expensive processing, and that means you need shielding and cooling because they get hot and don't do well in all that radiation.
So sure. You could put huge chips in hot boxes with delicate glass all over the craft. Or could you wire in a bundle of little sensors that tell you stuff you'd never get from light.
I couldn't a damn about sports. But I get quite nervous watching rocket launches, thinking about all the money and effort that have gone into them. I was so relieved when the JW turned out to be a massive success.
[Edit: acquired successfully :)].