 |
 |  | INSIDE JPL Part 4: Incredible Shrinking Spacecraft
posted: 07:00 am ET
08 August 2001
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Untitled Document
Too
many rules, staff cuts and radically altered goals put NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory on a course destined for failure. Each
Wednesday, go inside JPL and learn what works, what doesn't, and what's being
done to rejuvenate the robotics institute.
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THIS
WEEK'S STORIES
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STORIES
FROM WEEK 1
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Mission
Impossible
Charles
Elachi's Vision
The new director wants to remake JPL, saving what works and tossing
out anything that stands in the way of doing the really tough missions.
But he'll need the courage to take risks and accept failures. Find out what
Elachi has planned.
Powering
the Future
Soup-Can
Spacecraft
and Postage-Stamp Engines
 Take
a hundred soup-can sized spacecraft, toss them into the rings of Saturn,
and expect a third of them to crash and burn. They're cheap, so you can
afford to lose a few. That's one of many dreams of John Brophy and his
colleagues in JPL's ion propulsion lab. Brophy left JPL for greener pastures.
Twice. And he returned both times to "do cool things."
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Dark
Times
Hope
on the Heels of Failure
JPL management embarks
on torturous change in an effort to emerge from "the darkest time."
Go inside JPL, learn what makes the place tick, what fueled a recent
exodus of talent, and what is being done to win back the glory.
Tales
of the RAT Man
A
History and Future
of Mars Rovers
 Before
you send a robot to explore Mars, you have to teach it to be a geologist.
That's what the RAT Man does. And he can't imagine working anywhere
else. The reason is simple: "I come to work and I play with toys."
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STORIES
FROM WEEK 2
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STORIES
FROM WEEK 3
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Shoot
From the Hip
A
History of Rocket Science
The guys who
set off the first rockets that led to the formation of JPL earned
their name: Suicide Squad. In the old days, if you had a good idea,
you did it. Herman Bank, now 84, remembers a time when scientists took
risks "that we wouldn't do these days."
Vital Signs
Wrestling
With a Wearable HAL
 Except
for its dark side, Space Odyssey's HAL 9000 was a marvel of human
assistance yet to be achieved in real life. Ann Devereaux wants to put
the best of HAL into a wearable computer that will give astronauts the
vital signs of their spacecraft and their own bodies. In taking the
pulse of JPL, she worries it is losing some of its romance.
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Lessons
to Learn
JPL
and The Competition
As JPL struggles to adjust to the new world of "faster, better,
cheaper," a small and nimble competitor says it's been doing
business that way for decades. Can JPL learn from APL?
Tomorrow's
Telescope
Wish
Upon a Fake Star
 Working
on a mission that may or may not fly, Gary Blackwood and colleagues
cobble together off-the-shelf parts to develop a fake star. Like
any JPL team, they're in a race against time and money to sell their
concept: a pair of novel telescopes that would fly in formation
to explore distant stars and set the stage for a mission to find
Earth-like planets.
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About
this series
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| Over
four Wednesdays, SPACE.com takes you inside JPL to see what's right, what's
wrong and what's changing.
Each week, you'll
meet a technologist who plays with a cool toy. And each week, you'll learn
about the organizanation that is struggling to regain its spirit and craft
a new vision for exploring the universe.
Inside JPL was written and
produced by Robert Roy Britt
and edited by Robin Lloyd. |
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